Replying to LO30594 --
Dear Ziva:
Thank you for your question. I hope you can follow my response. If you
define knowledge, as I do, as consisting of beliefs or claims that have
survived our tests and evaluations, then it should be clear that knowledge
consists of beliefs or claims that are either (a) descriptive or (b)
argumentative; both are assertions. Beliefs about such things occur in
the mind only; claims about such things are linguistic and occur in the
form of language expressions.
Now please note here that information is also descriptive and/or
argumentative. That is, it has semantic content consisting of descriptive
and/or argumentative assertions. And it always has context of some kind.
Thus, both information and knowledge consist of descriptive and/or
argumentative assertions, and that's why I say that knowledge is a type of
information -- more specifically, it is a type of information that we
believe is true or close to true.
So in your example, when you say "It will be sunny," that is not just
data. Rather, it is a descriptive assertion of what you actually think
the weather will be like. And because you believe it, it is a knowledge
claim. It is knowledge for you. Next, when you declare "I will go
hiking," that too is a knowledge claim, this time of an argumentative
sort. In essence, you are saying, "It will be OK to go hiking because it
will be sunny." This, too, is a knowledge claim, because it is an
argument that you believe is true.
Of course the latter statement ("I will go hiking") might not be
argumentative at all. It might just be your attempt to tell someone what
you're going to do. In that case, it would still be knowledge, since it
would be your expression of what your future will consist of -- an
assertion that you really believe is true. You say "I will go hiking"
because you really believe you will go hiking and that that claim best
describes your future.
I hope this is clear enough for you to understand my meaning.
Regards,
Mark
Mark W. McElroy
President, KMCI, Inc. [www.kmci.org]
CEO, Macroinnovation Associates, LLC [www.macroinnovation.com]
(802) 436-2250
>I do not agree with you that knowledge is information. It is more than
>information, more complex.
[..snip by your host..]
--"Mark W. McElroy" <mmcelroy@vermontel.net>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <Richard@Karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>
"Learning-org" and the format of our message identifiers (LO1234, etc.) are trademarks of Richard Karash.