First Blog

  Doubt is the beginning of knowledge . It suggests that you will not accept anything without substantiation. Doubt forms the cornerstone of all sciences. The genius who thinks of the great idea begins with doubt on their journey to prove it, to use it to predict, and to harness it in leading the way to further discoveries. Self-doubt is as essential as self-confidence.   Doubt is the enemy of the demagogue. It says, “You can’t pass this one off on me with just a few words.”   Doubt is a form of uncertainty  - but a constructive form. .  Self-doubt is as essential as self-confidence.   Doubt is the main tool of the detective who seeks to solve the crime.   Doubt is the constant worry of parents about whether they are doing the best for their children.   Doubt, or more precisely, reasonable doubt, is the cornerstone of establishing verdicts within the corpus of the Law.   Teachers use doubt to measure whether their students are understanding the lesson and pose questions con

The Eight Stages of Understanding . Problem-solving is a broad category of intellectual activities. It requires knowledge of multiple sorts as outlined below. It is part of the pyramid of understanding, but a seriously important part. However, most of us can have successful careers having only problem-solving skills. Higher-order understanding is more significant in the world of theories and ideas, the meaning of solutions, and how they fit into the intellectual scheme. The list below is reminiscent of Bloom’s Taxonomy, but refined for our purposes. One of our tools for problem-solving, used by all, is at the very base. One can’t know everything, and we’re never protected from it. Thus ignorance, and how we deal with it, is in everyone’s world. ·         Ignorance:  lacking knowledge or awareness. ·         Awareness: awareness that there is something unknown or not understood. ·         Knowledge: acquisition of factual information and concepts related to the subject. ·         Compre

  The Expert's Paradox, simply stated is: "The more experts we have the more problems we have." How can this be? The resolution is simple. It takes some expertise to really “know what is unknown.” Without expertise, the knowledge explorer can hardly know what questions beyond the most basic to ask. And the answers to those are mostly known. While it may seem that more knowledge should decrease open questions, it is the opposite that’s true.

  The Pollinator . Another way to view the teacher is that of a pollinator . She picks up knowledge, the pollen of intelligence, and transmits it to students where it germinates into full understanding. The teacher is the carrier, but it is the student who absorbs and digests it, creating understanding for an improved life. Neither is the center of this symbiosis; each needs the other. It’s become a natural mating essential for humans and many other species where learning advanced skills for life are crucial.

 Geniuses are Remarkable There is an aspect of these geniuses which is rarely discussed. It is certain they all have marvelous minds, capable of a depth of thought unknown to us all. They have remarkable memories and a profound intuition and knowledge of what they do. There is more, beyond knowing all the literature, all the techniques, and all the skills. It is  concentration . In fact, Isaac Newton said, "I keep the subject constantly before me and wait till the first drawstrings open slowly, little and little, into a full and clear light." What all these geniuses could do is exactly that. They could focus their brains upon a problem for weeks, months, even years until it was resolved. This requires phenomenal energy which few have. But this concentration takes the mind into unknown realms and depths, and it changes them forever. When they emerge, they are different. And it can take time to catch up with themselves. Some never do. Others, fewer in number, can plow t

Power and Privilege, two power words of our day.  Most people want at least one; some want both. So, is there a difference? Power is a general term that implies the ability to shape conditions, control people, or enhance particular goals. Power has many forms, of which privilege is only one. Privilege is usually conferred, but general power is seized. Here are a few other forms of power.  Privilege Good looks Money Property Ability Knowledge Authority Family Leadership Some people have only one.  Others have a few, but few have all.

One problem with wisdom is that it compels you to make decisions you'd rather not make. On the other hand, without wisdom, you have more freedom to choose and therefore more free will. ---------------------- The same can be said about education and knowledge. The more you have the better you are able to solve problems, the less choices you have to select solutions even though more solutions can be offered, the less free will you have to make choices.  So, education works against free will.   -------------------- The seeds of knowledge combined together with with the seeds of experience, when cold-pressed, render droplets of wisdom. The residue is called textbooks.

