What Is A D S
Data, Information, Noesis, and Wisdom
There is probably no segment of activity in the world attracting as much attending at present equally that of knowledge management. All the same every bit I entered this arena of activity I quickly found in that location didn't seem to exist a wealth of sources that seemed to brand sense in terms of defining what knowledge actually was, and how was it differentiated from data, data, and wisdom. What follows is the current level of agreement I have been able to piece together regarding data, data, knowledge, and wisdom. I figured to understand ane of them I had to understand all of them.
According to Russell Ackoff, a systems theorist and professor of organizational change, the content of the human listen can be classified into five categories:
- Information: symbols
- Information: data that are processed to be useful; provides answers to "who", "what", "where", and "when" questions
- Cognition: application of data and information; answers "how" questions
- Agreement: appreciation of "why"
- Wisdom: evaluated understanding.
Ackoff indicates that the showtime four categories chronicle to the past; they deal with what has been or what is known. Only the fifth category, wisdom, deals with the futurity because it incorporates vision and design. With wisdom, people can create the future rather than only grasp the nowadays and past. But achieving wisdom isn't easy; people must move successively through the other categories.
A further elaboration of Ackoff'southward definitions follows:
Data... information is raw. It simply exists and has no significance beyond its being (in and of itself). It can exist in any form, usable or not. It does not have meaning of itself. In reckoner parlance, a spreadsheet mostly starts out past belongings data.
Information... information is information that has been given meaning by way of relational connection. This "significant" can be useful, but does not have to be. In computer parlance, a relational database makes data from the information stored within information technology.
Knowledge... knowledge is the appropriate collection of information, such that information technology'due south intent is to exist useful. Cognition is a deterministic process. When someone "memorizes" information (equally less-aspiring examination-jump students often do), then they have amassed cognition. This cognition has useful meaning to them, only it does non provide for, in and of itself, an integration such as would infer further cognition. For instance, elementary schoolhouse children memorize, or amass knowledge of, the "times table". They can tell yous that "2 10 ii = 4" because they have amassed that noesis (it existence included in the times table). But when asked what is "1267 x 300", they can not respond correctly because that entry is not in their times table. To correctly answer such a question requires a truthful cognitive and analytical ability that is just encompassed in the next level... understanding. In computer parlance, most of the applications we use (modeling, simulation, etc.) exercise some type of stored noesis.
Agreement... understanding is an interpolative and probabilistic process. It is cognitive and analytical. It is the process past which I tin can take knowledge and synthesize new knowledge from the previously held knowledge. The deviation between understanding and knowledge is the deviation between "learning" and "memorizing". People who have agreement can undertake useful actions considering they can synthesize new knowledge, or in some cases, at to the lowest degree new data, from what is previously known (and understood). That is, understanding can build upon currently held information, cognition and agreement itself. In computer parlance, AI systems possess understanding in the sense that they are able to synthesize new knowledge from previously stored data and knowledge.
Wisdom... wisdom is an extrapolative and not-deterministic, non-probabilistic process. It calls upon all the previous levels of consciousness, and specifically upon special types of human being programming (moral, ethical codes, etc.). Information technology beckons to requite u.s.a. agreement nearly which at that place has previously been no understanding, and in doing so, goes far across understanding itself. Information technology is the essence of philosophical probing. Unlike the previous iv levels, information technology asks questions to which there is no (hands-doable) answer, and in some cases, to which there tin can be no humanly-known reply catamenia. Wisdom is therefore, the process by which we also discern, or approximate, between right and incorrect, proficient and bad. I personally believe that computers do not take, and will never accept the power to posses wisdom. Wisdom is a uniquely human state, or as I see information technology, wisdom requires i to take a soul, for information technology resides as much in the heart as in the listen. And a soul is something machines will never possess (or possibly I should reword that to say, a soul is something that, in full general, volition never possess a automobile).
Personally I contend that the sequence is a bit less involved than described past Ackoff. The following diagram represents the transitions from data, to information, to knowledge, and finally to wisdom, and it is understanding that back up the transition from each phase to the next. Understanding is not a separate level of its own.
Data represents a fact or statement of event without relation to other things.
Ex: Information technology is raining.
Data embodies the understanding of a relationship of some sort, maybe cause and effect.
Ex: The temperature dropped 15 degrees and then information technology started raining.
Knowledge represents a blueprint that connects and generally provides a high level of predictability every bit to what is described or what will happen adjacent.
Ex: If the humidity is very high and the temperature drops substantially the atmospheres is often unlikely to exist able to agree the wet so information technology rains.
Wisdom embodies more of an understanding of fundamental principles embodied within the cognition that are essentially the basis for the knowledge being what it is. Wisdom is essentially systemic.
Ex: It rains because information technology rains. And this encompasses an agreement of all the interactions that happen between raining, evaporation, air currents, temperature gradients, changes, and raining.
Yet, at that place is still a question regarding when is a pattern knowledge and when is it noise. Consider the following:
- Abugt dbesbt regtc uatn s uitrzt.
- ubtxte pstye ysote anet sser extess
- ibxtedstes bet3 ibtes otesb tapbesct ehracts
It is quite probable this sequence represents 100% novelty, which ways it'southward equivalent to noise. There is no foundation for yous to connect with the blueprint, yet to me the statements are quite meaningful as I understand the translation with reveals they are in fact Newton's 3 laws of motion. Is something knowledge if you can't understand it?
Now consider the following:
- I accept a box.
- The box is three' wide, iii' deep, and 6' loftier.
- The box is very heavy.
- The box has a door on the front of it.
- When I open up the box it has nutrient in it.
- It is colder inside the box than it is exterior.
- You lot usually find the box in the kitchen.
- In that location is a smaller compartment inside the box with ice in it.
- When you open the door the light comes on.
- When you motility this box you usually find lots of dirt underneath it.
- Junk has a real addiction of collecting on top of this box.
What is it?
A refrigerator. You lot knew that, right? At some point in the sequence you connected with the pattern and understood it was a description of a refrigerator. From that point on each statement just added confirmation to your understanding.
If you lived in a society that had never seen a refrigerator yous might withal be scratching your head as to what the sequence of statements referred to.
Also, realize that I could have provided you with the in a higher place statements in whatever society and still at some point the pattern would take continued. When the pattern connected the sequence of statements represented knowledge to you. To me all the statements convey nothing as they are simply 100% confirmation of what I already knew as I knew what I was describing fifty-fifty before I started.
References:
- Ackoff, R. L., "From Data to Wisdom", Journal of Applies Systems Analysis, Volume 16, 1989 p 3-9.
- Gadomski, Adam Maria, Information, Preferences and Knowledge, An Interesting Evolution in Thought
- Sharma, Nikhil, The Origin of the Information Information Cognition Wisdom Hierarchy
Copyright © 2004 Gene Bellinger
What Is A D S,
Source: http://www.systems-thinking.org/dikw/dikw.htm
Posted by: lewisricated.blogspot.com
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