What is Knowledge? And what heated debates forget — Part 3
What is Knowledge?
The shifting tides of dogmatism vs pragmatism sow the seeds of a polarised struggle. Carried in it is discontent and delight, tragedy and triumph, setback and success. Yet the entire tug of war is on a single common resource — knowledge; a product of generated information, valued through the lens of perspectives.
Google’s dictionary defines knowledge in epistemological variety; all valid.
- Facts, information, and skills acquired through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject.
- The sum of what is known.
- True, justified belief; certain understanding, as opposed to opinion.
- Awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation.
Google’s definitions of Knowledge fit well with the narrative in this work, building upon ideas described in the previous parts of the series. Each of the four defined explanations, form a relatable link, such as that of a scaffolding, making the understanding composite.
Knowledge has been interchangeably used with information; synonymous for the most part of the late 20th century, and perhaps earlier. Advancements in the subjects of Statistics, Mathematics, and Computer Science, synthesized a new subject, one that deals with data and information. This new synthetic subject hints the ideas covered in the next part in this series. The current part serves as its premise.
Before we come to speak about that new subject, let’s draw our attention to an important milestone, achieved at the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century, the emergence of Knowledge as a science.
Knowledge is beautiful (there is also a book aptly titled after its attribution). Its discovery, its realisation has been the key ingredient that separated the civilised from the uncivilised world. A time when the difference between man and wild was, one who wandered like an animal, and the other who pondered, thought and made scrolls. It is through the continuation of indulgence, improved over the centuries, of all those who made scrolls that we have amenities such as wireless internet, computers and manipulation of light speed. Barbarians at most have only remained as archaeological finds, prized by Palaeontologists; modern successors of scroll scribblers.
The importance of Knowledge has been forgotten or arrogantly ignored over the last few centuries. More so, it has been impudently maligned and confusingly misunderstood the last few decades. Unfortunate as it is, this outcome is a result of the abuse of technological products; augmenting obsolete ideas to continue outliving their relevance.
This misfortune has led to a new found romance for Knowledge in the current era. Consumption, processing, and generation of information exists at a rate each year that exceeds the collective feed-flow volume of the entirety of human history before the 21st century.
Information — the building parts of Knowledge
The explosive romance for information is no longer only a pursuit of the homo-sapiens. Lust for information is now the excitement of a new entity, a new, mysterious form of sentience, created as a result of human study of science.
For this reason, a shift in the paradigm about knowledge has transformed it into a resource, and currently the highest prized one. Undoubtedly, once an object becomes a resource commodity, Economics becomes the governing subject.
Mining is a useful analogy to view Knowledge as a resource -
Information is mined through investigation; investigation is developed through Questions. Much in the way pickaxes are developed for digging, and digging is performed for finding mineral ore. Information is to mineral ore; investigation is to pickaxes; questions is to digging.
Information assembled together in the format of a subject is knowledge. So, knowledge is awareness of familiarity, comprising of information i.e. facts, data, and skills gained through experience of a situation. Knowledge is certain understanding, as opposed to opinion. While opinion is information, it is uncertain. Certainty is the vital distinction between opinion and knowledge.
If the information is to be believed without considering the validity of evidence or the opinion of the side consuming the information (the second person; reader). Information becomes a dogmatic idea — the foundation of a religion.
Search for Truth
Should information remain unchecked? Should an opinion remain unverified and be left in peace? There are plenty of perspectives to answers this. Perspectives are opinions. So how does one find out which opinion is better than the other? Which opinion to heed? Should an opinion just be believed in, and be left at that, unperturbed?
Think about it. It boils down to the curiosity of finding answers. To travel in the right direction, without being misled. That’s why we ask questions.
So this curious consumer of information, listener of opinion, wary of being misled is left with a red pill vs blue pill choice.
The information consumer quintessentially seeks the truth. Everyone has something to say, some opinion to offer, some perspective to share. But the truth is mysterious.
Certainly a seeker of knowledge is a curious soul. The search for valid information drives one to approach a recorded piece of information, evaluate the theory or belief (opinion/perspective; observation/experience) by measuring the success of its practical application.
The Two Shades of Truth
Interestingly enough, men and women, both have a different approach to certainty. One lens sees fit ascertaining the truth through search and comparison (objective), the other lens sees fit ascertaining the truth by the source of collection (subjective). Simply put, what is said versus how it’s said.
Although scientific studies have found edge cases where the choice of certainty as subjective or objective is in the opposite gender than the normal. The normal however remains the general distinction. Finding this out shall be left to the curious pursuit of you, the reader.
On the discussion of verifying opinions, the continued thought surfaces the question, can the opinion of one person be verified by another person?
In the event the answer is ascertained in agreement, which is free of pressure or influence, the information inevitably becomes a pragmatic understanding. Pragmatism is the foundation of knowledge, established through verified information, devoid of coercion. Knowledge is certain understanding.
