Posted by mike cahill on September 26, 1999 at 16:21:01:

In Reply to: Re: UTK -- 2 of 2 Object Constancy posted by Muncie on September 25, 1999 at 18:52:14:

Salute!

You have hit a Triple bagger! Its wonderful. You have 1) managed to raise profound issues of ontology and epistemology without mentioning the words, 2) you have raised questions that are directly applicable to much of what passes for management theory today, AND 3) you have vigorously assaulted the UTK. Salute!

I particularly admire you for surfacing tricky philosophical questions in a simple context. You are not afraid to make these issues open to all. We all know people who have no idea how to attack complex ontology/epistemology questions, but causally use the words to imply that they do. You have courage, and I admire that also. You will not here these "hiding" words again from me.

The points you raise are grave ones and penetrating. Why? If you assume that UTK does indeed embrace and illuminate the structure of all knowledge, then one of its later claims will be that it can graphically and dynamically map all knowledge. This will be invaluable to those doing research … those at the fringe of knowledge where the implicit and explicit meet in a fog of war. With these maps, they can delineate the front line so that resources are precisely targeted, and this applies to executives planning, politicians running and bakers baking. But you cast doubt on all of this.

To work! Let's us look again at 4B and recall that all knowledge is either processed or targeted. You will recall that putting knowledge in a context was a simple processing issue. I believe the first half dozen paragraphs of your post ending with the phrase, "months of age.", can be resolved by noting that you deal with a fairly straightforward issue of contextualization. Knowledge theory predicts context as a process and you have done it. How is this so?

Can you tell me what this mean?

"Le di a ella con amor una rosa."

If you do not read Spanish you can not tell me. In this case, Knowledge Theory simply calls the Spanish language a body of knowledge with which you are unfamiliar. The direct translation from Spanish is, "I handed her a rose with love." Now you see two bodies of knowledge, English and Spanish. You are familiar with one and not the other. We do not know how many bodies of knowledge there are, but it is a huge number. Knowledge Theory embraces them all INCLUCDING a new, tiny one that I will create in response to your post.

Now, in your post you deal with the very interesting issue of the rose that is the same even when we give it another name. To simplify, your Triad (T1) is:

(T1) T(same rose) = R(rose) P(renaming) O(rose) …

You say that it is ok to call it the "rose" in both R and O because you are dealing with the "object and its scent" in both cases. Your point is clear. It is commonplace to think that nothing changes by simply renaming. Everyone KNOWS this, it is common sense, plain as the nose on your face Mr. Cahill, etc. etc. … but this is true only of the rose as a physical phenomena, it is not true of your KNOWLEDGE OF THE ROSE. Knowledge theory and its architect, The UTK, deal with KNOWLEDGE of things not the things themselves.

Refer to the Spanish sentence again, and note that the Spanish word for rose is "rosa". Now I will actually rename the rose in (T2):

(T2) T(Spanish rose) = R(rose) P (renaming) O (rosa)

What have I done in (T2)? I have mapped the English word into the Spanish language. In so doing, I have put it in such a different context that you can not even recognize it in the Spanish sentence.

The UTK is very aggressive about, knowledge processing. e.g. context and knowledge targeting. In its own simple terms, UTK points out that the rose and la rosa may be the same object, but they are surely not the same Knowledge Object. Thus, in the case of Spanish renames, we have invoked an entire language in the renaming, and we have surely changed your knowledge of the rose … so much so that when I put it in a simple sentence, you lose it.

Note: Is this some kind of goofy, trivial exercise? I think not. I have personally seen intelligence analyses of great power founder into absurdity when the author disregarded context traps. I hear many talented business executives constantly switch back and forth in context without knowing it … usually with little consequence, occasionally with calamity. Context traps appear with great danger when leaders speculate on the content of implicit knowledge. This is most often the case when the speaker assumes she knows the context of some black box. Imagine an entire population that was taught how to aggressively deconstruct a politician's language processing techniques … or what if we teach just the journalists for starters.

What about renames in general? Take the Triad (T3):

(T3) T(rose) = R(rose) P (renaming) O (dudad)

Now you rename the rose to a dudad. From the point of view of Knowledge Theory, you have begun a new language … you have taken the first step in knowledge creation. It may mean nothing, or it may mean the beginning of new science. We do not know what it means, but we DO know what are doing, and this gives us more power.

The challenge for you now, is obvious. Find a case where you rename something WITHOUT changing the context. Remember, The UTK meets instant death if it encounters a single instance of knowledge that it can not consume.

I appreciate the time and humor you devoted to your posts. I will work out the rest of your objections if you indicate that this post has not done that. I am posting this immediately however, because I wanted to show you the respect that I feel. Please call me or communicate in whatever way you choose.

For Practitioners, my next post will deal directly the application of this post to IBM, DEC, Bill Gates and .

Best
Mike

Copyright 1999
Michael J. Cahill
CA Associates
San Jose, CA
T - 408-978-2512
F - 408-448-3940
Mobile - 408-504-8378
caintel@concentric.net

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Follow Ups:

• Re: Salute! #1 Muncie 18:57:43 10/03/99 (0)
• Re: Salute! #1 Reilly Atkinson 16:45:22 9/27/99 (18)
  • Re: Salute! #1 mike cahill 17:16:13 9/27/99 (17)
    • Re: Salute! #1 Reilly Atkinson 01:29:03 9/28/99 (16)
      • Wonder C. J. Sekhar 10:43:37 9/28/99 (4)
        • Re: Wonder (and possible UTK test) Kees de Vos 16:56:01 9/28/99 (3)
          • Re: Wonder (and possible UTK test) mike cahill 20:13:20 9/28/99 (2)
            • Learning styles and UTK? L.Grohn 03:17:58 9/29/99 (1)
              • Re: Learning styles and UTK? mike cahill 15:20:41 9/29/99 (0)
      • PS mike cahill 03:18:55 9/28/99 (0)
      • Re: Salute! #1 mike cahill 03:07:25 9/28/99 (9)
        • Question on inverse use of UTK (a.k.a alternative UTK) Kees de Vos 16:41:50 9/28/99 (2)
          • Re: Question on inverse use of UTK (a.k.a alternative UTK) mike cahill 20:21:17 9/28/99 (1)
            • Re: Question on inverse use of UTK (a.k.a alternative UTK) mike cahill 20:23:10 9/28/99 (0)
        • Re: Salute! #1 rEILLY aTKINSON 12:38:32 9/28/99 (5)
          • At the heart of knowledge Denham 14:38:53 9/28/99 (4)
            • At The Heart of the Matter Martyn R Jones 11:17:11 9/30/99 (3)
              • Re: At The Heart of the Matter mike cahill 13:27:38 9/30/99 (2)
                • Re: At The Heart of the Matter Martyn R Jones 13:54:27 9/30/99 (1)
                  • Re: At The Heart of the Matter mike cahill 14:32:51 9/30/99 (0)

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