Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life. What do you think about this quote from Immanuel Kant?

It’s cute.

Seriously: Here’s a quote, that at first might seem unconnected, but if we are to have a discussion about anything, I think it sets the ground rules. You’ll like it, I think:

One cannot always live in the palaces and state apartments of language,
but we can refuse to spend our days in searching for its vilest slums.
—William Watson

@Zen – Sounds really intriguing. The state apartment had me confused a bit at first. Thanks for sharing the quote.

Sounds like all the knowledge in the world is of little use unless you organize it in some useful way. You can be really smart in the book-sense but not in the life-sense.

@mattbrowne :-) @laureth Yep.

I think wisdom comes from not making the same mistakes over again. You can pass your wisdom to others if they are willing to listen.

Honestly, @mattbrowne, once again I don’t know what we’re talking about. Are you asking “what is wisdom?” “What is science?” “Did Kant know what the fuck he was talking about?”

Of the three, the only one that interests me is trying to figure out what wisdom is. Seems to me, it’s often like pornography: I know it when I see it. To say “wisdom is the art of applying knowledge” kind of elides the point. It sounds profound, but what does it say? Does it give us any hint of a clue about being wise?

When I was young, I wanted to be wise when I grew up. But now that I’m up, I have no more idea of what being wise means than I did when I was a teen. I’ve experienced a lot more, and I have some idea about how to behave in a lot more situations than I did back then, but that doesn’t seem like wisdom to me. It’s just experience, and the knowledge that comes with experience.

I think one or two people here have called me wise to my face (don’t worry, I punished them severely). It was gratifying, but I still had no idea what it meant. Is there some standard for applying knowledge? Is there any way to meaningfully compare one person’s wisdom to the next’s?

I think wisdom is like the SAT. What it boils down to is how much culturally specific knowledge you have, and how good you are at taking tests.

Perhaps more importantly, I think it’s how many people actually listen to you, and take your advice to heart. I.e., the market, once again, is a good way to see if someone really is wise, or not.

I like the quote but don’t believe it follows for most people.
Science is organized knowledge, sure okay.
Wisdom is organized life, nope, I don’t believe that. Organized life requires action, requires you to walk your talk. A lot of disorganized and destructive people have wisdom to teach and pass on, through their own failures as much as good intent.

I don’t think science is “organized knowledge”. The closest thing that fits that description to me is either a library or Wikipedia. Science is a methodology for pursuing information that is observable, verifiable, and reliably predicts a given outcome.

And wisdom, to me, means having a lot of information and/or being capable of making good decisions. That has nothing to do with organization. My car is an f-ing mess and I manage to be wise from time to time.

@all I think that it’s time to get a little perspective here. (Uh oh, lecture? – No, not lecture.)

If Matt were to begin with a quote of his own, (and being the brilliant author he is, there are plenty of quotes, believe me – go read his book!) I might think along the lines of some of you; those writing and those merely observing (Yes, I read minds).

But Matt has quoted Kant, for god’s sake, so go and look him up, before writing things about the quote – and Matt.

If I were to begin with a quote from Shakespeare, you might immediately ignore it, or interpret (or misinterprep) it and go straight for the jugular – and we’d all be on a level playing ground, and perhaps none the wiser.

But Kant? She-eesh.

And pu-leez, it’s Matt. Read between the lines a little, read his thoughts and comments; read his books, then ‘pick and nit’ at his questions.

Once you see into Matt’s soul, you realize there is only goodness there. When you see into his mind (and mindworks), you know there is truth and goodness therein.

And you can quote me on that. Zen out.