Knowledge possesses interesting characteristics for interaction. Its Contents are physically transformable -
- Can be physically stored;
- Can be physically transferred;
- Can be reproduced in different storage mediums;
- Can be modified;
For most of human history, information has spread whenever a person observed, experienced a phenomenon or imagined an idea, and decided to record it by writing about it.
A record is the author’s observation and experience; it is an interpretation of the observation and experience of the observing person. Therefore it is an opinion or perspective and not certain. It has not yet become knowledge. The moment such a recorded piece of information is consumed by another person, the status of that information gives rise to two possibilities. The information will either be believed in unquestioned, or become an object of scrutiny.
Establishing Common Sense
Pragmatism relies on heuristics, while Dogmatism relies on unquestioned belief, otherwise interpreted as loyalty. Knowledge cannot be dogmatic.
Arguing why knowledge cannot be dogmatic can be performed through heuristics. While arguing why knowledge cannot be pragmatic has no determinable method in dogmatism.
To understand knowledge as pragmatic, ask yourself the following simpler questions:
- Why is the colour red called red?
- What makes two apples more than one apple?
- How can one judge whether it’s safe to cross the road with an oncoming bus?
- When is it daytime and night time?
- Where do human babies come from?
There are various answers to the five questions above. Formation of the five questions based on why, what, when, where and how (an additional who comprising the 5 Ws and 1 H has been excluded for simplicity) are the elemental tools of heuristics (questioning).
Here are some plausible answers to these 5 questions:
- The colour red is called red in the English language based on properties associated to the visual identification of this colour by other humans who are not colour impaired. Other developed human languages identify the colour with similar properties based on their available vocabulary. For instance rot (German), красный (Russian), merah (Bahasa Indonesia), and لال (Urdu) are some examples of how various languages identify the same thing — the colour red.
- Two apples are more than one apple because they can be measured with an instrument of quantity. We can visually see how two apples evidently occupy more space. Take for instance, if you were to carry one apple in each hand, you could carry them. If another apple were to be added to your left hand, then depending on the size of the apple and your left hand, you may be able to carry two apples in that left hand. Were you to also carry the apple from the right hand in addition to the two apples you were already carrying in your left hand, chances are your left hand won’t be able to carry all three apples. So measurement of quantities allow comparison.
- An oncoming bus has two properties that need to be measured before making a calculation to reach the judgement — velocity (how fast the bus is travelling) and distance (how far the bus is from your current location). The calculation of time upon which your decision will be based to cross the road is formulated through: Time, a result of Distance divided by Velocity (Time = Distance / Velocity). So if the bus were to travel at a fixed, unchanging velocity, the distance would proportionately decrease in multiples of time. You can use the same method to estimate the time it takes you to cross the road. By being able to cross the road under the time it takes the bus to reach you, your calculated decision makes it safe for you to cross the road.
- Daytime is characterised by the visual presence of sunlight in most parts of the world. Night time has the absence of the sun. While sometimes the night sky has a visible Moon. These characteristics of daytime and night time are a result of observations of repeated measurements which form a pattern. Daytime lasts from Dawn (around 6 am) until Dusk (6 or 7 pm). The remaining 11 or 12 hours are observable darkness. Ignoring the variations due to seasons, day time and night time has continued to demonstrate such characteristics for several hundreds of years now, and lets keep it at that. Patterns are the result of quantification, measurement and calculation that describe characteristics (behaviour) of things to observe.
- Human babies are given birth by human females from their reproductive parts. Human females are able to give birth only when they have conceived micro-organic cells from a human male. The entire process takes 9 months of gestation for the micro-organism to develop into an infant inside the womb. We know where human babies come from having tested and practised the process with definite success for thousands of years. The entire reason your family members prevent you from being alone with a person of the opposite gender unless you’re married or old enough is for this certain reason. Should there be any discrepancy, they’d have no reason to worry leaving you two alone.
Knowledge — the Power of Civilisation
The civilisation of the ancient Egyptians, spanning over 5,000 years, from 5,000 BCE (Before Current Era) to 30 CE (Current Era) flourished as a result of their focus on knowledge. Collectively known today as Ancient Egyptians, the civilisation initially began as scattered tribes of people, sages who lived in harmony with nature, moving from one location to another in search of food and settlement. Over thousands of years, these tribes of people grew into a consolidated civilisation, whose existence is recognised as being traceable human history.
Imagine how tribes of wandering sages would eventually end up developing components of a civilisation, such as complex structures, societies, administration, farming and breeding methods, tools for measurement, manufacturing, crafting, art, management, writing, trade, warfare and so much more. The Ancient Egyptians built their entire civilisation, comprising of diverse tribes, each tribe with their own animist religion, into a large Empire.
Ancient Egyptians built their tribes into a civilisation and transformed it into an Empire through knowledge. However, their demise was a result of their preference for dogmatic ideas, for Ancient Egyptians were also religious zealots. Eventually they were absorbed by the emerging Roman Empire as a mere province.
