Talk:Knowledge/Archive 1

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

Proof

Belief is defined as a "confidence in the truth of something, without subjecting it to rigorous proof." In other words, it is a subjective supposition. For example, "I think you are an idiot" is a statement of belief. Given the assertion here that "knowledge = belief," it would also be defined as a statement of knowledge. Hmmm. Danny

I was taking my lead from the "what this article is not" section of propositional knowledge... but yeah, hmm... :-/ Martin
The problem seems to be a faulty assumption that knowledge = truth. If we eliminate that and begin with a reverse definition of knowledge as "confidence in the truth of something, after subjecting it to rigorous proof," the question is then "what constitutes proof?" Standards of proof have changed historically, as have, as a result, our standards for what constitutes knowledge. For example, most people no longer accept as proof that Aristotle wrote it in a book or that it appears in the Bible. At another time, historically, that may have been considered sufficient proof for the validity of an assertion. (Of course, a problem remains--who determines standards of proof--but that is a question of POV.) Danny
Look up proof in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
On the contrary, it is not a matter of opinion, what qualifies as proof is not point of view (in other words, bias), proof is a well-defined term meaning the cogency of evidence that compels acceptance of a statement, or the process of establishing the validity of a statement by derivation from other statements in accordance with principles of reasoning. See any reputable dictionary. That is what the term, 'proof' means. Statements like, "Aristotle wrote it" or "The Bible says so" just do not qualify as proof because there is nothing compelling acceptance of the statements, and neither is either statement derived frorm other statements in accordance with principles of reasoning. --207.200.116.198 17:43, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
But see the Regress argument Banno 21:25, July 26, 2005 (UTC)
Unfortunately the Wiktionary does not qualify as a good dictionary if people such as 67.182.157.6 are editing it to support their arguments. Quoting a dictionary definition you wrote yourself is not going to help. Try an actual good dictionary, such as the OED (OED 2nd ed, proof,n. B.1.a): That which makes good or proves a statement; evidence sufficient (or contributing) to establish a fact or produce belief in the certainty of something.
Rotem Dan's criticism of philosophy removed at his request

Why should it be a disambiguation page? There is no ambiguity for Knowledge like for Mercury. I think it should be introductory to the various form of knowledge or redirected to Knowledge (philosophy). --Ann O'nyme 03:58, 30 Aug 2003 (UTC)

That is what I used to think, but this caused a huge flame war. A very small number of people began turning the "Knowledge" article into a treatise about sexuality, sexism, politics, environmental ethics, etc. Our discussions about "knowledge" were attacked as censorship, because the article wasn't discussing what they wanted it to discuss. The Wikipedia community gave in to this pressure, and allowed them to redefine what the word "Knowledge" means. The same thing is also currently happening in the ethics article. It is shameful that people with no background in philosophy are letting themselves be tarred as bigots and censors, when in fact they are not. RK 23:24, 31 Aug 2003 (UTC)
This article wasn't meant to be a pure disambiguation page. However, neither should it be a duplicate of knowledge (philosophy), as the current "overview" section appears to, to some extent. Rather it needs to discuss knowledge from the most general perspective possible.
This is difficult, so I expect this page to remain a stub for some time. Also, Procedural knowledge is currently empty. Martin 15:28, 30 Aug 2003 (UTC)

All the material we have here on to acquire knowledge already is discussed in the propositional knowledge article. I have thus moved the text on this subject from here to there; actually, very little needed to be moved, since what was here was a near carbon-copy of what was there anyways. RK 01:42, 31 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I have reverted Fred Bauder's universal rewrite of this entire article to push his POV. I find it ridiculous that Fred claims to have "restored" material, when that same material was never removed from Wikipedia in the first place. It simply is another (related) article; an article that is appropriate for that specific content. RK 23:00, 31 Aug 2003 (UTC)

People need to read the comments on the Talk page and in the Summary edit lines. All the recent changes made here were described and justified. As stated above, one problem with the previous version of this page was that it was a repeat of what already existed in the other Knowledge articles. (We made a number of new knowledge articles to avoid this problem. Let us not recreate the problem we originally had months ago!) If you have a specific problem, mention it here and we will work it out together. RK 22:58, 31 Aug 2003 (UTC)

re: People need to read the... Summary edit lines. - I disagree. Angela 23:03, 31 Aug 2003 (UTC)


I miss the point that when defining knowledge no distinction is made between knowledge as it is in the head and as it is coded in writing, for instance.

The content of whatever is written down to be shared as knowledge will largely depend on the knowledge of the next person to read/gather such knowledge, a very important consideration in detailing our knowledge of knowledge further.