@daloon – Yes, what are we talking about? What is Kant talking about? I think there are reasonably good definitions for science. But wisdom? There are probably more than 100 different answers for sure. The elusive wisdom…

Well, I see a correlation with the life of a human being, but also the development of a social group, a culture, even a whole society. I mentioned that I liked the notion of wisdom as an art of applying knowledge (thanks, Phil, a pity you’re not here on Fluther, but you probably heard from some wis.dm-ers that nitpicking about the nature of questions – or the nature of people asking questions – is part of a Flutherite subculture, you see, I’ve been accused of coming over here with a hidden agenda and my questions are doomed and will die a miserable death, and I’m wondering why I’m still here), so I thought there would be enough food for thought on the table to start an interesting discussion. But once again, we’re having a discussion about the nature of a question. To you the sharing of experiences seems very important, which is great (and I said so in the blog), but to me the exploration of ideas or thoughts (even fuzzy ones) also matters, with or without experience.

Daloon, have you heard about memetics? There’s a highly interesting book called ‘Spiral Dynamics’ and it introduces eight memes: beige, purple, red, blue, orange, green, yellow and turquoise representing different levels of human development. Some would argue that wisdom is somewhere between yellow and turquoise (the system can also be applied to groups of people, even online forums and in my opinion the blue meme is very important to Fluther, while some Flutherites seem focused on the red meme). According to Don Beck and Chris Cowan, the authors of the book, all memes are important and a human going up the spiral should keep all lower memes, so reaching green doesn’t mean you give up orange or blue or red.

If you like to find out more, this article is a good start:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_Dynamics

@Zen – Thanks for your support. I’m also surprised that quoting Kant can be seen as a provocative act. I was hoping for a thought-provoking discussion, but I realized that I’m skating on thin ice.

Matt out.

@mattbrowne @all Lurve you guys. Aren’t we just here to lurn and lurve a little?

Seems like some people just Kant.

i’m sorry…i’m a very sick man…

Did you say wisdom, or wis.dm is organized life. Cuz the latter was chaotic. The former, well, other than your questions… and my kids, not too much wisdom in my brain.

@Zen – Maybe wis.dm was the wild west and some of the gunslingers carried their weapons publicly. Other online forums seem more peaceful, but the occasional wannabe hero might carry a concealed weapon ;-)

@mattbrowne: I’m not a terribly smart person, and your questions really are quite difficult for me to understand. I’m sorry if it bothers you that I ask you what they mean. I’m only trying to help you get wherever it is you want to go. I’m not at all sure that opaque questions are a good way of stimulating good discussion. In my experience, it really helps if people know what the subject is.

In my line of work, I find that sometimes I can be most helpful by helping researchers clarify their questions. If I can’t understand what they are looking for, I can’t help them find it.

Anyway, Matt, I like your questions even though I can’t understand them. I hope you will not take my questions as some kind of attack. I’m not criticizing. I’m just trying to understand. In the absence of understanding, I pick something and talk about it. I guess it’s not interesting enough to be considered part of a “good discussion.” So, once again, I have failed. I don’t even know what you mean by “good discussion.” Well. It’s pretty typical for me. I generally manage to screw it up.

You wis.dm-ers are clearly a very well educated and bright bunch, and I apologize for not being able to keep up with you. I do hope you’ll, on occasion, feel sufficiently benign that you will deign to throw an explanation my way, from time to time. I’d really appreciate it. Thanks.

@daloon – I’m all for clarification. I don’t mind comments like “What do you mean by?” or “Could you please explain…” Maybe I felt a little attacked by some of your comments in my previous questions. And this time you were using the words “what the fuck” so maybe that’s the reason I was a little on edge. I’m sorry, just today someone else was nitpicking about the nature of one of my questions, despite the moderators’ approval.

You have every right to ask for clarification. Sorry if I gave you a different impression. Yes, I don’t mind the extra explanations at all. Yes, a few of my questions are difficult, but I’m really trying hard to find a good balance.

This question doesn’t have solutions. It was really just about ‘What do you think’ really in a sense what comes to mind. What kind of associations. Organized knowledge? Wisdom? What comes to mind? Does wisdom improve with old age? Are there some people who will never get wise. Whatever. I was just interested what this kind of quote triggered in you when reading it. Does this help?

