The Race Between Knowledge And Wisdom

No knowledge doesn't seem likely to happen, given we already have a big pile of it. I'm sure none of wish to return to the cave man era.

The question seems to be, how much knowledge/power can we handle?

It seems likely we can handle some more knowledge, so we're not suggesting an end of science. But how much more knowledge? And how fast?

As example....

Imagine that some fundamental breakthrough, perhaps revolutionary new computer technology, resulted in science being able to race ahead 100x faster than it is now.

Should we celebrate? Or freak out?

Right now the assumption seems to be that more knowledge is better, and the faster we get it the better. Is that still true? And what are the limits to this "more is better" way of looking at knowledge?

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

I just want to add:

Ignorance is on a sliding scale with knowledge, and foolishness is on a sliding scale with wisdom.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Being human means we survive by knowledge instead of instinct, for the most part. The question 'is more knowledge better?' is what has been asked for a long, long time. The answer has always been yes, and if one says no, it's likely to be similar to how people said no in the past, and most everyone would agree now that we would have been wrong to accept the no answer then. Moving forward is the best way. Even staying the same with no progress goes against what it means to be human in a very fundamental way.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Thanks for your replies Elite. Do you imagine any limit to how much science should learn, and/or how fast it should learn new things?

It seems we've always had to fight for each new scrap of info, and so it's natural we would have developed a "more is better" mindset. Does that equation change at some point?

What if progress could be defined as us learning how to control the development of knowledge, instead of it controlling us as it does now? Right now, we don't really know how to stop, even if we should decide we wanted to.

 

You're welcome, Nature-Guy. We can't stop because we don't know when that next asteroid is coming or the next deadly plague will strike. A harsh universe always seems to be a step ahead of us and we stumble along to keep up.

In fact, we are on the verge of a precipice right now. Depleting fossil fuels have gotten us to where we are, the arable land is getting consumed by crop harvesting, and the climate is rapidly changing because of what we've done. We are basically in a world of hurt if we put the brakes on knowledge gain now because of these dire problems that need solving. And if we control the discovery of knowledge, that reminds of thought control in a way. --Elte

 

Gaining knowledge is done internally in one's brain through ideas, and the sharing of those ideas is the transfer of those ideas from one brain to another.

If you wish to stop that process I think what you are describing is death.

 

Hmm..

Well I think that knowledge has out stripped wisdom by a long way

Wisdom is the contemplation upon knowledge gained

We are in a society that goes quickly , from knowledge to application of a said knowledge , without contemplation

Hence we only learn by disasters , for example the Japanese nuclear disaster

Why would you build a nuclear reactor very close to a geologic active spot ? It makes no sense

The distance between wisdom and knowledge is so great that wisdom has become secondary to seeing the consequences of really everything that we invent and build

I know there are monetary considerations to what we do , fair enough , but wisdom ( thinking upon ) should be brought closer to the forefront on decisions made

Its time to have more forethought into the implications of our actions and inventions and science and religions

We are capable of being wise enough , just not capable of slowing down enough in the application of advanced knowledge

 

Is it ? Go figure. Nature had it wrong all these millions of years.

Which times were those ? The time of Plato and Pythagoras ? The Egyprians ? Babylonians ? Sumarians ?

For 40 years, huh ? Some thread, that.

 

No, Nature had it right, it made an extraordinary organism with the ability to control nature where it could not otherwise adapt, allowing us to spread and upset the natural functions of Nature at a large scale. But Nature does not take kindly to such careless mistakes. You respect Nature or you die, not Nature.

 

But it could be argued that being part of nature, we ARE nature, and everything we do (including the worst form of pollution, war, pillage, etc) is totally natural.

As will be the consequence of it.

 

Let us live every country to themselves, Le us not treating Israel with kids gloves , If they bring problem upon themselves so be it . Otherwise they hide themselves behind big brother . Jimmy Carter brought the Palestinian and the Israeli closer, even Buba Clinton kept the on a closer leash. , When Jr come into power he let the Israeli loos so we got 911.
We don't have to be the policeman for the world . We should fix our own house before we tell every body on how to have a democratic government , we don't have it.

 

I believe we have more knowledge then we need . There is a large amount of information in industry were is not published and nothing is done with the information . Are we better now with our great computers and telephone gadgets then we were in 1980 , perhaps we are more entertained , but the down economy in 2010 shoved that we are not , just look on the forclosure.

 

Lakon,

go away please troll.

Write4U,

if nature got it right, why did we want to advance beyond hunting and gathering and fight against nature with so much like medicine, farming, and shelter? Is suffering really getting it right?

 

What does have to do with wisdom , the designer yws but nature ? nature is a product

 

In the end we are part of nature and there is absolutely no guarantee of survival. But humans have a unique ability and that is the abiliy to predict and anticipate. We will have attained wisdom when we resolve to use our technological advances to act responsibly in view of anticipated high probability disasters which are generally accepted as future (near) certainties.

 

IMO, it is an evolutionary near certainty, once neural networks became part of the DNA structure. We did advance because we could and it did make life easier and allowed us to settle the entire globe, which few larger species can claim. A self reinforcing motive for improved skills and tools to cope with an ever changing environment, from the North Pole to the Southern tip of Africa.

As Hellstrom said: there are two species on the increase, one is man because he can alter his environment and the second is the insect which can adapt to anything man or nature can throw at it.
We are physically not nearly as strong as an insect, but we have a fused chromosome which allowed our brain to expand surface area without increasing skull size and which allowed us sophisticated mirror neural responses for observation and learning.

Why does a crab discard one shell and search for a new one to live in? Even a crab seeks comfort in a bigger house. It is a neural response to stimulus. We try to avoid that which is unpleasant and seek comfort in something that is pleasant.

Why do we practise useless hobbies? It satisfies an evolutionary survival urge in a creative way rather than as hunter/gatherer, though we have managed to invent some pretty monstrous weapons in our quest for (perfection) power.

 

What did you find trollish about my post/s here ?

 

I saw snobbishness and snark on your part when I wasn't trying to treat you in a bad way. So, I might have enjoyed answering if questions had been asked in good faith. For example, the second part of your post is a line of trick questions directed at a strawman I saw you make, which I might even have liked to answer if it had not been framed so. That kind of stuff degrades the information that gets presented and discourages logical thought required for the best information possible to be posted. It's basically a cheap shot at getting the upper hand or "winning" without benefiting the reader. I wish you well, but please put me on your ignore list if you're not going to do better when answering my posts.

 

I think we are each using perspectives from different angles. Yours would see the mechanism of evolution as a functional and practical process while mine would look at it from a perspective of trying to make our lives more and more acceptable to us. Yours would be more a third person view while mine would be more from the first person.

Hellstrom's observation is pretty neat sounding.

On that last thing, I recall hearing something like that about hobbies, specifically in regards to collecting things like sea shells, small stones, or bottle caps.

 

I have no idea what you are talking about. Refer back to my post 28; I responded to certain points of yours which I thought were naive .. though don't get insulted by my use of that term - nothing wrong with naive - I'm sure I'm that sometimes.

But it was incumbant on you to back them up, which you didn't but cried troll. I think you've mistaken brevity for snobbishness.