Knowledge and wisdom

[AnnaG]

I've been thinking. (I know, that's a dangerous activity, right?) lol What makes a person qualified to even make an educated guess? Do they have more information than average? How does a human being learn information? Is it embedded in them by genetics? Is it exposure to questions and answers? Is it from experience as one grows?
We know that some people gain information from reading. Others gain their knowledge by experience. Other people rely on others they know have more knowledge and ask these knowledgeable people questions.
Primary schools are supposed to train children how to think. They also impart some knowledge. How about secondary schools? Are they similar but train and impart in more depth? Colleges, universities, technical, and trade schools; these institutions go even further.
Can some of this information rub off on others? Is the information collected by just being near someone talking valid? Isn't that what questions are for? It depends upon who answers the questions. People discover that others that are knowledgeable about a particular subject and ask questions to learn a little of the subject. Is that second-hand knowledge valid? Reporters use almost entirely second-hand knowledge. And the have their own specialty (or are supposed to) that deals with how to gain knowledge. Does anyone else use second-hand knowledge? You bet. Police use eye witness testimony, opinion from people experienced in particular fields, etc. Is that second-hand knowledge reliable? One has to rely on a little trust sometimes or even a different sort of knowledge that the questioned person isn't leading you down the garden path. Perhaps learning a little bit about a person can tell you whether the knowledge they have is valid or not.
If no-one knows you and you start imparting knowledge about a particular subject, that alone doesn't make you an expert on the subject. If you continue giving out knowledge others should be able to tell you must know something about what you are talking about. Especially if they do a little research on the side to verify what you are saying.
Knowledge depends upon research. What happens if there is no available conclusive answer? Is anyone's guess a good guess? Is anyone's guess any more valid than others' guesses? Do you need an expert on a subject to divulge their knowledge or will info from a student of that expert be valid?
Most of my questions have been rhetorical, but this is the one I've been interested in and what you people think about it: What is wisdom and where does it come into the picture?

 

[AnnaG]

I'd propose that wisdom is the application of knowledge to action. EG, we know a hotplate is hot so it is wise not to rest one's hand on the hotplate.
An idea called psycanics says that we can use wisdom to predict what an outcome of an action might be. And in that way, wisdom can possibly be measured.

 

[Nuggler]

I'd propose that wisdom is the application of knowledge to action. EG, we know a hotplate is hot so it is wise not to rest one's hand on the hotplate.
An idea called psycanics says that we can use wisdom to predict what an outcome of an action might be. And in that way, wisdom can possibly be measured.

Sounds like a question for Super China.

:blob6:

 

[JLM]

Hi Anna- maybe you've started a thread here that will attract intelligent people with ideas. Knowledge comes with the accumulation of facts, wisdom comes with the accumulation of experience and age. That's my take anyway and only one opinion. It took me about 60 years to learn one valuable lesson, but once I saw the light it seemed very simple. I've found that if you try something once and it doesn't work, it's probably not going to and if you've tried it twice (exactly the same way) and it doesn't work, you better change your procedure. I think that not understanding this phenomenum has caused untold grief to unknown millions of people. So many people in society are suffering because of the failure to recognize this one fact. Just look at the typical woman who suffers habitual physical abuse, yet it's not their fault, they simply don't have the resources or the inclination to make necessary changes. But anyway I'm getting too preechy (and there's a thread in the steel cage for that.. LOL) Getting back to your post, knowledge through experience I think is the best but knowledge passed down from an expert is just about as good.......just be sure to confirm the qualifications of the expert before taking him/her seriously.

 

[Niflmir]

Well anyone can make an estimate about anything. Whether other people listen to them or not depends on their reasoning.

Science works on the reproducibility of results and the fact that previous results have been estimated a priori. If your reason for making an estimate is "gut feeling" nobody will take you seriously. If you use the best available description of the situation in question, few people will question the validity unless it contradicts previous estimates or observations.

 

[AnnaG]

Sounds like a question for Super China.

:blob6:

lol He's certainly welcome to chip in if he wishes.

 

[AnnaG]

Well anyone can make an estimate about anything. Whether other people listen to them or not depends on their reasoning.

Science works on the reproducibility of results and the fact that previous results have been estimated a priori. If your reason for making an estimate is "gut feeling" nobody will take you seriously. If you use the best available description of the situation in question, few people will question the validity unless it contradicts previous estimates or observations.