Keep your brain working .  It is your best asset. Use it every day.   ·        Read a book. ·        Challenge a colleague. ·        Know your investments. ·        Understand your profession. ·        Talk to your kids. ·        Learn something you don't know. Examples. Do you know how to cook? (Experience) Do you know how your microwave works? (Requires a little physics) Do you know how IP addresses work? (It's not hard.) Do you know what Artifical Intelligence means?  (It's easier than you think.) Do you know why those big jets take off? (Simple ideas when you understand pressure) Do you know what love is? (Difficult, if possible) Do you understand when earthquakes will occur? (Nobody does) Do you know why the stock market goes up or down? (Ditto) Do you know how to teach? (Just plain difficult)

Suppose you know something and are presented with the answer to a question or situation about it. You know the answer - in another form. Then, to verify you need to convert your knowledge to the new but equivalent form.   If you cannot do this, you are marked wrong.   But still, you know the answer!   Knowledge skills in any situation, especially tests, require at least two stages: understanding the question or situation and knowing the answer, and then identifying or discriminating the possibly given correct answer, even if you know the answer in another form. So, true knowledge has at least two phases.   Knowing and Converting .   Our entire school system is based on knowing. Our entire testing system depends on converting. ---------------------- As usual, there is no limit to the suffering to be endured by the many to assure good feelings of the few. Indeed, it is the suffering impressed that makes their good feelings even better. --------------------- If you stand fo

If you consider all the knowledge, abilities, skills, and memories people possess, you note enormous knowledge resources contained by society, but maintained by individual agents.   However, when one of these agents passes, this information is abruptly lost forever. Not reclaimable, redeemable, or reconstructible, it is just gone.   For example, the unrecorded thoughts of Socrates, Kant, and others are gone forever. Sir Isaac Newton, on the other hand, wrote thousands of words on his ideas in multiple notebooks (many bizarre). Every day, individual deaths carry vast amounts of lost knowledge, factual, operational, skills, and data.   Over all time, you have wealth and knowledge, but you can’t take either along.   You can leave behind wealth but not your knowledge.   Your mind, with its lifetime of accumulations, is often the more valuable. What you know uniquely is lost and must be rediscovered. So very much of my parents has been lost forever. Such is the tragic loss

In American politics today we have among our parties “no morality” versus “faux morality,” while each claims high morality.     All to confuse the philosophers, I’m sure. J ------------------------- A theory is a lens which focuses information into knowledge.   ------------------------- When you have a religious fervor but are constrained by morality, this is one thing.   When not so constrained, this is another; it allows almost any action. ------------------------- If you intend to write a book about knowledge, be sure your publisher prints it on yellowing paper bound with dusty covers.   This gives it a head start on its final outcome, residing on a library shelf, untouched for years on end. ------------------------- Many agree that truth correlates with knowledge, and vice versa .   Whatever would the statisticians say about correlating two objects with no clear meaning? ------------------------- We all too often hear about comparing apples and oranges,

It may be widely believe that knowledge progresses gradually, in small steps, in gentle increments, or in slight gradations.  It may be not so, even for us as individuals.  New knowledge or understanding often begins with insights.  When you gain an insight, and it is true, it becomes applicable and remains so from then on.     This changes one’s problem solving game. This insight provides a new tool or rule, but importantly   it creates a discontinuity in your problem solving methods.    So, we might ask whether insights can come gradually?   In some cases, probably yes, though examples are difficult to furnish.  The emergence of infinity, often credited to Cantor, took centuries of dancing around the edges by philosophers.  The germ theory of disease so often attributed to Pasteur was anticipated almost with the invention of the microscope.   On the other hand plate tectonics seemed to arise by a simple insight by a single person, Alfred Wegener, in 1912 and took a mere half