What is Knowledge?
How would you explain what knowledge is to your kid, adult or yourself? It's a metaphysical question worth asking and it might result in a brain-fart.
It’s not something I emphasise very often, but besides this PKM-related publication, Knowledge Management is also something I do for a living. I’m the head of engineering for a startup that builds a knowledge management tool for life sciences. Therefore, everything I share here applies to real business needs and vice-versa.
A few days ago, a friend and a colleague shared the results of a Knowledge Management literacy survey he conducted among a range of seasoned scientists. Despite being rightfully considered knowledge workers, almost everybody scored relatively low on tool-awareness or daily practice scales.
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My recent attempts to collect an official birth certificate from the governmental archivists revealed that they need reference numbers scattered across three other institutions. They either can’t share them with me or struggle to find them themselves. They also require about half a month to find information in their data management repository. After jumping through numerous hoops and collecting all the puzzle pieces, I’m still waiting for the document to resurface.
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I’m also lucky to be an invited member of the Dataworthy Collective. In this think tank, people who were at the origins of, and continue contributing to, what we know as the Internet today let their brains loose and discuss fundamental topics every Friday.
One such recurring topic is data literacy. Sometimes, those sessions are explicitly dedicated to it, and sometimes, they resurface organically amidst heated discussions about AI, tech giants, or GDPR.
The bottom line remains constant: despite our progress, data literacy is still a slow-growing foetus.
The Definition
Whether the abovementioned data illiteracy or a total lack of knowledge management understanding, even among those who do this for a living, is problematic remains a polarising discussion in and of itself.
But you’re reading this. Therefore, it’s safe to assume that you think it’s a problem worth solving, at least for your knowledge management. If we agree it’s a problem, we can also assume we want a solution. If we want a solution, we need to describe the situation clearly. To tell a problem thoroughly, the best way to begin is to provide a succinct definition.
And this is where the waters become murky. How does one define knowledge?
Richard Feynman wrote that if you can't teach something to a 6-year-old, you don't understand it.1 Would I be able to explain it to a toddler? Can I even explain it to an adult? Can I even explain it to myself?
In most circumstances, the word knowledge is taken for granted. We all think we know what it is. But that reminds me of Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, who provided a representative definition of “hard-core” pornography: “I know it when I see it.”2
I don’t pretend to have an air-tight definition of knowledge, but if I were to explain it, I’d stand on the shoulders of giants such as Claude Shannon and
.The Information Theory
One of Claude Shannon’s most significant contributions to what we are today as a species is his brilliant Information Theory.
Its brilliance and elegance are similar to Einstein’s one-liner-universe-defining equations. They’re absurdly simple yet unapologetically groundbreaking.
Here’s Mr Shannon’s definition of information:
Imagine yourself in a car trying to get to a supermarket from your home.
You can drive around randomly, hoping that, at some point, you’ll get there. This could take you a few years on average.
However, you can get there in 10 minutes with a map.
The difference between the time it takes you to get from your home to the supermarket without and with a map is information.
Stupidity
Another way of defining something is to describe what it’s not.
provided an equally elegant definition of the lack of knowledge: stupidity.
Here’s Mr Krakauer’s definition of stupidity:
Imagine yourself fiddling with a Rubik’s Cube.
Theoretically, there is a chance you’ll solve it by randomly turning its parts. It’s doubtful that this will happen in your lifetime, but there’s still a chance.3
Now, imagine that you don't do it randomly. Instead, you apply the strategy where you’re trying to solve each side of the cube sequentially. Everybody knows that this strategy will never get you to the solution.
His definition of stupidity, therefore, is a measure of probability: something (or someone) is stupid if it performs significantly lower than chance.4
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There are many other ingredients I could have mixed into an explanation of what knowledge is, such as finding things where you expect them5 or a classic “according to Merriam-Webster…”, but this isn’t a book (yet). I won’t bother you any longer on a Sunday morning. Instead, I’ll leave you with the cliffhanger question: “What’s knowledge according to you?”
I hope you’ll share your thoughts in the comments.
Feynman, R. P. (2010). “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!”: Adventures of a Curious Character. W. W. Norton & Company.
https://cbldf.org/about-us/case-files/obscenity-case-files/obscenity-case-files-jacobellis-v-ohio-i-know-it-when-i-see-it/
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/understand-entropy-you-want-your-startup-succeed-malik-alimoekhamedov/
Harris, S. (2020). Making Sense: Conversations on Consciousness, Morality and the Future of Humanity. Random House.
Allen, D. (2015). Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. Penguin.