Tag Archives: knowledge

The enemy of knowledge

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“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.” ~ Stephen Hawking

The illusion of knowledge is more ignorant that just being ignorant. This idea is more relevant today than any time in history. Examples:

1. Every religion starts with the premise that their religion shares true knowledge and all the other religions share illusions. So every devout religious person loves their own illusions, or at the very least believes anyone of a different faith lives in an illusion of ignorance.

2. Anyone who believes in a flat earth, or thinks no one ever landed on the moon lives in an illusion of knowledge. They perceive themselves as more knowledgeable than scientists, experts, and even general employees in the flight and space industry.

3. AI is already generating incredibly persuasive deep fakes and while we used to use a discerning eye to catch a lie, soon we will need to be more discerning to catch the truth. The illusion of knowledge will be more rampant than actual, factual knowledge.

We are moving from an era of knowledge seekers to an era of illusions and ignorance.

The truth is out there… it’s just a lot harder to find, and even harder to defend.

Knowledge, wisdom, and sorrow

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I was watching a show on TV and one of the characters said, “With wisdom comes so much sorrow,” and this struck me as a familiar phrase… so I Googled it. What came up in the search was Ecclesiastes 1:18.

For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief.

This struck me as quite insightful, and made me think about the youth of today. They grow up watching musicians , stars, and influencers showing them a world that seems unattainable. They watch their parents watching and discussing the news which only shows conflict, tragedy, crime, and war. They are cautioned about strangers and parents monitor or are aware of where they are the entire day out of care and concern.

They are constantly knowledgeable of the dangers of the world, of the inequity, and of their stature compared to others including, and especially the famous people they could never be like. And yet, they lack the wisdom to put this all into perspective. So what’s left? Sorrow, emptiness, sadness, and grief.

Happiness is fleeting, it’s temporary, it’s even planned and slotted into blocks of play time and sports. Then some parents put so much pressure on performance at those sports events, or even music practices, that these are not even fun. However done well with supportive parents as well as good coaches and teachers, sports, dance, and music can bring joy. These activities can show the rewards of hard work and effort. They can provide a counterbalance to the exposure to other more negative aspects of a child’s life. Perhaps that’s also what video games do?

Schools can feed both of these perspectives. They can be places where students shine, or they cower. Students can feel restricted or they can feel they have opportunities to own their own learning. The same can be said for their homes.

I’m left wondering, are most kids over-exposed to information and knowledge that does not serve them well? Does this knowledge bring them happiness and joy or grief and sorrow? Do they lack the wisdom to put this knowledge into perspective? I think that can be as true for adults as it is for kids. Maybe that’s why there are so many self-help books.

We need to seek joy, and to share opportunities for others to find it… especially the youth of today who are bombarded with knowledge without the wisdom to put all that information into perspective.

Recombination

“Deconstruction creates knowledge. Recombination creates value.” ~ James Clear

It’s really hard to come up with truly novel ideas. We remember the names of those that do, such as Newton, Marie Curie, and Einstein. But there are so many novel ideas and inventions that take old ideas and combine them to create new products and services that add value in our world.

I think too many people get stuck in a single field of knowledge and miss out on the opportunity to see how their fields can be expanded or used in other fields of study. Something as ubiquitous as the smart phone is a simple example. It combines a phone with access to the web, and a camera, and an interactive map, and a stereo, and even a calculator. I often joke that my iPhones does everything well except for making phone calls.

I remember a grade 8 project I gave students in science. Students where to add an adaptation to an animal to improve its ability to survive. One student came up with marsupial penguins that laid eggs directly into a pouch. This would be far more efficient compared to a penguin always needing to keep eggs on their feet and off of the ice. That’s recombination that adds value.

“Deconstruction creates knowledge. Recombination creates value.”

Recombination involves understanding component parts… you often need to be able to deconstruct things well, and truly understand them, before you recombine them. There needs to be a base knowledge that allows you to make connections that others might not make. You don’t have to come up with completely novel ideas, just old ideas repackaged in unique ways.

