What is the Nature of Knowledge

[Overdog]

To explain the model a little more, the idea of the "Conceptual Framework into which Information must fit to become knowledge", would all be happening in real time as part of the cognitive process. The "Hardwired" inputs would include emotion, instinct, that kind of stuff....

[Overdog]

Originally Posted by modest

I'm sure I have a monkey wrench here somewhere... No. I guess not. I could submit some things for further review:

• Our link to the natural world is the 5 senses.
• Those five senses lead to experience.
• Experience leads to all thought of any form (emotion, reason, knowledge, ect.)
• Ignorance can be a lack of experience (placing it outside the realm of thought all together) or a failure to understand an experience (an experience that failed to connect to knowledge or wisdom)
• Knowledge is the structured organization of experience into something useful - Not a useful action, just a useful understanding.
• Reason is the process of doing the above (organizing experience into knowledge) or a method of doing the the same.
• Belief is maybe nothing more than the confidence that the previous step worked and will lead to the next step. I'm not too sure of this.
• Wisdom is applying Knowledge to “life” which by all our definitions so far requires reason, knowledge, and experience.

Of course, this is not at all comprehensive. I seem to have left out "facts" and some other things. Submitted for further review in any case.

Now where did that monkey wrench go...

-modest

Now that I've had time to think about this, I think the model is incorrect to include a seperate store for belief, because I agree with you, the knowledge AND belief are produced from what is in the other stores...

You think I should get rid of the Belief store?

[Overdog]

Does this picture better model what we are thinking? Is it missing anything?

[modest]

Tbird,

I’m rather sure we’re saying similar things (we should embrace this moment as infrequently as it comes ) Intuition colors perception, knowledge, and experience.

Freezy,

I think I may have been less correct about knowledge being replaced by belief than I originally believed. I'm a bit unsure as to the conceptual differences between the two now.

Overdog,

Originally Posted by modest

Now where did that monkey wrench go...

Sorry, I think I found it.

How is your diagram different than follows:



I would agree all these things are related to cognition. This is probably therefore a very good starting point, but I think some of these things need to be interrelated. Something like knowledge should lead to wisdom while information comes from perseption and leads to knowledge. I haven’t figured how to show this, but I think we’re getting there.

Not too big of a monkey wrench

-modest

[Overdog]

[quote=modest;224139How is your diagram different than follows:
[/QUOTE]

It is exactly the same as my original. Just a different modeling tool. My model says nothing about relationships, the arrows represent data flow from the data stores to the cognitive process. Inputs and outputs.

But because of your and Zethryns points, I have remove belief from my model because I thought we were in agreement that the cognitive rocess "Creates" Knowledge, and Zethryn's point

In the first person, there is no difference between saying 'I believe' and 'I know'

seems valid.

...but I think some of these things need to be interrelated. Something like knowledge should lead to wisdom while information comes from perseption and leads to knowledge.
-modest

I agree there are some relations that still need to be thought out, but we haven't gotten that far yet.

If we can agree on the model, we can start drawing some conclusions...

[modest]

Perhaps a slight misunderstanding,

My only purpose in drawing that was to show all we've done is relate different things to cognition. I believe any word related to "thought" or "knowledge" is related to cognition, so I fail to see the value in our plot thus far.

But, don't be discouraged, I honestly believe we're getting somewhere good. I'll take more of a back seat as my criticism is probably slightly unwarranted and more than slightly unwanted

-modest

[jedaisoul]

Originally Posted by Zythryn

In my opinion:
Facts are generally accepted beliefs defined by the group or society agreeing on said 'facts'. The society may define that facts meet some level of objective rigor or that they fit some teachings.

To me "facts" should conform to somethiing higher than teachings. To me, that is a definition of beliefs. Therefore I would suggest that a statement or belief is a fact to the extent that it reflects reality, not teachings.

Originally Posted by Zythryn

Information is sensory input. It is entirely dependant upon the person that receives the sensory input.

Agreed.

Originally Posted by Zythryn

Knowledge is the memory of one or more peices of information.

I would disagree with this usage. To me, knowledge is a collection of facts, not a collection of any statements or beliefs that are claimed to be facts. Hence I would call a collection of untrue statements or beliefs misinformation, not knowledge.

Originally Posted by Zythryn

In the first person, there is no difference between saying 'I believe' and 'I know'. If you are speaking in the third person 'They know' vs. 'They believe' it depends on if you believe the other person's 'facts' are true or not. Belief and Knowledge is very much a matter of semantics.

I think this is not a very useful definition of knowledge. Also it differs from the previous statement. My definition of knowledge is given above...

[Overdog]

Originally Posted by modest

Perhaps a slight misunderstanding,

My only purpose in drawing that was to show all we've done is relate different things to cognition. I believe any word related to "thought" or "knowledge" is related to cognition, so I fail to see the value in our plot thus far.

But, don't be discouraged, I honestly believe we're getting somewhere good. I'll take more of a back seat as my criticism is probably slightly unwarranted and more than slightly unwanted

-modest

Don't take a back seat Modest, discussion and criticism of a model, leading to a refinement of the model, is the measure of progress in the design process. The purpose of the model in this case is to help focus the discussion, reduce confusion, and ensure we have the same picture in mind.

The only real plot here is to engage some highly intelligent people in the process. I hope it leads somewhere good. But at the very least, it has already improved my understanding of the nature of knowledge.

I was incorrect when I said our models were the same. My model says something about the flow of data to and from memory as it is being accessed, used, and stored by the cognitive process, so it is a bit different in that respect. The rectangular boxes in my model represent storage of data (memory), and the cognitive process in my model is viewed as being analogous to a software process running on a computer.

[Overdog]

Perhaps if I explain what I am doing it will make more sense. I am thinking of the human brain as an information system, and so I am employing an analysis and design approach that is common in my profession as a software engineer.

It works like this.

First, you get a plain english description of what the system must do (or does if you are trying to understand it)

Next, you examine the textual description and parse out the nouns and the verbs.

The nouns then are a list of candidate entities which end up a tables in a database. The properties of the entity are the columns in the table.

The verbs translate into processes (code) that act on the data.

With the list of entities and processes, it it now possible to model the flow of data through the system. Data flows into a process, the process does something with or to the data, data flows out of the process.

We do not have to know how the processes work, we do not have to know anything about the physical infrastructure of the system. The focus at this stage is about what the system does, not how it does it.

The model then is refined in repeated design discussions, as knowledge and understanding of the system improves.

So far, with the input of others, we have refined our initial model from one which initially had two distinct entities representing Knowledge and Belief, to the elimination of those entities in favor of the view (at this point) that Knowledge and Belief appear to be the same kind of thing, that is, both are created dynamically in real time from data stored in memory.

[Overdog]

Ok, either everyone has bailed on me in this thread or they are waiting for me to say something that makes sense...

So I will say I have a problem with the hardwired part of the model...



The hardwired stuff is supposed to represent emotion, our native capacity for reason, instincts, the structure and built-in rules that gives us the capacity for language, etc.

I'm thinking that those attributes might be inherent characteristics of the cognitive process itself, how the code is written, rather than being something that is stored in memory somewhere.