Of knowledge of languages for instance, more specifially, of knowledge of words, just a single word, one can list a number of deliverables that prove that knowledge exists, is displayed by someone For example, if you know a word, then you can off-hand say/write its definition pronounciation/spelling grammatical classification synonyms/antonyms collocations connotations, the word one level up/down in a hierarchy of words/terms/concepts and many other things that unnoticedly change the object of reference from the word itself to the thing denoted by that word.... Hence knowledge is synonymous with data, except that whereas you have established procedures for processing numbers, you have less sophisticated and fewer means for processing words/texts, representing knowledge.... But you do have language technology, a branch developing along those lines, just as economic intelligence, and spying/poking on the net by people/organisations that can afford it. Incidentally, they are professionaly dedicated to paranoia and look for knowledge that may threaten them. After all this you may want to define what meaning and context is in these pages and will not be suprised to learn that Microsoft has commissioned Mr C. Simonyi to run a software R&D company in Hungary to study how to identify/extract meaning (intent) from communications on the net. Apogr 11:06, 9 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Simply say: Information and experience brings you knowledge.

Anything writen is simply information. The experience cannot be put on paper, just the leassons, you will never , ever learn to ride a bike by reading all the books about it.

Huge see also list!

Does anyone else thing to see also list is getting a little out of hand? --Ryguasu 03:02, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Cleaned up. I don't know how it got that way, looks like a crazed bot. Several entries were repeated many times. --Kzollman 06:42, May 16, 2005 (UTC)

dis is the most borinest homework i ave ever done lol how is every1

knowledge(philosophy)merge

I have moved all the material that was at Knowledge (philosophy) to here. I then edited it to remove much that is reproduced elsewhere. Please reinstate anything you think is needed.

That merge was the stupidest thing you could have done, the two were separated to avoid EXACTLY the kind of problems that follow. knowledge is a homonym, accept it. The merge has resulted in absolute garbage like THIS being left in:
"Aspects of knowledge exhibit a social character. For instance, Knowledge is a form of social capital. Sociology of Knowledge examines the way in which Society and Knowledge interact."

A priori and a posteriori merge/section removal

I removed the section on inferential vs factual knowledge. I believe that this section is refering to the a priori vs. a posteriori distinction. I have replaced this entry with the old entry entitled A priori and a posteriori knowledge. I have copied the old section here if anyone wants to put it back

Knowledge may be factual or inferential. Factual knowledge is based on direct observation. It is still not free of uncertainty, as errors of observation or interpretation may occur, and any sense can be deceived by illusions.
Inferential knowledge is based on reasoning from facts or from other inferential knowledge such as a theory. Such knowledge may or may not be verifiable by observation or testing. For example, all knowledge of the atom is inferential knowledge. The distinction between factual knowledge and inferential knowledge has been explored by the discipline of general semantics.

--Kzollman 20:15, May 15, 2005 (UTC)

announcing policy proposal of general interest

This is just to inform people that I want Wikipedia to accept a general policy that BC and AD represent a Christian Point of View and should be used only when they are appropriate, that is, in the context of expressing or providing an account of a Christian point of view. In other contexts, I argue that they violate our NPOV policy and we should use BCE and CE instead. See Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/BCE-CE Debate for the detailed proposal. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:55, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Category:Belief?

"A common definition of knowledge is that it consists of justified true belief." The statement after this seems to imply that all knowledge is belief so why not put Category:Knowledge under Category:Belief? Brianjd | Why restrict HTML? | 14:08, 2005 Jun 3 (UTC)

That would be somewhat misleading. Knowledge is not the same as belief, since it must also be (at the least) justified and true. Banno 08:17, July 10, 2005 (UTC)
They don't have to be the same - all we need is for knowledge to be a subset of belief (Category:Algebra is under Category:Mathematics but noone would claim that they are the same thing).

True, but knowledge is more important and more interesting than belief, and I would argue that it should have a higher position on the hierarchy. Think of it from the point of view of a potential user looking for "knowledge" - would they think to look in "belief"? I think not, and so I think this categorization inappropriate. Banno 09:24, July 11, 2005 (UTC)

Category:Knowledge is not on the main page and is currently only under Category:Fundamental. Putting it under Category:Belief and something else if necessary (to make it easier to find, we could leave it in Category:Fundamental, but I don't think it belongs there) would be better than what we have now.

Knowledge is definitely not "a subset of belief," as the sophistry of the obscurantists would have it. What an odd notion! The two are entirely different things. The fallacy of conflation of knowledge and belief, two different things, has no place in a modern encyclopedia, the attempts of the obscurantists to have it engraved in stone here notwithstanding. --207.200.116.198 03:57, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Knowledge is definitely not "a subset of belief" - no argument presented, not cogent point made. Consider, do you know things that you don't believe? How could that make sense? But you might believe things that you don't know. So the set of things you believe includes those things you know.
I guess the misunderstanding here is that belief is sometimes mistakenly thought to exclude justification, as if to believe was to hold something to be true without justification. Probably from too much Sunday School. Banno 12:01, July 26, 2005 (UTC)
If the 'fallacy' of conflation of knowledge and belief is common and/or accepted, it deserves mention in an encyclopedia article regardless of whether it is correct or not. Writing a paragraph about why this conflation is a fallacy would be useful. Simply deleting things you disagree with/believe to be wrong is unacceptable. WhiteC 04:06, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
But provide a citation. That might be an interesting challenge. Banno 12:01, July 26, 2005 (UTC)
If it's such an "odd notion", why not change it? The category still contains the ("common") definition of "justified true belief". Brianjd | Why restrict HTML? | 05:38, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Section deleted