I agree, certain people make a point of delving into various aspects of life and therefore collect masses of knowledge about those aspects. And their best guesses are simply more informed than the regular sort who only had a passing interest in the issue.
But where does my question enter into it from your viewpoint? The one about wisdom.

 

[Niflmir]

Wisdom lies in knowing what you need to make an effective guess. Use too much information and you will never decide. Use too little and it probably won't be effective.

That's how I look at it.

Outside of science... I am married, and let us assume at some point I have the possibility of having an affair. My best estimate says that this will screw up my life in an undesirable fashion. If I use too little wisdom I might conclude that since it is immediately gratifying, I will feel good, and that is good. Of course, I could probably plan out some elaborate way of hiding it from everyone, but that takes way too much effort for too little gain. I basically have an Epicurean viewpoint.

 

[Cliffy]

A person can collect vast amounts of information on a variety of subjects but still be dumb as a post. Accumulation of info does not make someone knowledgeable. I look at our forests and the environment that are being "managed by people who are supposed to be knowledgeable and see that they don't have a clue, for example. I think the prerequisite is a discerning mind capable of critical thought. Blind acceptance of info ingested from books and experts does not make one knowledgeable.

Wisdom comes from experience in that we apply the knowledge accumulated to life experiences and draw conclusions based on whether they work or not. Surely then, wisdom is a product of a curious and analytical approach to life and a capacity to evaluate the results. This can be applied to any and every aspect of life, social, academic or spiritual.

Far too many people would rather be hand fed their information and opinions and that is certainly not what wisdom is about. I think an educated guess is certainly better than parroting something that was once read or heard. Too often people's opinions are derived from the media. That requires no critical thought on their part. Real wisdom is in short supply.

 

[Ron in Regina]

Well anyone can make an estimate about anything. Whether other people listen to them or not depends on their reasoning.

Science works on the reproducibility of results and the fact that previous results have been estimated a priori. If your reason for making an estimate is "gut feeling" nobody will take you seriously. If you use the best available description of the situation in question, few people will question the validity unless it contradicts previous estimates or observations.

 

[Niflmir]

We have to pull that lever the second time, otherwise people will just tell us it is only book smarts.

 

[Dexter Sinister]

I'd propose that wisdom is the application of knowledge to action. ...

Deep philosophical matters, Anna. :smile:

I think that's a good statement as far as it goes, but the first thing that occurred to me on reading it was, if your knowledge is false or your understanding of it is faulty you won't make wise choices, so it can't be that simple. And there's a lot of stuff around that passes for knowledge that is in fact false. There are, for instance, people who know that vaccines cause autism, which is demonstrably not true, it's a misunderstanding of the data, and leads them to the very unwise decision not to have their children vaccinated. Evolution has not equipped us with a good intuitive understanding of probability, yet I suggest that almost every choice we make is based on some assessment of the probabilities of various costs and benefits associated with its consequences, and we fairly often get them wrong.

Simple and rather trivial example: the Monty Hall Problem, from the old tv game show Let's Make a Deal. You're shown three doors, and asked to select one. Behind one is a new car, behind the other two are goats. After you've made your choice, one of the other two doors is opened, revealing a goat, and you're given the chance to switch your choice to the other closed door. What should you do?

Most people get this wrong and think it makes no difference, the odds are even, but they're not. The odds are 2 to 1 you'll get the car by changing your selection, so that's the wise choice.

Here's another real world example I read about recently. An air force flight instructor noted that when he praised his pilots after a particularly good run they did worse the next time, and when he roared at them for a bad run they did better the next time. And of course he had the written records to prove the pattern. He concluded that it's better to always roar at them, it improves their performance. Is that wise?

Not it's not, his understanding of what's going on was faulty. The phenomenon is called regression to the mean. The pilots have a certain skill level, and on any particular flight they may do better or worse than that skill level would indicate, but in the long run their performance measures will stabilize around a certain value. Their performance on any particular day has nothing to do with the instructor's behaviour, it's a normal distribution around the mean. Other things being equal, after a particularly good or a particularly bad performance, odds are your next one will be closer to the mean.

This got a little longer-winded than I expected when I started it... :smile: What it comes down to for me is understanding how to think about things. Randomness I think plays a much larger role in our lives than we realize. We have to understand something about probabilities to make wise choices, and we need some means of assessing the likely quality of the information we get. Good, clear, critical thinking is not something anyone's born knowing how to do, it's a learned skill and it's hard.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

I'd propose that wisdom is the application of knowledge to action. EG, we know a hotplate is hot so it is wise not to rest one's hand on the hotplate.

