From Knowledge to Wisdom

It's not that I'm getting old

Now I understand better my struggle with life in this high tech world. Linda Stone has captured it in the concept "continuous partial attention". I was concious of it last Tuesday sitting in a meeting and at the same time generating a new version of an XML Schema and mailing it to a colleague to fix a burning problem. It happens all the time with e-mail. The latest to arrive are the most urgent. Other stuff slips down the stack into the backlog, while the phone, the chatbox and the feed reader clamour for attention.

Continuous partial attention is the adaptation of our behaviour to the overwhelming availability of communication channels and their content. Our struggle to gain from the promise of our technology, our struggle to survive this meeting, the next deadline, the next performance appraisal and keep up with the news, the chatter, and to filter out the nuggets of real information that will make the difference to the day.

It is a relief to find it explained so clearly. But the real highlight is the quote from Dee Hock about the transitions from data through information and knowledge to wisdom:

• Noise becomes data when it has a cognitive pattern.
• Data becomes information when assembled into a coherent whole, which can be related to other information.
• Information becomes knowledge when integrated with other information in a form useful for making decisions and determining actions.
• Knowledge becomes understanding when related to other knowledge in a manner useful in anticipating, judging and acting.
• Understanding becomes wisdom when informed by purpose, ethics, principles, memory and projection.

There is a definition to savour:
- wisdom is understanding informed by purpose, ethics, principles, memory and projection.

We'll have to match that with the Wisdom of Solomon as it flashes by (continous partial attention again) in the snippets from Proverbs on OYB.

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Reference: Attention: The Real Aphrodisiac / ETech Keynote by Linda Stone, 7 March 2006

Technorati tags linda stone continuous partial attention DIKW

Props - today's new word

Well, I am amazed! Never before have I come across the phrase 'give props'. According to dictionary.com it means 'proper respect' as in "I have to give my props to the governor for the way he handled the problem."

Mike uses the phrase a couple of times in today's One Year Bible Blog:

"What I like about this reply from Joseph is that he is giving props to God for his "gift" of being able to interpret dreams."

And Dwayne uses it in his post tracked back here:

"Props to Andrew B  for his idea of making a blogroll of the bloggers who have been participating in this discussion."

How did I miss this? Is it new street language in some region of the English speaking world?

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Technorati tags one year bible props

The Word - Original

David Bivin: Understanding the Difficult Words of Jesus: New Insights from a Hebraic Perspective

Been finding this a fascinating little book. I am not at all an expert in Biblical texts or translations. For many years I have used the NIV. I found it provided me with an understandable form of English and I assumed the experts involved in the translation did a good job. Occasionally, I have used The Message as a lively alternative giving some new insight into the text, but I did not regard it as a definitive translation. And recently I found The Net Bible, but have not yet used it enough to get in-depth experience with it.

Now this book by David Bivin and Roy Blizzard, Jr. is opening up for me a whole new view on the text of the Gospels and Acts. Apparently the earliest texts we have of these are written in Greek. And accepted teaching by mainline scholars is that the originals were written in Greek.

Bivin and Blizzard shed a whole new light on this ....

The Oxford Comma

What a delight! Apparently it is OK in some circumstances to have a comma before the word 'and'! From the FAQ on askoxford.com:

Some people do not realize that the Oxford comma is acceptable, possibly because they were brought up with the supposed rule (which Fowler would call a 'superstition') about putting punctuation marks before and.

Syncretism - today's new word

Came across 'syncretism' in Leanne Payne Newsletter for Summer 2005 on Pastoral Care Ministries. A new concept to me, but one which needs serious attention:

In addition to denouncing idolatry, one of the most frequent tasks of prophets was to critique Israel for her syncretism. A H. Mowvley points out in Guide to Old Testament Prophecy, though they may occur together, idolatry and syncretism should be seen separately. In idolatry the Israelites went after alternative gods - gods made by human hands - rather than pursuing Yahweh. In syncretism, however, Yahweh was confused with other gods, and alien practises were imported into what was supposed to be the worship of Yahweh. People were supposedly drawing near to God in worship, entering "into the presence of a divine King, with expressions of loyalty, but their wills are in no way conformed to his and what they do, they do simply in conformity with custom and habit."

God hated this syncretistic worship. As Amos notes (4.4ff.), God sees it as rebellion.  Israels acts of devotion were meaningless to God because their hearts were far from Him: "I hate, I despise your religious feasts;  I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,  I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,  I will have no regard for them." (Amos 5:21-22 NIV) Mowvley points out that God, staggeringly, considers this worship to be sinful because it purports to do one thing and does another; essentially, they are lying to God, as well as to themselves. The prophets, then, are seen time and again calling the people to serve God with humility and sincerity as they adhere to His ways.
Mark Pertuit False Prophets or Genuine Prophetic Leadership?

How much are we at risk of syncretism in our worship and liturgies? Are we offering false worship because we are really there for the cool songs lead by our favourite band? Are we offering false worship because we are really there for the holy atmosphere generated by the rituals, liturgy, incense and architecture? What is the focus of our heart? Do we need all this stuff to get to Jesus - or are we using it as a shield to shelter ourselves from the Truth?

 

Grok - today's new word

Just learned the meaning of a new word 'grok'. It looks like a useful word if this blog really is on the way to wisdom.

"Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed—to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science—and it means as little to us (because we are from Earth) as color means to a blind man."
Source: Wikipedia

Considering whether it is possible to grok Jesus and what that would be like. But, as the definition indicates, grokking can't actually be achieved by humans.

However, in some ways, I think Jesus groks us - without the loss of identity bit. We are united with and in Him - but in Him our identity is fulfilled.

Quote of the day - the Genesis of Metadata

Work and play come together in this one:

"The technology of the search box and of the click suggests an epistemology of the machine, of metadata: the better we can categorize the core data with metadata, the better the machine will be able to mull over it, the closer we will get to the source. I click, therefore I try to know. Better metadata, good ontologies, mean, 'I Click Less to Know More'. This of course explains why Adam had to name everything: he needed metadata for better googling."

Source: Thinking outside the click, II, M.C. Shraefel on TEKKA.