Section asserting that knowledge is justified true belief deleted this date because it entails a conflation of knowledge and belief, two different things. Belief without it being evident that a given statement is true is religious faith, but for a statement to qualify as known to be true (to qualify as knowledge) there must be proof, where proof is the cogency of evidence that compels acceptance of a truth, or the process of establishing the validity of a statement by derivation from other statements in accordance with principles of reasoning. -- 67.182.157.6 19:26, 21 July 2005 (UTC)


Plato's theory of knowledge is by far the most important in philosophy; and it does not conflate knowledge and belief but carefully distinguishes them; showing that knowledge is a sub-set of belief. Banno 20:50, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
See talk:truth for other edits by .6 - Such extraordinary behaviour may need to go to arbitration. Banno 21:04, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

So in the same breath you are saying that knowledge is belief, but knowledge is not belief? You are contradicting yourself all over the place, Mr. Banno. Gettier's counterexamples show that belief has nothing to do with knowledge, they are two completely different things, moron. Study up.--67.182.157.6 15:34, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Full agreement with Banno. I feel that .6's edits constitute vandalism, largely because of the amount of deletions, and have reverted to the previous version of this article. WhiteC 19:07, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
.6 has been by Epistemology today. I reverted the edits and added a note to the talk page encouraging .6 to take up discussion here. --Kzollman 00:06, July 26, 2005 (UTC)
Actually, it was a different ip address that seems to have made some good edits in the past, but the same MO removing the section on Plato and complaning of conflation of knowledge and belief. --Kzollman 00:09, July 26, 2005 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Sock puppet#Circumventing policy. Banno 12:05, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

Systematic-summarizing Approach

Knowledge is a temporaly true state variable and a self-referable process. The definition of knowledge is already changing itself, because it gets a component of this knowledge. Its an information, which is impregnated with context based on experience. Information is a component of data, which caused a difference to an observer because of its observer-specific relevance. Data is something, that can be observed, but does not need to be.

I removed this section - the only Goggle entries on it derive from this page; could the author provide some references to show that the is not original research or vanity? Thanks. Banno 20:54, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

You didn't search well. Its a summary of lots of definitions. So you have to adapt your search to prove the facts included here. Multiple referencies follow if you type "knowledge data information" in google, i.e.: [1] or [2] or "knowledge is a process". Do not remove it until you are sure, that it is not true! I've a section in my user discussion page for this too. User_talk:Wissenslogistiker --Wissenslogistiker 21:59, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
Neither of the references you provide refer to "Systematic-summarising Approach". My problem remains - is the term your own? if so, it should be replaced by something a bit more widely used. if it is not, can you provide a reference for the term being used? Frankly, if I search for a key term and don;t find it, I think that the key term is not a key term. Banno 22:39, July 23, 2005 (UTC)
Ok, I understood your point. :-) Yes, this term in the subtitle is my own, if anyone has a better one, feel free to change it. But please inform me, so i can prove it. The aim should be to find a term which describes that this approach is system-based and a summary of other definitions to give the reader a brief definition and not pages to read. It has also a logistics point of view included. Wissenslogistiker 14:11, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

I have seen similar material to the stuff you have written and referred to in KM articles, so perhaps something like my edits are OK? Personally I think there are profound problems with the systems approach, and it might be interesting to explore them here. Banno 21:15, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

No personal attacks. Comment on content, not on the contributor.

Look up ad hominem in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Commenting on the contributor, personal attack, is argument ad hominem. See Wictionary.

And don't try to argue, "She/He started it." That is ad hominem tu quoque. Two wrongs do not make a right. Set a good example and just remind the alleged miscreant of the policy: No personal attacks. Comment on content, not on the contributor.

This is not rocket science.

Look up rocket science in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

miss-use

One miss-use of "knowledge" sees it as juxtaposed to "belief". Some consideration will show this to be a misunderstanding, since it is clearly absurd to suppose that we know something to be the case yet do not believe it to be the case. At the least, the things we know form a sub-set of the things we believe.

This is an attempt to voice the opinion of the anon in a way that makes sense. Consider it as "writing for the enemy" on my part. Please discuss it here. Banno 21:49, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

It's not a very clear expression (what does "sees it as juxtaposed to belief" mean?). It's a blanket statement. It's one person's opinion. It states something to be "clearly absurd", but then you go on to say the opposite. I'm going to remove it again. MickWest 21:59, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
I'm sorry you misunderstood the argument. When time permits, I'll have another go. Thanks for providing a comment to explain your edits. Banno 22:03, July 26, 2005 (UTC)
I partially retract the statement about "clearly absurd", my logic was mixed up. But either way, it does not clarify the point. I think you were trying to say it's a mistake to EQUATE belief and knowledge, yet that's a common debate in pholosophy, and you can't just say it's "clearly absurd". A full reading of the whole article gives enough context on the various viewpoints on the distinction between the words/concepts "belief" and "knowledge". You can't add statements like "Some consideration will show this to be a misunderstanding", to a philosophical article which is essentially an exposition of the terms of debate. There is contention and different viewpoints on the usages of the words, and you can't simply claim there is not, nor that the answer is clear. MickWest 22:11, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
So, in what way would you explain the misunderstanding expressed by the anons on this page? Banno 05:31, July 27, 2005 (UTC)

