knowledge is potential

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Advocate
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knowledge is potential

Post by Advocate »

"Knowledge is power." is bullshit. Knowledge is potential, but in the real world the most knowledgeable people are far from the most powerful and vice versa. The average philosopher has more than an average amount of understanding about the universe and less than an ordinary amount of power because their knowledge is mutually exclusive with the immediate subset of pragmatic knowledge that is incidentally rewarded.
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bahman
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Re: knowledge is potential

Post by bahman »

Advocate wrote: Mon Feb 01, 2021 11:05 am "Knowledge is power." is bullshit. Knowledge is potential, but in the real world the most knowledgeable people are far from the most powerful and vice versa. The average philosopher has more than an average amount of understanding about the universe and less than an ordinary amount of power because their knowledge is mutually exclusive with the immediate subset of pragmatic knowledge that is incidentally rewarded.
Knowledge is structured. Different areas of knowledge are interconnected. There is no potential or actual knowledge.
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Re: knowledge is potential

Post by Advocate »

[quote=bahman post_id=493939 time=1612251527 user_id=12593]
Knowledge is structured. Different areas of knowledge are interconnected. There is no potential or actual knowledge.
[/quote]

Can you rephrase that?
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bahman
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Re: knowledge is potential

Post by bahman »

Advocate wrote: Tue Feb 16, 2021 4:21 pm
bahman wrote: Tue Feb 02, 2021 8:38 am Knowledge is structured. Different areas of knowledge are interconnected. There is no potential or actual knowledge.
Can you rephrase that?
Of course, if I know which part you have a problem with.
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Re: knowledge is potential

Post by Advocate »

[quote=bahman post_id=496608 time=1613489005 user_id=12593]
[quote=Advocate post_id=496606 time=1613488895 user_id=15238]
[quote=bahman post_id=493939 time=1612251527 user_id=12593]
Knowledge is structured. Different areas of knowledge are interconnected. There is no potential or actual knowledge.
[/quote]

Can you rephrase that?
[/quote]
Of course, if I know which part you have a problem with.
[/quote]

I miss the connection to the bits you were responding to.
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bahman
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Re: knowledge is potential

Post by bahman »

Advocate wrote: Tue Feb 16, 2021 4:34 pm
bahman wrote: Tue Feb 16, 2021 4:23 pm
Advocate wrote: Tue Feb 16, 2021 4:21 pm Can you rephrase that?
Of course, if I know which part you have a problem with.
I miss the connection to the bits you were responding to.
Can we agree that knowledge is structured? Can we agree that different areas of knowledge are interconnected?
Advocate
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Re: knowledge is potential

Post by Advocate »

[quote=bahman post_id=496629 time=1613490552 user_id=12593]
Can we agree that knowledge is structured? Can we agree that different areas of knowledge are interconnected?
[/quote]

If it wasn't structured it wouldn't be useful. The eventual interconnection of all knowledge is called consilience, and is inevitable.
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bahman
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Re: knowledge is potential

Post by bahman »

Advocate wrote: Tue Feb 16, 2021 5:05 pm
bahman wrote: Tue Feb 16, 2021 4:49 pm Can we agree that knowledge is structured? Can we agree that different areas of knowledge are interconnected?
If it wasn't structured it wouldn't be useful. The eventual interconnection of all knowledge is called consilience, and is inevitable.
Then all parts of knowledge are useful. You cannot have a coherent picture of reality if one piece is missing.
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Re: knowledge is potential

Post by Advocate »

>>>Can we agree that knowledge is structured? Can we agree that different areas of knowledge are interconnected?

>>If it wasn't structured it wouldn't be useful. The eventual interconnection of all knowledge is called consilience, and is inevitable.

>Then all parts of knowledge are useful.

All parts of knowledge that are unstructured are not useful, that doesn't mean that all structured knowledge is useful. But even unstructured knowledge is useful to the end of creating that structure, so... meta-useful?

>You cannot have a coherent picture of reality if one piece is missing.

That ignores scale. Knowledge is useful (or not) with regard to specific contexts.
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bahman
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Re: knowledge is potential

Post by bahman »

Advocate wrote: Tue Feb 16, 2021 5:24 pm >>>Can we agree that knowledge is structured? Can we agree that different areas of knowledge are interconnected?

>>If it wasn't structured it wouldn't be useful. The eventual interconnection of all knowledge is called consilience, and is inevitable.

>Then all parts of knowledge are useful.

All parts of knowledge that are unstructured are not useful, that doesn't mean that all structured knowledge is useful. But even unstructured knowledge is useful to the end of creating that structure, so... meta-useful?

>You cannot have a coherent picture of reality if one piece is missing.

That ignores scale. Knowledge is useful (or not) with regard to specific contexts.
I am talking about all scales. You end up with paradoxes and anomalies if you look at a specific context forgetting that knowledge is interconnected.
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