Indeed Anna. If you want to see such an application of knowledge to action, there is a very good example of it in real life, which occurs practically every day. It is called intuition.

Many times intuition is dismissed as baseless nonsense (calling it a woman’s intuition, of course helps disparage intuition). However, I think intuition is subconscious application of knowledge to the situation and coming up with a logical, reasonable conclusion.

The subconscious picks up small, minute clues which may be missed by the conscious mind. Then the subconscious analyzes these clues and comes up with a conclusion.

Since it is done by the subconscious, a woman (and let us stay with woman, though of course they don’t have a monopoly on intuition) cannot explain how she came by the result. However, that is a strange thing about intuition, it is right most of the time.

If a woman thinks that a man is up to no good, or that her husband is hiding something from her, she may not have concrete reasons for thinking so. But usually she turns out to be right.

If my wife tells me that she has a ‘feeling’ about something, I always go by what she says, I have never had the cause to regret it so far.

 

[JLM]

A person can collect vast amounts of information on a variety of subjects but still be dumb as a post. Accumulation of info does not make someone knowledgeable. I look at our forests and the environment that are being "managed by people who are supposed to be knowledgeable and see that they don't have a clue, for example. I think the prerequisite is a discerning mind capable of critical thought. Blind acceptance of info ingested from books and experts does not make one knowledgeable.

Wisdom comes from experience in that we apply the knowledge accumulated to life experiences and draw conclusions based on whether they work or not. Surely then, wisdom is a product of a curious and analytical approach to life and a capacity to evaluate the results. This can be applied to any and every aspect of life, social, academic or spiritual.

Far too many people would rather be hand fed their information and opinions and that is certainly not what wisdom is about. I think an educated guess is certainly better than parroting something that was once read or heard. Too often people's opinions are derived from the media. That requires no critical thought on their part. Real wisdom is in short supply.

I think you may be on to something Cliff, I have one more thought, wisdom is many faceted, knowledge just being one aspect of wisdom, others might be will power, patience, discipline and good sense of timing.

 

[pulchritudinous]

LOL, that's cute.

To be honest, I don't believe that someone can be intelligent nor wise. Really, this relies on the 'theory': We all see the same portrait, yet we see a different scenario. There's no such thing as a "beautiful" person. We all hold our own standards and view our own exptectations. Someone walks by and receives two glances. The first guy thinks, "Wow, I'd hit that any day". The second guy thinks, "I've seen better". The alterations of defining a characteristic can also be applied to general/academic knowledge. For instance, someone who can achieve straight A's in all of their courses do not mean that they are smart (to me). Yes, they've gone way past average but only on the academic scale. And, I don't believe that academic intelligence is as significant as we make it.

What is knowledge and wisdom?

To know. That's the basic understanding. No elaboration because the two words elaborate enough. Your opinion strikes that definition and causes every change that you desire. It's just how you view it.

 

[Dexter Sinister]

There's no such thing as a "beautiful" person.

You say that despite what you've chosen as a user name? :smile:

 

[AnnaG]

Deep philosophical matters, Anna. :smile:

I think that's a good statement as far as it goes, but the first thing that occurred to me on reading it was, if your knowledge is false or your understanding of it is faulty you won't make wise choices, so it can't be that simple. And there's a lot of stuff around that passes for knowledge that is in fact false. There are, for instance, people who know that vaccines cause autism, which is demonstrably not true, it's a misunderstanding of the data, and leads them to the very unwise decision not to have their children vaccinated. Evolution has not equipped us with a good intuitive understanding of probability, yet I suggest that almost every choice we make is based on some assessment of the probabilities of various costs and benefits associated with its consequences, and we fairly often get them wrong.

Simple and rather trivial example: the Monty Hall Problem, from the old tv game show Let's Make a Deal. You're shown three doors, and asked to select one. Behind one is a new car, behind the other two are goats. After you've made your choice, one of the other two doors is opened, revealing a goat, and you're given the chance to switch your choice to the other closed door. What should you do?

Most people get this wrong and think it makes no difference, the odds are even, but they're not. The odds are 2 to 1 you'll get the car by changing your selection, so that's the wise choice.