I was indeed not attempting to say that it is a mistake to equate knowledge and belief, but that it is a mistake to juxtapose them. I take the comments and edits by the anon 207.200.116.132 as indicating that he thinks the JTB account states that knowledge and belief are the same thing - that it conflates them. it doesn't, it says that the statements we know to be correct form a sub-set of the statements we believe; The most direct way to argue this case seems to me to be to point out the contradiction inherent in saying that you know something yet do not believe it. Unfortunately a "full reading of the whole article" appears to have left the anon with a misapprehension. I should point out that user:207.200.116.198 may be yet another sock puppet for user:67.182.157.6, author of some comments above, and that there is an RfC for him - Wikipedia:Requests for comment/DotSix to which I am a signatory. So, while I think that the article needs some re-working, I will not attempt to do so for now because I suspect it would result in a revert war. Banno 10:10, July 27, 2005 (UTC)

Banno, I generally agree with sentiment regarding DotSix on the RfC page. But the issue here was with the paragraph. I deleted it because it was confusing and unnecessary. Most people take "juxtapose" to mean something like "compare and contrast, especially by placing side by side" (or they don't understand the word at all). So your initial statement seems to make no sense. Then it reads like you are setting out a proof that knowledge must be (at least) a subset of belief. Yet your argument is circular, as to agreed with the absurdity of knowing things you do not believe, you need to agree on what it means to "know" something. Yet, we agree that the definitions are varied and contentious. One could also come up with a weak counter example ("I know it is safer to fly than drive, yet I don't believe it").
But you ask how I would explain the misunderstanding. I'm not sure it needs explaining, in that the misunderstanding is not of a simple debatable concept ("knowledge is a subset of belief"), but rather a totally misunderstanding of the problem of philosophy in general, and specifically epistemology. To explain the misunderstanding would be to explain epistemology. MickWest 17:17, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Hmm. An interesting point - I'll drop the word "juxtapose", I guess, although it is the proper word in the context. I failed to understand your point that the argument is circular. I certainly do not think that it is absurd to claim to know something.

You are quite right that the misunderstanding cuts very deep. That is why I think it important that it be explained away in the article. We are attempting to explain epistemology, aren't we? Banno 21:14, July 27, 2005 (UTC)

Overlap with Epistemology, merge?

This page is a bit of a mess. I think the majority of it should be merged with Epistemology and probably Gettier problem. I feel that knowledge should be more of a disambiguation page, perhaps with short sections on the various definition and usages, and links to relevent articles. When you start trying to expound on what knowledge is, you automatically fall into the realm of epistemology, and should be editing in there. MickWest 17:50, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

I think Knowledge and Epistemology should be merged but Gettier problem has enough to warrant its own article. Epistemology has a section on the definition of "knowledge". Brianjd | Why restrict HTML? | 07:50, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't think they should be merged. This article needs work, but there is more to knowledge than just the philosophical perspective of epistemology. Distinguishing knowing that from knowing how is relevant to management and KM; Sociology of knowledge should have a place inthe article; and the KM section needs development (as do all the KM articles) - leave it a separate, closely related item. Banno 08:25, July 31, 2005 (UTC)

But, after thinking about it, I've moved two sections to epistemology with the view to seeing if they work better there than here. The idea is to separate out the philosophical implications and place them on one page, leaving this page for less- or non- philosophical uses. Good, Bad, or just Ugly? Let me know. Banno 21:22, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

Aristotle the empiricist?

Hi - I reverted an edit which added the parenthetical remarks in this sentence:

One of the fundamental questions in epistemology is whether there is any non-trivial a priori knowledge. Generally speaking rationalists (platonics) believe that there is, while empiricists (aristotelians) believe that all knowledge is ultimately derived from some kind of external experience.

I don't think the empiricists are appropriately considered aristotelians. I'm not sure all rationalists where "platonics" and I also think the proper term is "platonist" not "platonics." Anyway, I think that the parenthetical remarks introduce uneeded confusion into the sentence. This matter should probably be discussed on continental rationalism and empiricism. --best, kevin ···Kzollman | Talk··· 06:34, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

Banno, your opening statement, using terms like 'awareness', and 'information' reveals your cognitive bias

See Cognitivism (psychology)

Principle: Neutral Point of View (NPOV) 1) With respect to controversial topics Wikipedia:Neutral point of view requires that all significant points of view regarding a topic be fairly presented. [3]

Your lead statement, using terms like 'awareness', and 'information' reveals a bias towards Cognitivism (psychology), which is contrary to the principle that Wikipedia should be written from a neutral point of view, so that all significant points of view regarding a topic are fairly presented. How long will you continue to ignore this principle? --67.182.157.6 19:23, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

What garbage. Any mention of "awareness" or "information" implies a "bias towards" a particular theory of psychology? That's hardly what NPOV means. There is probably no serious investigator of any theory of knowledge who does NOT accept modern cognitive science as the basis for looking at knowledge. Anyway the article does not have sections on "Biblical knowledge" and such stuff in it, and those are also valid points of view to major audiences.

