Replying to LO30556 --
Dear At:
Since I cannot resist the urge every time I see it to refute the
"knowledge is the capacity for effective action" argument, I will do so
here again.
At base, if you are saying that knowledge is the same as action (albeit
'effective' action), then the definition you offer mistakenly confuses
knowledge with action. (I believe we've been over this ground before).
Previously, I gave you examples of how different knowledge could lead to
the same action, thereby exposing the fallacy of the claim that knowledge
and action are always one and the same. I don't recall seeing your
response to that.
Further, to say that knowledge is the capacity for effective action is to
suggest that it is a necessary and sufficient condition for effective
action. This has a number of problems. First, effective action also
requires many other things that have nothing to do with knowledge. These
would include (a) the desire to take action, (b) the power or authority to
do so, and (c) other material and non-material means required to act
(e.g., tools, assistance from others, money, etc.).
Thus, knowledge is a necessary but INSUFFICIENT condition for effective
action. It contributes to the capacity for effective action, but it alone
does not provide all of the elements of capacity required to take action
-- effective or otherwise. So what good does it do to say that knowledge
is the capacity for effective action, when it alone provides us with
considerably less than is needed to actually TAKE effective action? Here
I think the OL community tends to oversell the term 'knowledge' while
ignoring the many other conditions required to take action, not to mention
a few other things I discuss further below.
Second, 'effective action' is a terribly value-laden term. 'Effective'
according to whom? What if I think my action is effective and you think
it's not? In such a case is the knowledge I used to take it 'knowledge'
or something else? And who gets to decide? And according to whose or
what values or criteria? No, this definition raises more questions than
it answers. That dog, as they say in Texas, just doesn't hunt.
Third, why define knowledge in terms of something outside of itself? Even
if we could agree that it contributes to effective action, that
definition, ironically, tells us nothing about WHAT IT IS!!! In a sense,
who cares what it contributes to? The question was 'What is it?'
Fourth, since I asked the question, I will try to answer it. I will do
so, first, by quoting you once again: "Knowledge lives only in the mind of
a person while information exists outside it." Here again we have a
statement that skirts the issue. This time you tell us where knowledge
"lives" but still not what it is.
Enough torment. Here is a definition that I favor:
"Knowledge consists of encoded structures representing descriptive and
argumentative assertions that help the systems that created them to live
and adapt, and which also have survived their tests and evaluations for
verisimilitude."
In the human domain, these structures consist of beliefs and belief
predispositions, and also of claims, but only of such beliefs, belief
predispositions, and claims, that have survived our tests and evaluations.
What this means is that our knowledge may, in fact, be false, but because
we regard it as true (until we learn otherwise), we think of it as
knowledge. That's what differentiates knowledge from information: both
consist of descriptive or argumentative assertions of one kind or another,
but only knowledge consists of ones that we regard as true. And it is
precisely this introduction and treatment of the issue of truth that makes
the term 'knowledge' distinctive and useful for us.
Sadly, this 'truth dimension' to the subject of knowledge is conspicuously
missing from too many contemporary definitions of the term, including the
"capacity for effective action' school. It's as if we either don't care
about truth and falsity, or that we somehow always assume that what's in
our heads is true. If something we think happens to be false, don't we
want to know that? God forbid we should have a definition of knowledge
that takes truth versus falsity into account!
Finally, the definition of knowledge I favor provides us with just the
antidote we need to counter the terribly anthropocentric flavor of so many
contemporary perspectives. It does this by pointing out, for example,
that knowledge can exist in the minds of non-humans, and also in the
embodiments of all species and other physical forms (i.e., not in minds at
all, human or otherwise). Our very DNA and the organs we rely on (in all
species) are nothing more than knowledge claims, produced through a kind
of trial and error process that we call mutation.
Indeed, we can now "read" DNA and the claims it makes about how to
construct a body. Moreover, that the bodies we see before us in a species
have survived the tests of time amounts to a record of knowledge claim
validation, the content of which says, 'Hey, the claims encoded in this
organism's DNA is true -- at least so far, that is.'
My problem with contemporary treatments of the distinction between data,
information, and knowledge is that most: (a) tend to be arbitrary, (b)
fail to take actual semantic content into account, and (c) fail to address
the issue of truth or verisimilitude as a distinguishing factor. Data,
information, and knowledge are ALL forms of information, and all three
contain descriptions and/or arguments. Knowledge is simply information
that we regard as true or which has survived its tests and evaluations;
data and information may or may not be true, but if we decide that they
are true, we call them knowledge. Otherwise, we may be undecided about
their semantic content, in which case they're "just data" or "just
information"; or if we have falsified them, then they are false data or
false information. But knowledge is always information (which can include
data) that we regard as true. So knowledge is a type of information, and
is not separate and distinct from it. Knowledge is true information.
Finally, since I have explained that knowledge need not be human-based, it
should also be clear that knowledge can exist outside of human minds and
in other forms. DNA in other species, for example (or in ourselves, for
that matter), is a form of knowledge. And so is a claim made by a human
in objective form (such as on paper, or in a computer, or in a book, in an
e-mail, or in the form of speech). The same goes for extraterrestrial
creatures.
Is all of the above just useless pontification, of no practical value to
managers in the real world? Not at all. These ideas translate into a
style of Knowledge Management strategy and practice that is profoundly
important to performance in business, but which is as different from other
styles of KM as democracy is from communism. And yet we tend to gloss
over them. I will pursue this claim further only if asked to do so, for I
have already gone on far too long here.
Regards,
Mark
Mark W. McElroy
President, KMCI, Inc. [www.kmci.org]
CEO, Macroinnovation Associates, LLC [www.macroinnovation.com]
(802) 436-2250
>-----Original Message-----
>Hal Popplewell < GaltJohn44@aol.com > wrote:
>
>>As much technology as all this takes, it is merely
>>INFORMATION.
>(snip)
>>This part is KNOWLEDGE although it is being
>>executed within a computer.
>
>The two examples you have given (a computer representing data in a
>comprehensive manner and a computer acting upon data in a directive
>manner) still boil down to the same thing. They have been programmed by
>humans and not by themselves. However, knowledge is rather the capacity
>to act effectively without needing to be prescribed how to do so. This
>capacity is acquired through the process of learning which do not
>require programming by other humans.
>
>>Of course far and away the MOST knowledge resides within
>>the people. We just program small bits of their knowledge
>>which are needed often or needed by others.
>>
>>Is this distinction valuable to anyone but me? Is there interest
>>in what I'll call a repository for EXECUTEABLE knowledge?
>
>Your distinction is valuable. But i will take an even strong viewpoint
>by deleting the "MOST". Knowledge lives only in the mind of a person
>while information exists outside it, whether the source is paper or
>computer based. The majority of people think that sources of
>information also contain knowledge. But i think that a mind with the
>appropiate knowledge is required to digest such information so as to
>increase that knowledge. The organisation of information may have
>several hirarchial levels. But not even one of them can be called
>knowledge.
--"Mark W. McElroy" <mmcelroy@vermontel.net>
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