vol 3: Development
chapter 2: Model
page 11: Knowledge
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Knowledge
None of this discussion would be happening without knowledge. We know things and we can talk about them. Knowledge is part of the world which represents some other part of the world in a simplified and compressed form. Organisms share knowledge by communication. Knowledge - Wikipedia
Knowledge is in a way the inverse of creation or complexification, since our knowledge is always a simplified or abstract version of the thing known. My knowledge of my friends does not encompass the incredibly complex details of their lives but rather such general features as their appearance, habits and responses to various inputs. Similarly, this site represents my knowledge of my world compressed into words infinitely less complex than the world itself.
Knowledge is made possible by symmetry, that is sameness or similarity. Symmetry - Wikipedia 'All people are mortal' tells us that the feature 'mortality' is common to us all. Symmetry exists in the world because it was once a simple singularity. Although this initial symmetry has been broken in an infinity of ways, traces of it remain everywhere. So, even though we say electrons are identical particles, electrons also differ in their locations in spacetime and their particular interactions with their environment.
The power of knowledge arises through meaning, that is the mapping between the simplified known version of something and the thing itself. Knowledge models reality. Such modelling creates an advantage since it takes much less energy to think about something than to actually do it. Experience shows that a bit of thought, checking through the possible ways to do something, can often save a a lot of labour.
We formally model the mappings involved in knowledge by the algorithms used to encode and decode the messages that realize these mappings. Hill As a corollary, knowledge can only be shared by systems that have common communication protocols. If I say 'I'll make the tea' to someone who does not understand English, they may not have any idea what I am talking about. However, if they are familiar with the tea ceremony, they can easily decode my meaning as soon as I start working with kettle, teapot and cups.
The purpose of science is the generation of new knowledge. Bronowski This is equivalent to finding new ways of observing, decoding and encoding the world. This is equivalent to discovering new languages to express the new meanings that we find in the world.
The purpose of this site is to develop a language to see and express the divinity of our world. Natural theology explains the unity in a diverse world by exposing the flow of communication and meaning that both binds and diversifies it. From this point of view, knowledge is not something specific to human or even animal life, but an element of any process.
In physical terms, knowledge is a potential that guides events.
We return to this idea in detail in chapter 6 Psychology.
Further reading
Books
| Bronowski, Jacob, Science and Human Values, Harper and Row 1972 Jacket: 'A classic collection of essays on the theme of science as an integral part of the culture of our age, ... by Dr Bronowski, a renowned leader in the modern movement for scientific humanism.' First given as lectures at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, February and March 1953. Amazon back |
| Campbell, Jeremy, Grammatical Man: Information, Entropy, Language and Life, Allen Lane 1982 Foreword: 'This book is an attempt to tell the story of information theory and how it evolved out of the ferment of scientific activity during the Second World War. ... The laws and theorems of this science stimulated exciting ideas in biology and language, probability theory, psychology, philosophy, art, coputers and the study of society.' Amazon back |
| de Boysson-Bardies, Benedicte, How Language comes to Children, MIT Press 1999 'Inside the genetically determjned envelope of what is linguistically possible, the child has leeway to choose his or her personal avenue to the mother tongue. In the author's own words: "Children's styles or modes of accessing language show themselves to be incredibly different. How can this be explained on the basis of common mechanisms?" Two-hundred-odd pages of clear prose built on an enviable expertise make it very clear that this is not a rhetorical question' [From a review by Massimo Piatelli-Palmarini, Nature, 400:829-30, 26 August 1999] Amazon back |
| Hill, Raymond, A First Course in Coding Theory, Oxford University Press, USA 1990 Amazon Editorial Reviews Book Description: 'Algebraic coding theory is a new and rapidly developing subject, popular for its many practical applications and for its fascinatingly rich mathematical structure. This book provides an elementary yet rigorous introduction to the theory of error-correcting codes. Based on courses given by the author over several years to advanced undergraduates and first-year graduated students, this guide includes a large number of exercises, all with solutions, making the book highly suitable for individual study. Amazon back |
| Pagels, Heinz R, The Cosmic Code: Quantum Physics as the Language of Nature, Michael Joseph 1983 Jacket: 'Pagels provides an overview of quantum physics and traces the historical development of the science, which began with the ancient Greek concepts of the "atom".' Amazon back |
| Savitch, Walter J, and Emmon Bach, William Marsh, Gila Safran-Naveh (editors), The Formal Complexity of Natural Language, D Reidl 1987 Introduction: 'While the mathematical questions involved in defining context-free grammars and languages may have deterred some readers from looking closely at the question of whether natural language is context-free, we believe that the mathematical results needed can be covered rather quickly and that the more subtle and interesting questions are those concerned with how mathematics meshes with natural language as phenomenon and with linguistics as a discipline.' (ix) Amazon back |
Links
| Unesco World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology Ethics: UNESCO SHS 'The current revolution in science and technology has led to concern that unbridled scientific progress is not always ethically acceptable. Reflecting this concern, UNESCO has made ethics of science and technology one of its five priority areas. UNESCO's programme in this area addresses bioethics, particularly regarding genetics, as well as other forms of applied ethics. It aims to strengthen the ethical link between scientific advancement and the cultural, legal, philosophical and religious context in which it occurs. UNESCO's strategy in this area is to act as a standard-setter on emerging ethical issues, to disseminate information and knowledge and to help Member States build their human and institutional capacities.' back |
| Knowledge - Wikipedia Knowledge - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'Knowledge is defined (Oxford English Dictionary) variously as (i) expertise, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject, (ii) what is known in a particular field or in total; facts and information or (iii) awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation. Philosophical debates in general start with Plato's formulation of knowledge as "justified true belief". There is however no single agreed definition of knowledge presently, nor any prospect of one, and there remain numerous competing theories' back |
| Symmetry - Wikipedia Symmetry - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'Symmetry in common usage generally conveys two primary meanings. The first is an imprecise sense of harmonious or aesthetically-pleasing proportionality and balance; such that it reflects beauty or perfection. The second meaning is a precise and well-defined concept of balance or "patterned self-similarity" that can be demonstrated or proved according to the rules of a formal system: by geometry, through physics or otherwise' back |
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