The Wikification of Knowledge

The Wikification of Knowledge [4]

by John C. Dvorak

PC

ARTICLE DATE: 07.11.05

Excerpt:

"To understand some of the basics of the wiki concept you have to read the entry in the Wikipedia on the consensus theory of truth—a very odd idea."

--67.182.157.6 19:45, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Knowledge (Info Science / Knowledge Management)

Hi There. Knowledge is a key concept in the fields of Information Science and Knowledge Management (see DIKW). And there's nothing philosophical about how it's used there. So can you please sort out whatever the hell you're arguing about so that we can unlock this page and get that in there.

The article used to be separate from knowledge (philosophy) which was the correct approach. A moron merged the two. That will have to be fixed again. You are quite right that actionable colloquial situated knowledge has nothing to do with the various confused abstract theories from Western scientific rationalism.

--- Actually, in Information Science, especially Artificial Intelligence, knowledge differs from data or information in that new knowledge (i.e. in a Knowledge Base) may be created from existing knowledge using logical inference. The Knowledge Management take on knowledge is quite different, where knowledge has more to do with belief. Perhaps we should accept that 'knowledge' is a homonym.

-Eric.

That was exactly why knowledge and knowledge (philosophy) were separated.

---

Just briefly reading over the comments here, it sounds like a lot of philosophical dickering. That's interesting (really) but you're getting in the way! Move! Sbwoodside 06:28, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Dickering, somewhat, but certainly not philosophical. Banno 07:19, August 25, 2005 (UTC)
Ahh got it. Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/DotSix/Evidence ... when you manage to lock him out drop me a line good luck :) Sbwoodside 07:46, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Well, it shouldn't be long now. The direction you suggest is I think entirely appropriate - with this article containing a lead into and link to epistemology, and more material from Info Science and KM - although I think the KM article itself rather poor. Banno 08:05, August 25, 2005 (UTC)
Hi, I second this request. Philosophy is getting in the way, and preventing us from really understanding, because they lack practice, the key ingredient to knowledge. Knowledge should be taken out from the project, it is a simple word, with a really simple meaning. The problem is you think too much, and do not practice it. In IT we are learning that is information combined with experience. You can visit a "book" I am creating with this simple theory and practice with a lot of lessons from the experience of dealing with it. I will post it soon.

Don't pay any attention to Banno's lame argument _ad hominem_

Don't pay any attention to Banno's lame argument _ad hominem_. Banno is just bitter because I had the timerity to question his odd notion that knowledge is belief, a notion that was taken out by Gettier's counterexamples.--67.182.157.6 19:16, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Things to do when the page is unlocked...

  1. re-write of intro (that is always fun) so that it reflects the content of the article
  2. Remove section "adoption of knowledge"?
  3. add stuff about and link to Information science contact user:Sbwoodside

Anything else? Banno 00:12, August 28, 2005 (UTC)

I just rewrote the intro, so I think that part at least is all good for now. Sbwoodside 07:09, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Sociology/Adoption of knowledge

These sections sound like the same thing. Brianjd | Why restrict HTML? | 09:52, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Good idea - done. Banno 23:26, September 3, 2005 (UTC)

Dot Six temporary injunction

For those that missed it:

DotSix, using any IP is prohibited from editing any Wikipedia page other than his talk page and the pages of this Arbitration case until a final decision is made in this case. [5]

As I understand it, if he edits here again, we report it to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents to have him blocked; add a link to the diff of the arbitration decision 9as above) by way of explanation. Banno 11:26, August 29, 2005 (UTC)


User 209.191.143.129 contributions

This concerns your additions to knowledge. Wikipedia does encourage contributions from everyone, but they must be written in a tone that is suitable for this site. Quotes such as "Not True... KM is useless" do not belong on the page. Why don't you look at the Welcome page to get a feel for the style of the site? Feel free to send me a message on my talk page. Cheers. --PhilipO 18:30, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

By the way, if you do feel there are problems with the article, you can discuss them here. That way everyone can agree to the changes and they won't be reverted by other editors. Cheers. --PhilipO 18:36, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
Hi, thanks for the notice. I love wikipedia. I think is great. But I think you lost the true meaning of a Wiki. I think you can not grasp the meaning of anything until you PRACTICE IT. What I mean is you'll understand a lot better something when you learn a theory and then practice it. All that is writen here in my mind is pure blablabla. There is nothing practical about it. There is no simplicity. Less is More many people say. Stop bluffing and stop trying to control knowledge. You can't, and you will probably learn the hard way. Maybe someday someone will take Wikipedia to a new level, where true collaboration is encouraged. “Leaders can no longer keep information under lock and key, nor should they: Networks are faster and more productive than hierarchies.” Business 2.0. You are fooling yourselves. I am writing about all I have to say, I am just letting you know from now that this(Controlling) won't work. As Devorak says, self indulgence and individualism takes you nowhere. I was trying to share my experience, but you basically shut it off and pretend to run it through a "filter". The "filter" of what? Histor? Philosophy? 2000 years and still figuring it out. Maybe you'll spend the next 2000 explaining why nothing works.

