Replying to LO25950 --
Dear Organlearners,
Fred Nickols <nickols@att.net> writes:
>In LO25925, At de Lange inserted this little gem,
>encapsulating Polanyi's statement in symbolic notation:
>
>we can know > we can tell
>
>I don't know the rules for manipulating symbolic notation
>but, for my purposes, I'm going to strike "we can" from
>both sides:
>
>know > tell
Greetings dear Fred:
Should we view the "can" as some something positive so that the "cannot"
then is something negative, then the change from
. [we can know] > [we can tell]
to
. we know > we tell
. know > tell
is allowed by the rules which you refer to. But the change from
. [we can know] > [we cannot tell]
to
. [we know] > [we tell]
is fraudulent. It should rather become
. [we cannot know] < [we tell]
In other words, we
1) are saddled up with the "cannot" (negativity) for good
2) have to invert the ordering > (i.e. more than ) to < (i.e. less than)
Here are two numerical examples
2 > -5 becomes -2 < 5
-2 > -5 becomes 2 < 5.
>Now, let's suppose that somehow we are able to
>get hold of something we know that previously
>escaped our awareness or knowing and successfully
>articulate it. Have we articulated tacit knowledge?
>I think not. I think, in keeping with At's notion about
>knowledge outside of people, that we have created
>information. That we intend it to represent and convey
>our knowledge doesn't make it the same as that knowledge.
>The information we create must be converted into individual
>knowledge by others.
MP say something definite about this "converted". Unfortunately, my "The
Tacit Dimension" is at home so that I cannot for now look up his exact
wording. So allow me to reformulate his wording in my own words. In this
conversion of information back to knowledge we prove ourselves to be very
good at making big mistakes. I merely want to add: in creating information
with our knowledge dwelling in us, we also prove ourselves to be very good
at making big mistakes.
But there is one definite way to undo this proof -- the way of learning.
After sufficient authentic learning we prove ourselves to be better at
creating information which tell more (not all) what we know. We also prove
ourselves to be better at converting information more (not all) into what
the informer knows. When will be not better, but very good at doing this?
>We can, indeed, know more than we can tell.
>
>Hip, hip, hurrah! Hip, hip, hurrah! Hip, hip, hurrah!
In Afrikaans we would add "nog 'n piep". The "piep" is the diminutive for
the "hip" and should actually had been "hippiep". But according to the
possible endearment of the diminutive, it means "I hold dear what you have
hurrahed".
Words like "hurl", "hurry" and "hurrah" seems to have come from a root
word which perhaps had the meaning of "at chaos, the noise of it becoming
a call of triumph ". We have one remainder of this word in Afrikaans,
namely "hurk"=squat (haunch). It is the position assumed just before
jumping, or also for some deep thinking. The San and Xhoi people used to
squat when thinking deeply. In German there is still the word "hurtig"
which means "quick and agile". But this "hurt-ig" is not the same as the
English "hurt". That word comes from the French "hurter" or to hit,
something done by the "heurtoir" or the hitter. So, "hurrah" means the
"sound of triumph" following an emergence while "hurt" means the actual
"hitting" of an immergence -- "aha" or "ouch".
Perhaps people of ages long ago could articulate more than what we know
today and thus would credit them for ;-) Perhaps it has to do with the
inevitable inversion when we try to get rid of a negative connotation as I
have explained in the beginning.
With care and best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
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