Knowledge Systems

The natural world contains knowledge. Its extraction is a quest that starts with inquiry.

Questions point rays of light that expose what is unknown. We can see the unknown but we don’t know why it exists, what it is or how it works. Pointing light randomly in the darkness will get us the low hanging fruits. And the form of the unknown generally gives us some direction as to where we should be looking next to understand it.

But once those things are discovered it becomes much harder to extract knowledge. Because when we point light we know what we don’t know. But we don’t know where and what we haven’t pointed light at yet.

So it becomes harder to know where to point the laser at. Because there are things we don’t know we don’t know. But what is knowledge?

Knowledge is a collection of abstract structures and objects that represent the natural world. We inspect natural facts and processes, make observations and question them. The observation-question loop produces ideas. We test them to ensure correctness.

Ideas change to survive testing and strenghten to win the competition against the adversaries. When they are connected and aggregated they form higher abstraction units, theories. The competition between theories decides the set of current winners that is our knowledge.

I say current because any new properly founded observation or idea, either at the edges or foundations, can put entire theories into question, reinstating the competition that could potentially change the current set of winners.

It is clear that as much as we purify knowledge of humanity it remains human made. That’s because all kinds of knowledge have a kind of narrative structure to them. Not in the sense that a story is told, with protagonists and descriptions. But rather the logical causal tree chain. That’s why I like to see theories as objects of rigorous artisanal craftmanship.

Knowledge transmission is an interesting phenomena. Ideas, theories and narratives get compressed into memes, the atomic unit of an idea. Memes can live purely in the world of semiotics, making them easy to replicate. This is why they can spread virally.

But the self replication has a generative quality to it. Even though memes preserve the inherited code, they variate and mutate. They change because of involuntary noise in compression and transmission. They also change to ensure reproductive success and to win the competition against other memes.

In the context of scientific and technological knowledge if we assume they are the pursuit of ideal truth and capability, then the competition maximizes the approximation of those ideals. The context of cultural knowledge is different, because it is less logical, so there is a lot more space for variance. Culture is the perfect environment for memes to distort themselves with the only purpose of maximizing survival instead of truth.

That happens when memes are copied incorrectly multiple times, causing maladaptive mutations. Because they spread through the behavior they generate in their host they could be detrimental to both their hosts and society. Because if dangerous ideas get strengthened then they could cause the population to think things that are wrong or against progress, leading to degradation.

I digressed a little but now we have the foundations and a good place to start. If we look at our personal knowledge, how much of it is adopted and how much of it is self derived? The answer depends on the reader, but I suspect that generally most people have a much larger knowledge base that was adopted.

Adopting knowledge means shopping in the supermarket of ideas and opinions to collect what is personally useful. The horizontal and linear accumulation of other’s prepackaged ideas is fast and convenient, which allows us to satisfy our omnivorous appetite. But because externally delegating the creation of opinion is based on the trust of the source. and it implies agreement with the source. It can potentially allow a lot of unexamined ideas and an inflated perception of acquired knowledge.

In fact learning by osmotic imitation is mantatory, stealing the ideas and opinions that give words to our thoughts is a good thing. It gives us a knowledge base and shows what has already been discovered so we can avoid reinventing the wheel.

But internalizing those ideas with no examination could lead to the internalization of what seemed like anomalies, that then become normal. This introduces ambiguity and undefined thoughts that should connect those ideas. Those anomalies, things that disturb you are exactly where you should be looking, they are asking for test and verification. Discoveries are where nobody is looking.

That model of knowledge works until some parts break. If that knowledge base then becomes part of the "knowledgeable identity" it could be dangerous. pride is the enemy of learning. Not questioning to not look stupid even in front of evidence

thinking you already have the answers ,or assuming you should have known. mimetic adoption of desireable and functional ideas, not truth. this incentivizes spectating, fake learning and fake curiosity > link to what is real work this is where you can cognitively entertain a thought but you can’t change your mind about it.

In fact assuming the experts, the adults are always correct is wrong. Everyone is wrong to some degree, you shouldn’t take anyone’s word for it, no matter how smart. Nobody has it all figured out in advance, knowledgeable is not necessarily intelligent, unknowledgeable is not necessarily stupid

knowledge starts with the recognition and acceptance of not knowing, understanding or am wrong. That comes after the imitation phase. Seeing many examples is very important to create average concepts in the mind. But the next step is generative. generation is maximized and incentivized by disagreement with the source.

It is the creation of a vertically integrated world model. The glue of all the narrative trees that contain knowledge. It is equal to building your own theory which implies unlearning. Either derivation from scratch, that is very time consuming. Or by doubting and testing whatever is beyond your experience.

This approach to knowledge implies prolific practice. It is more like a retraining. Because with theory you are seeing a thing in terms of what it is. With practice and the mistakes that come with it you see it in terms of what it is not.

I say vertical because it connects everything and allows knowledge to compound, leading to non-linear growth. It leads to deeper understanding and intuitive internalization of systemic knowledge. It requires constant exposure and confrontation to ambifuity and undefined thoughts.

Because it is a constant verification and testing of what has come in unexamined. Distrust the transmitting source, cut all translation and compression layers. Go direct to the source of evidence. and prove and reproduce other’s ideas.

The way to do it is to concentrate on the topic for long enough to develop an idea about it. it is the average of all your thoughts and sources on it. force it. but recognize that the first thoughts you have about it are always somebody else’s. It is only after through examination that you develop your own opinion. put down the book and think about it. not just mnemonic paraphrasing, but to expand your thinking. this is how the narrative tree of knowledge is constructed > link to always on conv

Reenact the ideas, feel the appeals of the idea. through experiential learning. This allows you to appreciate things you don’t like or agree with. this is how you create counterfactuals.

Curiosity guides our knowledge gathering. There are a few trails. bottom up is the most complete and inefficient. Top down is a bit better because it cuts superfluous information but it is purely based on interest.

A kind of top down approach that works better is objective based, which becomes need-based. As you need things you go figure them out iteratively as you go. to move foward effectively you must increase your intolerance to prediction errors your sensitivity for anomalies increases. this is how knowledge resolution is maintained and increased

When reading books you should scream questions at the author. you should be arguing with him. how much effort you put in matters. Involving more senses helps.

learning in the end is error correction that leads to an adaptive change in one’s behaviors. If you are learning you will be wrong most of the time. Which means frustration, sweating and confusion will be the main feeling of learning. intelligence is ultimately measured by predicting things correctly to adapt more efficiently to get more of what you want.

Notes