Yes, that helps. I wish it had been in the question. Anyway, for me, the quote triggered a bit of anger. It seemed a bit senseless to me. There was little to go on, and even if you did have something to go on, there was nowhere to go.

@daloon – Yes, and I felt your anger. In my view none of my questions should make anyone angry. Either someone is interested or isn’t interested. How much effort does it take to ignore a question? In my opinion, virtually none. If someone is interested I think it’s good manners to give the benefit of the doubt and ask for clarification in a positive way, without anger. You’re not the only one displaying this kind of anger, by the way. And I can’t help it but I think it has something to do with my wis.dm past. Maybe I’m wrong, but this is how I perceive it. How can a quote from Kant be senseless? Plus I pointed out the issue of enlightenment which to me is the most important thing that happened in the past 500 years. I mentioned that the American Declaration of Independence and the United States Bill of Rights were motivated by “Enlightenment” principles (as described in the article). I thought there was something to get started. But of course I can be wrong.

Let’s take this example:

http://www.fluther.com/disc/41591/brain-teaser-working-with-numbers-that-dont-divide-into-one/

Far more difficult in my opinion as both the earworm question and this Kant quote question. What happened to the other question? Only very few got involved and this is the way it should be. In my opinion Flutherites should ignore questions they don’t like, they are not interested in, or they know that they can’t answer.

I can’t answer most of the questions. How do I know when T-mobile makes changes to the contract? Gee, no idea. I could research it, but I’m not interested. Which to me isn’t a big deal.

Daloon, I really think you’re a very nice person with a good heart. Everyone is angry about something once in a while. But Fluther questions should not be a reason for being angry.

Peace?

Peace out, brother.

The thing is, Matt, your questions and your comments are, for me, some of the more interesting ones. That’s why they are hard to pass over. I want to understand, and I think if you did a little work in explaining how you want people to answer the question, then everything would be fine. People tell me I’m not a stupid person, but your questions make me feel like I have to go do a lot of research because there is no context.

Once I get a feel for your style, which to me, seems like a kind of word association game, then I’ll know how to play, and everything will be fine, although I’m pretty sure others will feel as bewildered as I.

I’m not happy with factual questions, either. I’m also starting to get tired of relationships questions. I’m not particularly interested in the dogged attention that political and philosophical questions require. I much prefer questions that you have no idea where they will end up.

I have one strategy for producing such questions; you another. Perhaps my style doesn’t interest you. That’s cool. I’d just like to know how to deconstruct your qs. Like what the hell are colored memes? Sigh. I could write a funny about that. Or maybe that would be a good question on it’s own?

@daloon – Many thanks for this wonderful comment. Yes, I never have any problem with additional explanations if there’s an overall positive relationship and a positive tone in the conversation. Of course I also have to keep in mind what some my question can do to people. In real life I sometimes talk to much. I’m aware of that. It can sometimes be irritating. And if people start complaining on Fluther (in a nice way) I will have to ask myself what I could do differently. What really hurts me is if people question my integrity, suggesting I’m creating some sort of fake questions or I come here with a hidden agenda. What drives me really nuts is when people are nitpicking about my questions as such whereas it’s totally okay to nitpick about (parts of) the subject, certain content and so forth.

My style of exploring the world and understanding people is to create a little suspense. To be a little thought provoking without ever hurting anyone’s feelings. Additional context can always be provided if needed. But I’m also trying to use the detail field without getting to long (which can irritate people too). And I also prefer questions that you have no idea where they will end up.

Actually your style of questions interests me very much. I like the experience focus in them. Why do people think the way they think? A lot has to do with experience and upbringing. Culture. Education. Friendships. Travel experiences and so forth.

Daloon, the colorful memes are a really wonderful concept. If you have the time you might want to consider reading ‘Spiral Dynamics’ by Don Beck and Chris Cowan. The Wikipedia article only gives a rough overview:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_dynamics

Here’s another overview:

http://www.spiraldynamics.org/Graves/colors.htm

Just ask if you need more information.