I am intensely interested in how we, as humans, understand the world around us. This has led me to investigations of the brain, philosophy, story telling, and (to get to the point of this essay) the nature of wisdom. It seems to me that wisdom is one of the most important aspects of a strong individual and a healthy society while, unfortunately, seeming to be in short supply in our modern culture. The concept is difficult to pin down so I have attempted to take a bottom up approach to describe what I see as the Hierarchy of Understanding where wisdom reigns supreme.
DATA
In terms of understanding, data is the level of pure input. From a human perspective, we call this sensory data. Data are the pressure waves vibrating our eardrum or the photons of light striking our retina. From the perspective of our nervous system, it is an action potential or no action potential. From the perspective of our technologies, it is a number, a letter, a 1, or a 0. By its very nature it is unmoored from anything real in the world - unintelligible, useless, non-functional. Data must be paired with context in order to get…
INFORMATION
Context allows data to transcend its limitations in order to become information. In other words, information is data that can be viewed through an interpretive structure. Information is produced when our brain processes its sensory inputs. It is the book, the file, or the thought. Information is something that can be understood, cataloged, and categorized. Our interpretive structure is what endows data with meaning, giving rise to information. And though it has meaning, information is still fundamentally useless. It is only when information has utility that it becomes…
KNOWLEDGE
Knowledge is information that has utility in producing a predictable result. Knowledge is power. If information has no use (i.e if it cannot manifest or manipulate reality), it is not knowledge. Knowledge is still highly context dependent of course. This is the whole point of the integrative structure which forms the basis of this essay. Knowledge is a type of understanding which takes into consideration both utility and context. Having information about the weather is in Dallas, Texas doesn't help you decide what to wear when you go outside in Portland. In turn, we are also dependent on the context of which Portland we speak of in order to to act in the world. That is, in order to produce knowledge.
Now we get to the question I am most interested in: How does knowledge transcend itself and become wisdom?
WISDOM
I find wisdom to be a very slippery concept and one that does not lend itself to easy explanation. So before trying to slot wisdom into the aforementioned structure, it is probably best to express some of my intimations about wisdom’s core characteristics.
Embodiment
Wisdom is a type of understanding which is fully embodied. It is not as simple as a belief or a statement of fact but is like something that lives inside of us. Something which doesn't have its cash value in words but instead, fundamentally, in action. It is more like a function of choice. Knowledge can help one lay out the options to a given matter but all the knowledge in the world cannot make the decision for us. At some point we must make a choice. That choice doesn't seem to be the simple product of knowledge but instead is the product of our wisdom.
“Of all the words yet spoken, none comes quite as far as wisdom, which is the action of the mind beyond all things that may be said.” - Heraclitus
'That there is a difference between what we see with our eyes and what we know through our spirit is a wisdom from long ago.’ - The Book of Chuang Tzu
Integration
Another hallmark of wisdom is an integral viewpoint of the world. That is to say, a holistic and comprehensive view of the world, one which takes all things into account. When faced with a decision that is positioned as “either / or”, it is wisdom that can see the “both / and” solution. Wisdom is comfortable in the face of paradox. Wisdom revels in ambiguity. The ability to hold two seemingly conflicting ideas at the same time, that is wisdom.
In other words, wisdom seems to be more about understanding the relationship between things rather the things in themselves. It is the ability to see the "betweenness" of the world. It is a recognition that all things are interconnected, flowing, and perpetually in a state of transition. Rather than the dissecting nature of knowledge which breaks the world down to understand the constituent parts, wisdom puts things back together to understand the world as a whole. Wisdom reads between the lines. Wisdom sees all.
“For wisdom, listen not to me but to the Word, and know that all is one.” - Heraclitus
‘The perfect way knows no difficulties
Except that it refuses to make preferences;
Only when freed from hate and love
It reveals itself fully and without disguise;
A tenth of an inch’s difference,
And heaven and earth are set apart.
If you wish to see it before your own eyes
Have no fixed thoughts either for or against it.’
-Seng-ts’an, On Believing in Mind (Buddhist scripture on Wisdom)
With all this in mind, let us look at how wisdom might relate to the principles of context and utility discussed earlier.
First…context. Wisdom could be viewed as completely independent of context. That is, understanding that goes beyond any single circumstance. It is understanding that is so fundamental that it applies in all places, at all times. Alternatively, wisdom can be viewed as the epitome of context dependent understanding, a sort of hyper-contextualization of understanding. In this frame, wisdom is bound to the intricacies of the here and now. It is the type of understanding that can only play out in real time. One that cannot be written down or distilled into a set of simple facts or axioms.
I’m inclined to see it as both: wisdom is both completely free of context while also being utterly dependent upon context.
Now…utility. Wisdom is bound to the choices that we make as embodied agents in the world. How does one utilize the power provided to him by knowledge? In this answer lies wisdom. Wisdom goes beyond the simple decision between A and B. Wisdom is able to see option C. Wisdom sees that which cannot be seen, cannot be quantified, and cannot be spoken. Wisdom understands that the best action may in fact be non-action. Wisdom is an insight into the Truth. Not a truth but the Truth.
This is how we transcend simple knowledge and gain wisdom, through the embodiment and integration of Truth into our lives - by living in Truth.