Not so knowledgeable

An interesting study: Knowledge overconfidence is associated with anti-consensus views on controversial scientific issues

“Recently, evidence has emerged, suggesting a potentially important revision to models of the relationship between knowledge and anti-science attitudes: Those with the most extreme anti-consensus views may be the least likely to apprehend the gaps in their knowledge…

Those with the most strongly held anti-consensus views may be not only the least knowledgeable but also the most overconfident about how much they know.”

This TikTok does a good summary: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMNWgdpB1/

“Results from five studies show that the people who disagree most with the scientific consensus know less about the relevant issues, but they think they know more. These results suggest that this phenomenon is fairly general, although the relationships were weaker for some more polarized issues, particularly climate change. It is important to note that we document larger mismatches between subjective and objective knowledge among participants who are more opposed to the scientific consensus. Thus, although broadly consistent with the Dunning-Kruger effect and other research on knowledge miscalibration, our findings represent a pattern of relationships that goes beyond overconfidence among the least knowledgeable. However, the data are correlational, and the normal caveats apply.

This explains some of the anti-consensus views I’ve seen being expressed, but certainly not all. I know some very smart people who would probably do well on these kinds of tests, and yet buy into some very suspect but opinion affirming ‘information’. It doesn’t matter if this information can easily be proven wrong, because even though much of their base knowledge is good, their anti-consensus views are rigid. If the consensus view doesn’t fit, it’s perceived as propaganda, misinformation, or just plain wrong.

The biggest area where this is evident is with conspiracy theories. There is so much common knowledge that needs to be wrong for most conspiracies to be true. There are so many people that would need to be complacent and ‘in on the secret’ that it couldn’t possible remain secret. Yet even very intelligent people can be fooled. I think there is a simple litmus test that most people who believe in a conspiracy theory can self administer to determine if they should check their own bias:

How many conspiracy theories do I believe in?

If the answer is one, then you really might be working on specific information that makes consensus views very suspect. Maybe you’ve done your research and have come to some concerning perspective that should rightly be anti-consensus. But if the answer is two or more, you probably aren’t as knowledgeable as you think.

Geographic knowledge

I was speaking to a sales rep from a course provider of one of our online courses yesterday via Zoom. She lives in the Florida Panhandle. She asked if the lightly paved pavement seen through my window was snow, and was surprised to hear how little snow the Vancouver Lower Mainland gets.

Meanwhile I asked her how close to the Florida Keys she was, because I didn’t know that the Panhandle was on the upper coast of the Gulf of Mexico. In my mind the southern tip was the handle and the northern part of Florida was larger than it is, and represented the pan in this visual metaphor.

There are parts of Central and South America that I can easily rattle of the names of countries, and others that would stump me. Likewise for parts of Europe and Africa. But I’ve seen some funny videos of people clueless about basic geography. Like Americans that think Alaska and Hawaii are south of the continental USA because of composite photos like this:

And this Jimmy Kimmel bit interviewing people on the street:

While I think people should know basic geography, and at least be able to know continents and be able to recognize their own country on a map, I do think that we need to be a little understanding when people don’t know many details about other countries, provinces, states, and cities.

I live in Canada, it snows a lot ‘here’, and it’s ok if people don’t know that it doesn’t snow a lot on the southern coast of BC, where the skiing is great on our mountains. It’s ok that I didn’t know where the Florida Panhandle was until now. But I would hope people know that Africa isn’t a country, and know where Asia is, and know that Alaska doesn’t float south of Arizona.

We used to be able to read maps, we had to in order to drive somewhere that we didn’t know. I can remember driving from Toronto to Arizona without a cell phone, and with paper maps to get me there. But now that’s a forgotten experience, and people don’t get as lost anymore. People no longer need to look at a map and not know where they are on it compared to where they are going. Their map location is always pinned. I wonder if this has affected people’s ability to look at maps and recognize countries? Has geographical knowledge been hindered by tools like Google Maps?

I understand, but I don’t

I understand that atoms are made up mostly of empty space, but I don’t understand how solids can feel solid when they are made up of atoms that are mostly just empty space?

I understand that we are all made of stardust, but I don’t understand how every atom that I’m made of has come from different parts of the universe?

I understand that our cells don’t live longer than 10 years, and that every cell that I was born with has been replaced at least 5 times, but I don’t understand how that’s possible and I’m still me?

I understand that the more I learn, the more there is to marvel at, and the more that I don’t really understand.