The Answer is in the Question
Knowledge Sphere
Our global society has made incredible advances, but one could argue that we as a global society really don't understand the global mechanisms and interactions that fuel this advance. Using the analogy of a sphere of knowledge, I would like to help bring understanding to these global cooperative processes.
Consider the global intellect as a massive sphere containing the collective knowledge of society. The sphere is so massive that it is literally impossible for a single individual, or even a large group, to retain the whole. Such a massive entity demands cooperative efforts to manage it and advance it. The next step in the evolution of human thought is to realize that global sphere of human intellect operates and expands by simple, defined, and cooperative processes that can be optimized, even mechanized.
Imagine next billions of tiny spheres sporadically interacting with this larger sphere. These tiny spheres vary in size and represent the individual human intellect.
Individuals transfer knowledge from the sphere into their own intellect by the process of learning. Individuals transfer knowledge from themselves into the sphere via the process of knowledge creation.
Imagine that arrows indicate the direction of knowledge flow. In the process of learning an arrow points out from the sphere toward the individual learner. In the process of knowledge creation the arrow points into the sphere from the knowledge creator.
If you can imagine this massive sphere, surrounded by billions of tiny spheres, with billions of arrows pointing in and pointing out you now have a simplified image of the process of social advance.
But these billions of arrows in this image have another layer of complexity. Every single arrow represents a sub-process of recollection, expression through language, and retention by the recipient. Let's look at this concept in more detail.
Both learning and knowledge creation require a mechanism of transfer which we know as language. Knowledge is recalled, expressed using the vehicle of language and retained by memory in the recipient. If recollection, expression, language and memory are not in cooperation, this "arrow" sub-process breaks down.
Memory is the ability to retain knowledge at the individual, group, social, national and global (etc.) levels while recollection is the ability at each of these levels to extract knowledge remembered.
If we look at this process through the lens of learning, retained knowledge is recalled and expressed through language by the instructor. Expressed language is not truly learned unless it is comprehended and retained by the recipient, through memory.
Looking then through the lens of knowledge creation, knowledge is conceived by the knowledge creator, recalled and expressed to society and retained by society within this global knowledge sphere.
But an interesting dynamic occurs when created knowledge is retained by society. That society advances. Yes, it is this simple process of retaining new knowledge from individuals that constitutes the speed of advance by a society. A society cannot advance apart from individual knowledge creation. This simple process of knowledge creation is the pinnacle of social advance.
To illustrate how unaware we all are of this dynamic, think of the last time you yourself created knowledge, or your company, or your school, or your peers, etc. In our current paradigm, this process is largely seen as accidental. As such, our social advance is as random as the process itself. We might move quickly for a time and then slow to a crawl, unaware of our own stagnation.
Knowledge creation fuels science and technology. Knowledge creation fuels knowledge. Knowledge creation is the growth of the knowledge sphere. The outer surface of this knowledge sphere is planar and somewhat irregular.
Some areas are advancing faster than others and this creates a landscape effect on our sphere. This entire, irregular, planar surface is the 'cutting edge' of knowledge.
The cutting edge is the line between knowledge context (what we know) and knowledge advance. It is at the cutting edge that knowledge creation operates. Knowledge creation serves as bridge between the known and the unknown.
In basic graphic design, one learns that every image has a negative counterpart. If you draw a square on a blank sheet of paper and color it in, you create a negative space around that square from the white space on the page that remains. Anti-knowledge is the "white space" that surrounds the sphere. The realm of anti-knowledge is composed of an infinite amount of questions that must be "answered" by created knowledge.
Is the earth flat? At one time, this particular question was in the realm of anti-knowledge (unknown), but knowledge was created that answered this question and the social knowledge sphere expanded. Knowledge creation is the process that converts questions to knowledge. This process can be methodically improved. By improving this process, we improve the rate of social scientific and technological advance.
Theoretically, this process could be improved beyond our capacity to manage the knowledge that is created. With billions of interactions at any given moment, it is easy to see how such a paradigm can be constrained by factors like complexity, information overload, confusion, and even pure chaos. These factors are actually the warning signs that knowledge working is not a cooperative process. Let's look a little closer at each one.
- Complexity - Complexity can be both a positive and a negative factor. Knowledge is a complex hierarchical network. Because of its hierarchical nature, any complex concept can be simply expressed. For example, anti-knowledge has many deep complexities, but can be simply expressed as the realm of questions that are converted to knowledge by the process of knowledge creation.
- Information overload - Information overload occurs knowledge expression outstrips the ability of a society, group or individual intellect to process it.
- Confusion - Confusion is a group of prevailing questions. A question is a knowledge opportunity and confusion is a large knowledge opportunity. In a state of confusion, questions have overpowered the knowledge worker. The knowledge worker is rendered ineffective by this onslaught.
- Chaos - Chaos the result of out of control knowledge interactions in general. Questions have taken over. The process of knowledge creation is lost. The social knowledge base is fragmented and not cohesive and has duplication. Language is confused and conflicting.
Knowledge is ever-expanding and the trick is to retain logical structure of the "knowledge sphere" as it is advanced. The only way to keep this structure logical is to understand the logical processes that feed and manage it and to work cooperatively on these processes.
Learning, knowledge creation, recollection, language, expression, memory, and other knowledge interactions not mentioned in this article cooperate to create our future. Optimizing this cooperative process will bring social advance under control and make it predictable, reliable and fast.
In the information age we produced information in mass. In the next phase of human evolution we will completely understand this process of advance, bring this process under control, optimize it, expedite it, and even mechanize it. Imagine a world of social advance on demand through cooperative knowledge working. -- A world that can advance as quickly and as far as it desires...cooperatively.
