Thinking about Knowledge, Learning and Wisdom
After the more focused look at the knowledge structure map, the book returns to the concepts of knowledge, learning and wisdom and attampts to draw these together.
The first of the final three chapters is about the personal nature of knowledge. The idea that knowledge is a very personal thing seems to be an inevitable conclusion of the book, but just how this understanding affects what we think knowledge is, is quite profound. The chapter discusses knowledge in a way which makes it much closer to and part of an individual. It discusses how an individual changes and why there seems to be a driving thirst for knowledge and how our modern society sometimes seems to take away this thirst.
The implications of future robots which learn very effectively and are used extensively by most people are discussed. When we replace them for the latest model, what happens to the personal (to the robot) things which it has learned which make it a better robot for us? The next robot might have better sensors and the things which the older robot learned may be of no use to it. Would we have to start again with every new robot we buy because the things the old one learned are its own personal knowledge?
The next chapter attempts to build bridges between knowledge and wisdom in particular. It does this chiefly by considering the concept of vision or imagination or mental imagery. Mental imagery is something which has been investigated extensively in the field of cognitive science and the implications of such investigations are considered. The links between wisdom and mental imagery seem to lead to the conclusion that knowledge and wisdom cannot be moved closer together, the best that can be done is to build a bridge between them.
The final chapter of the book returns to a thinking theme. The chapter contains quite a few more things to think about but its aim is to hand over the thinking task to the reader. This book does attempt to draw conclusions but it also acknowledges that the conclusions which are drawn by one person may be just as valid as slightly different conclusions drawn by another.