Simply say: Information and experience brings you knowledge.

Anything writen is simply information. The experience cannot be put on paper, just the leassons, you will never (ever) learn how to ride a bike by reading all the books about it.

Welcome to the Wiki. I'm glad yo like it. A few things you should know. Firstly, you sign talk posts by writing "~~~~ at the end of your comment. Please do so. Secondly, there is a rule about reverting an article to a previous version more than three times in a day. See Wikipedia:Three revert rule. Third, your aim should be to adopt a Wikipedia:neutral point of view. In this article, this means giving reasonable representation to the range of perspectives on Knowledge. Finally, you would be well advised to create an account so that there are clear lines of communication. If you do, you will obtain much more support from other editors. And it makes editing easier. Banno 20:46, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Hi. Thanks for explaining the rules. Those rules are what I am questioning. There are no "perspectives" about knowledge. Either you understand or you don't. Is not only saying you are wrong, but it looks likely you will not learn about any thing beyond your perspectives. You see, life is simple, and any definition should be readable by a ten year old kid. That should be your rule. Making the word knowledge part of a philosophy or psicology is the problem, not the solution as we can see for the last couple of centuries. Nothing that explains in less than 10 words what is it. For now I like not signing, so that the ideas are debated and you do not enter in a character assasination mode, which is what we see a lot around. Is the ideas and collaboration that matter, not the background of the person. If you really want to make this work, there should be a voting system, where people vote for definitions and those are the ones that get publish, the current system does not promote real collaboration. You need to be part of the group, so that something called credibility can be created. As someone said, every ground breaking invention seemed to be made by a crazy guy for its time. Leonardo Davinci comes to mind, and many others. Someone was complaining that Wikipedia did not take into account "Experts", this is proof that it might not work either way. In this case, the people that have and are gaining a lot of EXPERIENCE dealing with information and practice are getting the boot. The area that deals with knowledge like anybody else is called INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY. Why? Just look at this site, and the Internet, and every digital place. If you want to practice, you need to learn how to deal with terabytes of information. Plato, Aristotele, had nothing like what we have today. I question your concepts, just trying to make you think and realize if there is something wrong with it. Nothing more. Have a good day.
Hello, also and welcome. I will try to argue about your points--although I disagree with some of them, that doesn't mean I think you are a bad person, or that I'm trying to insult you personally... (I put my signature at the bottom of the last paragraph I write here)
Regarding the general policy for editing articles, the idea is that there should be reasons for disagreement, not just voting on a yes/no basis. The theory is that this encourages more discussion and eventually a consensus will be reached, until there is another disagreement, so articles are continually evolving and never completely finished. You can find general information about how this works at Wikipedia, and the many links from there about editing.
Regarding making this easy to understand, I (personally) think the introductory paragraph gives a basic definition and describes the focus of the rest of the article and does this well. So the introduction contains the simple definition. Of course you may disagree with the slant of the article as a whole, so...
Regarding the body of this article... Perhaps there should be links to data and/or DIKW, possibly even information technology which deals with how to process information and generate knowledge (at least that is my take on it). If you think the term 'knowledge' has a different meaning in general, or in Information Technology in particular, and enough other people agree, then the article will evolve to include your point of view. WhiteC 03:58, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply, you see, the bad use of words is the reason why we cannot find easy solutions to the problems. One of the problems I see is using the word "Discussion". If you believe that this is what you need to come to an agreement then let me tell you that discussion comes from the Greek words percussion and concussion. A heaving of ideas where I try to persuade everybody that I am right, which is a Winner-takes-it-all approach, which in my mind is 100% ineffective. To really reach agreement, you need to DIALOGUE, check the meaning, where you actually start thinking together, not battling it out. Now, lets define a base for reasoning.

All our ideas should produce good and lasting results and then anything that is good NOW would have been good in the PAST and it will be good in the FUTURE and it will be good UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, so any idea that does not cover all this broad base IS NO GOOD. To be right, one's thought will have to be BASED ON NATURAL FACTS, for really, Mother Nature ONLY can tell what is right and what is wrong and the way that things should be. My definition of right is that right is anything in nature that exists without ARTIFICIAL MODIFICATION and all the others are wrong. Now suppose you would say it is wrong. In that case, I would say YOU are wrong yourself because you came into this world through natural circumstances that YOU HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH and so as long as such a thing exists as yourself, I am right and you are wrong. Only those are right whose thoughts are BASED on natural facts and inclinations. 209.191.143.129 13:14, 21 September 2005 (UTC)L.