Cooperative Knowledge Working
The concept of cooperative knowledge working is based on the realization that no one person works knowledge independent of the rest of society and, if social advance is to be optimized, all knowledge interactions need to occur cooperatively in a well-understood and role-based manner.
Four primary pillars contribute to intellectual advance in any society. These are:
- Knowledge structure – Knowledge itself. Knowledge is the structure of symbols and/or semantics chosen by a society.
- Knowledge interactions – The collective set of knowledge working tools/roles like knowledge creation or learning.
- Language – The chosen mechanism for knowledge structure transport.
- Anti-knowledge – The perceivable realm of questions in a cumulative sense. The unknown.
The dynamic interaction between these pillars is how a society builds knowledge. It would be impossible for that society to build knowledge if any one of these pillars were missing. It also frustrates the knowledge working process if any of these pillars become unclear or confused. Let’s look at each of these pillars in a little more detail, particularly the knowledge interactions pillar.
Pillar #1 – Knowledge Structure
Knowledge itself is structure. We could not possibly know without structure. Try to think of just one thing that you know that cannot be categorized or related to at least two other things you know. Everything can be categorized and related to other knowledge because knowledge is a single structure. Knowledge is one and not many.
Disciplines exist to break down and manage this one knowledge, but they can also serve as barriers to cooperative knowledge working.
If walls exist across societies, then separate structures emerge. For example, if one nation refuses to share intellectually with another nation, knowledge silos, or individual knowledge towers, are created. The same is true if one discipline refuses to share intellectually with another discipline, or one group with another group, or one person with another person. Silo thinking creates intellectual walls, but knowledge itself has no walls.
This can be better understood in the context of culture. Culture is “controlled growth within determined boundaries”—just as a bacteria culture would grow in a Petri dish. In the information age, cultural boundaries were national and disciplinary. In the now emerging age, the culture, or boundaries of controlled growth, is global and multidisciplinary. In essence, we now have a bigger Petri dish with more organisms introduced to it.
Pillar #2 – Knowledge Interactions
Knowledge interactions are the ways or tools we choose to use to cooperatively manage knowledge through the vehicle of language. Briefly, these include:
- - Knowledge storage—memory, recollection, and physical storage capacity
- - Learning
- - Ignorance
- - Knowledge creation
- - Instruction
- - Exposure
- - Compilation
- - Language design
- - Collaboration, sharing and connectivity
- - Expression and non-expression
- - Questions, anti-knowledge, and theory
Think of each of these knowledge interactions as tools in a toolbox. Imagine that learning is a screwdriver and that knowledge creation is a hammer. One wouldn't try to use a screwdriver to drive a nail, or a hammer to insert a screw. Yet, this is exactly what is happening in our world as it relates to knowledge working. The tools in the global toolbox have become confused and this confusion is flowing into our knowledge centers.
For example, knowledge creation is routinely confused with other knowledge interactions like learning. In fact, many people are not aware that the knowledge creation interaction exists. Just a cursory look at our educational system shows how overtly we concentrate on and reward memorization vs. other concepts like innovation, creativity, questions, and knowledge creation. Excellence as it relates to these knowledge interactions is rarely rewarded in our global educational institutions.
As another example, many people confuse intellect, or knowledge that is stored and can subsequently be recalled, with the brain itself. The brain is a storage space for knowledge. The intellect is that knowledge. A computer has a storage capacity (the hard drive) and an intellect or the intellectual property stored on it. Consider, for example, that the term ‘global brain’ is most often used to describe the global intellect, or knowledge stored, and not the physical storage capacity. In actuality, the global brain is the sum of computer and human storage capacity while the global intellect is that knowledge which is globally stored in human minds, print, and computers.
As a final example, at times people may confuse instruction and expression. Instruction is when knowledge is imparted to a learner to increase his or her intellect or total knowledge stored. Expression is simply telling society what you know, and this does not necessarily fulfill a learning purpose.
If knowledge interactions become confused, it is analogous to a group of people trying to build a house without understanding each others boundaries, roles, or tools. The end result becomes confusion and poor design/poor quality.
Pillar #3 – Language
Language is composed of structured symbols and/or semantics that are chosen by a society. All intellectual and scholarly pursuits center in on this structure.
Memes are thought of as self-propagating elements (of thought) in an evolutionary organism and are akin to the gene in biological convergence whereas symbols would be likened to atoms. In another definition, memes are considered any unit of transported knowledge. Once again, the concept of the meme is not independent of language. Language symbols serve as the foundation for memes to even be able to exist.
Without language, telepathy or some unknown mechanism would be required to transport knowledge. It is impossible to learn, for example, or transport knowledge from the instructor to the learner, without language. Therefore language is a cooperative knowledge working pillar.
Natural language is linear. This is why we write in lines of text. But these linear lines of text are attempting to describe a three-dimensional, categorical, knowledge structure. As such natural language tends to fight against the knowledge working process as it does not transport or represent knowledge efficiently.
Pillar #4 – Anti-knowledge
Anti-knowledge, as described earlier, is the collective realm of questions and ideas. Ideas are essentially newly formed knowledge within a particular knowledge context. Sometimes these ideas are not fully structured such that they can be classified as knowledge, but an idea is absolutely the emergence of new knowledge structure.
Ideas are formed when questions are perceived and structured. The birth of an idea is dependent upon questioning. If one does not question the existing knowledge context, it is impossible to advance it into an idea. As new knowledge, ideas tend to bring forth only a partial knowledge structure and the structural/logic gaps need to be filled in.
