Abstract
One of the most remarkable things the brain does is transform the raw data of experience into the informational structures that provide a sense of meaning and understanding to our lives. Knowledge is comprised of organized sets of meaningful information that are encoded in the central nervous system, some based on personal experience and some on what others have passed on to us. Understanding is a special form of knowledge that involves appreciating how interacting entities affect each other. Rule-based reasoning involves the sequential processing of discrete bits of information according to strict algorithmic rules, while pattern-based reasoning involves searching for correspondences and contrasts between perceived patterns and reference ones. We organize and rearrange information to build models that reflect our understanding of how individual facts and inferences are linked and interact. We have no way of being certain that the knowledge we accrue is correct, however, since our information-processing systems are not good truth-detectors.
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Notes
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Rivett (1972) maintains that: “the history of man is a history of model building, a constant search for pattern and for generalization.” He notes that: “a model is first of all a convenient way of representing the total experience we possess, of then deducing from that experience whether we are in the presence of pattern and law and, if so, of showing how such patterns and laws can be used to predict the future.”
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Universities, encyclopedias, and brains all organize accumulated knowledge into separate sections and departments because the models and assumptions on which the different knowledge sets are based are not readily compatible with each other.
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Byrne (2005) believes that engaging in hypothetical thought is one of the major achievements of human cognition. She discusses how people imagine counterfactual alternatives to reality, like thinking about how events might have turned out differently.
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Prediction is critical for setting and achieving long-term goals. Comparing predicted outcomes with actual ones provides feedback that enables individuals to modify a related hypothesis or course of action. These types of comparisons are the main way we test our personal, economic, and scientific models (Wiener 1993, p. 118).
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Epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of knowledge. Most philosophers define knowledge as justified true belief, implying that one must have a good reason for believing that something is true. But, unfortunately, one person’s justification may not be good enough for another. As Franklin (2001) points out, history (what actually happened) and the future (what will happen) do not lend themselves to absolute knowledge of the truth. He describes how the concept of probability evolved as a rational method of dealing with uncertainty in the law and in science.
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The various properties we attribute to objects and events generally come in opposing pairs, like fast and slow, high and low, and good and bad (Kelly 1955). The internal reference standards we use to assess them thus appear to involve a continuum that ranges from one extreme of an attribute to its opposite one, rather than being a static representation. We arbitrarily set a mid-point between the two poles of a particular dimension and determine just where particular properties fit on one side or the other of it.
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A simple balance scale illustrates how a qualitative assessment can be converted into a quantitative one. For instance: (a) place a stone on one side of the scale and find a second stone that exactly matches its weight, (b) place both of these stones on the same side of the scale and find one that exactly matches their combined weight, (c) transfer this last stone to the pan that already has the two other ones and find one that matches their “4-stone” weight, and (d) repeat the process. Comparable systems have been used to develop the standards we use for measuring the other physical dimensions we employ.
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The length of the meter was originally set in 1791 as one ten-millionth of the distance from the earth’s equator to the North Pole. This was established in 1889 as being equal to the length of a prototype platinum bar kept in Paris, but was changed in 1983 to being equal to the distance light travels in 1/299,792,458 of a second in a vacuum (since light travels at a speed of 299,792,458 m/s in a vacuum). Even though this new standard is more accurate, it is still an arbitrary, observer-dependent attribute, rather than an entirely objective one.
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Reading, A. (2011). Knowledge and Understanding. In: Meaningful Information. SpringerBriefs in Biology, vol 1. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0158-2_9
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