Posted by Reilly Atkinson on April 08, 2002 at 15:10:58:

In Reply to: Mind & knowledge posted by Denham on April 05, 2002 at 23:05:11:

Denham -- Once again you raise striking issues. Now, as you can imagine, I firmly believe that as we improve our understanding of the brain, necessarily we will improve our understanding of the mind -- as is elegantly discussed by Sir Francis Crick in his "The Amazing Hypothesis", which is that all mental phenomena originate and are controlled by the brain. I would say that this approach to the mind-brain problem is widely accepted in the sciences.

Why do I make my claim? There is an enormous body of supporting evidence. Alcohol, adrenaline, many drugs certainly change minds, not for the better, as they create physical changes in the brain. Many studies of people with physically damaged brains show that a lesion in the brain alters the mind. The newer PET scans show that specific areas in the brain are activated in order to carry out a task --speaking, seeing, and so forth. The empirical correlation's between brain and mind are many and strong. Depressed and bipolar people know full well that lithium and antidepressants can make an enormous difference in how a mind works. One might say, the mind is what the brain does. And, for that matter knowledge is what the brain knows, at least more-or-less.

I agree that a great deal of knowledge is "vetted", and that is what we largely learn in school, and as we grow up. And, the vetting often involves some sort of social involvement. But, my problem with the social approach to knowledge is that it seems to me not always to be applicable. For example, when I hear an alto saxophone I know immediately whether it's Charlie Parker or Lee Konitz or Paul Desmond or.......I've known their distinctive sounds since I first heard them many years ago. I fail to see what direct role society plays in knowing different voices, or musical instruments, or writing styles, or ...Or, for that matter, the same holds for "AHA" knowledge -- solutions to problems pop into your head, and you know immediately that you have the right solution. There are many who go against the grain -- Dr. King knowing segregation is wrong, scions of the old South knowing segregation is right, an entrepreneur knowing the new business is the one, parents knowing their kids are special, and so forth.

Among the many things I can't figure out is why most of the KM definitions of knowledge are very restrictive. For practical business work at least, I would think a highly expansive definition would be more n order. In practice, "know how" can be every bit as important as more formal knowledge of, say, contract specs, or chemical processes, or legal matters, or paperwork chains. If I recall correctly, for some, "know how" is not knowledge (Please excuse me if I am incorrect) So does that mean there should be Know How Management as well as KM?

Mostly, we acquire knowledge by means of learning (perilously close to a tautology here) -- we learn from books, from experience, from observation, from people, from our own mistakes, from trial and error -- the list is virtually endless. And there is no doubt that a great deal of learning and knowledge is controlled or influenced by society -- sometimes in direct contradiction, as in teenagers, mavericks, and so on.

There is very strong evidence that post-traumatic syndrome causes physical changes in the brain, and often alters a person's personality and perception. It goes without saying that knowledge also changes as a result of the syndrome -- yet the knowledge is not necessarily vetted. My take is that knowledge is extraordinarily complex, and that we are just on the threshold of gaining real vs. mythic understanding of the mind and the brain. And our progress is mostly due to empirical research, and minimally due to traditional philosophy, or other non-empirical approaches.

Enough.
Regards.
Reilly

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Follow Ups:

• Re: Mind & knowledge Denham 18:41:13 04/08/02 (2)
  • Re: Mind & knowledge Reilly Atkinson 20:34:46 04/13/02 (1)
    • DIK opportunities Denham 22:58:39 04/13/02 (0)

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