I agree that we need dialog/dialogue. I was not aware of the word origin of 'discussion' or its combative connotations, so dialog is pretty much what I meant.
Regarding the second paragraph, I disagree entirely. But, since this is an encyclopedia article, that doesn't really matter. What matters, at least if you want your definition (or other contributions) to become part of an article, is whether your views are shared by any published experts, or represent a common view. Are your views important to people other than you, for the sake of defining knowledge? If not, they may remain important to you, but not to the encyclopedia, regardless of their objective correctness. If it is any consolation, I have many personal beliefs that won't make it into an article here, either. WhiteC 08:07, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for you answer.. I imagined you might respond something like that. Now I understand even more why humanity is helpless without a "higher intelligence" guiding us. That is a personal opinion not intended to be published. We seem not to be able to get to higher grounds on our own, and we cannot figure it out between our selves. You did not gave your reasons as to why you disagree or don't understand. When you say "Published Experts" what do you mean? Someone that read 2000 books and wrote articles about it in a famous magazine or book? Or spent thousands of hours "thinking" ? Or someone that dealt with millions of records (Pieces of information) trying to figure out how to create, organize, share, retrieve and had actual practice with knowledge? Or both? What exactly is your definition of Published expert? That I believe is the game and trap everybody falls into, including Wikipedia. Wikipedia was created so that THE people (you and me and millions more) could contribute, experts included, but what you are maybe implying is that a (2)"Published Expert" what ever that means has to ok my thoughts. In other words you may want to imply the experts desire to "control" knowledge or in this case what gets published. Remember this: KNOWLEDGE CANNOT BE CONTROLED. That is the exact reason why the voting system is needed. We elect our leaders by voting, why can't we vote for the definitions that make more sense to the majority of people? Nothing personal. Same old same old. You still seem not to understand what the Internet is all about. But I hope someday you do. Stay tuned if you are willing to learn something from this exchange. Thanks again for the dialogue. Really nice. 209.191.143.129
I think Wikipedia probably has a definition of 'published expert' or something similar on one of its pages about article standards. I would probably defer to that if there were a serious disagreement and neither side in a dialog could agree as to whether a particular source was valid or not. Wikipedians sometimes refer to 'original research' as a criteria for removing content--meaning that the content is not yet accepted by the mainstream, and therefore does not belong in this encyclopedia (although it could easily be put on someone's homepage or perhaps published somewhere else, even an academic journal). There was an interesting article called 'ontological guilt' that I was involved with a while ago, but since the term had very few uses, even on the internet, the article was judged not to belong in an encyclopedia. Nobody could agree what the term meant, or who apart from the article's author had used it to mean what. The article was deleted after some discussion, which unfortunately the article's creator chose not to participate in. (I thought it might be similar to angst, but couldn't find any definition, just a few hits on google).
If you disagree with any Wikipedia standards, you could discuss them on the talk page for the relevant standard (sorry, dialog isn't a verb yet :-) ). The reason I did not give my reasons for disagreement with your claim in this dialog is that they are irrelevant to the content of this particular article (knowledge), since your argument appears to be ONLY your personal opinions ('only' being the important word, not 'your'). And this talk page is about this article, and should really be limited to dialog about its contents.
If you want to continue this dialog, but move onto other topics than what should be in this particular article, feel free to drop by my talk page at User_talk:WhiteC. (That is another thing you get with membership and a user name--a space to put your own views if you can't put them anywhere else, and a talk page.)
WhiteC 07:32, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
 ::: Hi.. since I think is important to understand what logic means (See Math Logic) because as you know there is a relation between words (Thinking) and math. If you look closely, you will see that with words we can build a lie. With numbers... you can't!. How many interpretations of 1+1=2 can you come up with?. In Math Logic there is something called Negating an affirmation. So I found interesting to apply it to your suggestion "I disagree entirely". Here it is.

Negating the reasoning base..

  All our ideas  should NOT produce good  and  lasting  results  and  then 
  anything that is NOT good NOW would have been NOT good in  the  PAST  and it 
  will NOT be good   in   the  FUTURE  and  it  will NOT  be  good  UNDER  ANY 
  CIRCUMSTANCES, so any idea that DOES  cover all this broad base  IS  GOOD. 
  To be right, one's thought will NOT have to be BASED ON  NATURAL  FACTS, 
  for really, Mother  Nature  ONLY  can NOT tell what is NOT right and what is 
  NOT wrong and the way that things should NOT be. 
  My definition of right is that right  is  NOT anything in  nature  that 
  exists with ARTIFICIAL MODIFICATION and all the others are wrong. 
  Now suppose you would say it is NOT wrong.  In that case,  I  would  say 
  YOU are NOT wrong  yourself  because  you  DID NOT came  into this world through 
  natural circumstances that YOU HAD (NOTHING delete) EVERYTHING TO DO  WITH and so as long

as such a thing DOES NOT exists as yourself, I am NOT right and you are NOT wrong.