Here's another real world example I read about recently. An air force flight instructor noted that when he praised his pilots after a particularly good run they did worse the next time, and when he roared at them for a bad run they did better the next time. And of course he had the written records to prove the pattern. He concluded that it's better to always roar at them, it improves their performance. Is that wise?

Not it's not, his understanding of what's going on was faulty. The phenomenon is called regression to the mean. The pilots have a certain skill level, and on any particular flight they may do better or worse than that skill level would indicate, but in the long run their performance measures will stabilize around a certain value. Their performance on any particular day has nothing to do with the instructor's behaviour, it's a normal distribution around the mean. Other things being equal, after a particularly good or a particularly bad performance, odds are your next one will be closer to the mean.

This got a little longer-winded than I expected when I started it... :smile: What it comes down to for me is understanding how to think about things. Randomness I think plays a much larger role in our lives than we realize. We have to understand something about probabilities to make wise choices, and we need some means of assessing the likely quality of the information we get. Good, clear, critical thinking is not something anyone's born knowing how to do, it's a learned skill and it's hard.

Yes you are windy. lol Just kidding. I like your point, but given that the knowledge one has to begin with is correct or not, one can still make a wisest choice possible and act accordingly.
And isn't a grasp of probability knowledge?

 

[AnnaG]

Indeed Anna. If you want to see such an application of knowledge to action, there is a very good example of it in real life, which occurs practically every day. It is called intuition.

Many times intuition is dismissed as baseless nonsense (calling it a woman’s intuition, of course helps disparage intuition). However, I think intuition is subconscious application of knowledge to the situation and coming up with a logical, reasonable conclusion.

Nice point but if so then the process should be explainable. There are times when my intuition kicks in and I can't find a reasonable explanation of why my intuition was correct.

The subconscious picks up small, minute clues which may be missed by the conscious mind. Then the subconscious analyzes these clues and comes up with a conclusion.

Then it won't necessarily be a "logical, reasonable conclusion" because your explanation is missing the bits only your subconscious knows.

Since it is done by the subconscious, a woman (and let us stay with woman, though of course they don’t have a monopoly on intuition) cannot explain how she came by the result. However, that is a strange thing about intuition, it is right most of the time.

lol Either something is explained by logic and reason or it isn't. "However, I think intuition is subconscious application of knowledge to the situation and coming up with a logical, reasonable conclusion." Perhaps you meant "However, I think intuition is subconscious application of knowledge to the situation and coming up with a wise conclusion separate from logic and reason".

If a woman thinks that a man is up to no good, or that her husband is hiding something from her, she may not have concrete reasons for thinking so. But usually she turns out to be right.

Hey! If I feel something is off a bit, that is concrete to me. I rarely say anything because I have complete trust. It usually turns out he's hiding a surprise for me.

If my wife tells me that she has a ‘feeling’ about something, I always go by what she says, I have never had the cause to regret it so far.

Yeah, men have 2 brains (1 above their shoulders and the other below the belt) and they overuse one or the other and rarely stop to sense things.


Just kidding. That doesn't apply to ALL men. lol

 

[AnnaG]

A person can collect vast amounts of information on a variety of subjects but still be dumb as a post. Accumulation of info does not make someone knowledgeable. I look at our forests and the environment that are being "managed by people who are supposed to be knowledgeable and see that they don't have a clue, for example. I think the prerequisite is a discerning mind capable of critical thought. Blind acceptance of info ingested from books and experts does not make one knowledgeable.

Wisdom comes from experience in that we apply the knowledge accumulated to life experiences and draw conclusions based on whether they work or not. Surely then, wisdom is a product of a curious and analytical approach to life and a capacity to evaluate the results. This can be applied to any and every aspect of life, social, academic or spiritual.

Far too many people would rather be hand fed their information and opinions and that is certainly not what wisdom is about. I think an educated guess is certainly better than parroting something that was once read or heard. Too often people's opinions are derived from the media. That requires no critical thought on their part. Real wisdom is in short supply.

I think everyone has the potential to be wise, but most are too rushed or too lazy to stop and apply whatever wisdom they have.
I disagree about accumulated info not being knowledge. Many people just haven't a clue about how ro apply the knowledge correctly.

 

[AnnaG]

I think you may be on to something Cliff, I have one more thought, wisdom is many faceted, knowledge just being one aspect of wisdom, others might be will power, patience, discipline and good sense of timing.

I like that, J. It makes sense to me.