  Only those are NOT right whose thoughts are NOT BASED on natural  facts  and  inclinations.

It reads to me pretty much like the history of the world!. Now, most importantly I would like to have a MILLION people or more read this and vote.And THAT should be what WIDIPEDIA should publish if they(the owner) knew what the true purpose this site is for. It would MEAN as you putted "represent a common view". I wonder what the result would be. Last thing. What the heck is "accepted by the mainstream" ?.In my mind looks like what I just described. Thanks again.209.191.143.129 16:04, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

I meant that I disagreed with your general premise, not that I thought every single sentence you used to explain it was wrong according to boolean logic. If you wish to know why I disagreed with your general premise, please discuss it on my talk page. In my opinion, it has nothing to do with this article, and I am not going to discuss your individual beliefs here any more, except insofar as they relate to this article. WhiteC 22:03, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Alright, I put a few arguments about it on my talk page (sorry it took so long)... feel free to continue the dialog over there at User_talk:WhiteC. (I also put a few statements about the value of argument in general and the Socratic Method in particular on my user page.)

Removed content from knowledge managment

I removed this content:

Knowledge is always abstract, built up from the concrete upwards.

Data are facts. e.g. Telephone numbers in a telephone book. The list of densities of different materials. Data is the most concrete. You can print data.

Information is produced in response to a question asked on the data. e.g. Which is the longest name? How many names start with A? How many materials have a density greater than Iron? Information can be false. You can read information.

Knowledge is required to comprehend / understand the information. e.g. What is the meaning of density? Knowledge as it exists cannot be false. You cannot print or read knowledge; you have to Understand / Assimilate it.

Knowledge management in the corporate world seeks to record and make available experiential knowledge to Utilize the experience of One person to solve the problems of Another. Therefore, the Another does not have to repeat the experience to create the knowledge which the 'company' already has done once when One went through that experience.--Zhenn 08:46, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

== X ======= X ====

I'm not sure what this adds to the page and also it should be cited. As a note to the author, thank you for the contribution. For future reference, you should not sign content that's in a page and you don't need to add that mark for the end of your contribution. --best, kevin ···Kzollman | Talk··· 16:52, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Knowledge is Energy?

There is a view from information science that says exactly this and uses analogies to entropy. That section should be restored once knowledge (philosophy) is re-created to keep the absurd abstraction out of this article.

Knowledge is the state of understanding something and being capable to utilize the fact for doing something. Things we know can be facts, truths or information. Obtaining knowledge is called learning. This article looks at the philosophical study of knowledge, namely epistemology, and then at how knowledge is manipulated in organizations, and at the social character of knowledge.

Information is a word which has many different meanings in everyday usage and in specialized contexts, but as a rule, the concept is closely related to others such as data, instruction, knowledge, meaning, communication, representation, and mental stimulus.

Human beings are systems as

A system is an assemblage of inter-related elements comprising a unified whole. From the Latin and Greek, the term "system" meant to combine, to set up, to place together. A sub-system is a system which is part of another system. A system typically consists of components (or elements) which are connected together in order to facilitate the flow of information, matter or energy. The term is often used to describe a set of entities which interact, and for which a mathematical model can often be constructed

Energy is a fundamental quantity that every physical system possesses. Energy of physical system in a certain given state is defined as the amount of work (W) needed to change the state of the system from some initial position, known as the reference state or reference level, to a specific or final position.

Hence Why knowledge can't be defined as a measure of energy in a human system?

Situated knowledge

This is lacking a section on situated knowledge which is knowledge that can only be discovered, or only used, in a particular place. Quite unforgiveable.

This article now has such a section. Brian Jason Drake 06:25, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

new summary & rewrites

Hi I just rewrote the summary, more or less. I felt that the old summary had some problems, the first being the use of the horrible word "utilize" which is for me like a red flag in front of a bull. In addition, information is not really the same as knowledge, and the mention of truth and fact ignores others other things like belief and really belongs later on anyway (e.g. what kinds of knowledge are there?) or in the epistomology article. And finally the "this article looks at" construction isn't really appropriate for wikipedia.

Anyway, the only really substantive change is the addition of confidence -- it's a critical criteria for knowledge as compared to say information and seems like a good way to summarize all the qualifications from whatever epistemological side you happen to be on. Sbwoodside 06:14, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

I also just mowed the lawn in the Definition section, changed it to "Defining knowledge". Some of the material there seemed overly specific. I moved Skepticism to epistemology, and everything under Problem of justification seems to be already covered there better (including some of it word-for-word).

I think it would probably be worth creating a new section that discusses the Transmission of knowledge ... it could include links to learning, teaching, instruction, communication, representation, mental stimulus, rhetoric... the list goes on. Sbwoodside 06:54, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Who here knows?

Re The Article: Knowledge is the confident understanding of a subject, potentially with the ability to use it for a specific purpose.

Why do you think you are confident in your understanding, because you know it? Prove to me your understanding is worthy of confidence.

 I suggest to remove the paragraph:
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