Chapter 21
STORIES
THAT EXPLAIN PROCESSES That CONVERT
INFORMATION INTO KNOWLEDGE
FIVE PROCESSES TO KNOWLEDGE.
Knowledge, type I :
Direct knowledge: The information that we obtain from nature, very rarely, are usable without any pre-processing and processing.
Examples are, the simple and crptic messages from most knowledgeable and celebrated people, A few statements are given below as an example.
1. Love thy neighbour.
Don’t trouble your neighbour, help them and get helped. This does not mean that you hate people who are away from you.
2. Leaning is a life long process. Do not stop learning even for a day.
Everything changes around you unceasingly. So learning shall not be stopped. Any one stops learning will be pushed into poverty, slavery and deprivation. At the end of the day, call back from memory what you witnessed, what you heard or
Everything changes around you unceasingly. So learning shall not be stopped. Any one stops learning will be pushed into poverty, slavery and deprivation. At the end of the day, call back from memory what you witnessed, what you heard or read. Try assimilating and draw lessons from it.
3. Be charitable.
Make it a point to share your resources for the well being of poor around you.
There are tons of knowledge in the proverbs, teachings of great souls. They can be absorbed into your subconscious mind and live by that..
Knowledge Type II
Tacit knowledge.
There are the several instances when information does not convey explicitly all that it contain.
Example:1: I am sure every Indian would have heard from their grand mother ot read the following story in their child hood.
1. The story of a Foolish Crow and wicked Fox.
A hungry crow picks a Vada (a fast food) from a nearby restaurant and perched on the tree and preparing to eat it.
Just then, a cunning fox comes under the branch of the tree where the crow is sitting and inquires the well being of the crow. Then, after a pause, told the crow that he was longing to hear a song with its melodious voice.
As the Crow opens its mouth to sing, the Vada fell down and the Fox picked it up and vanishes into the forest to enjoy the tasty Vada.
This is the end of the short story.
There is a knowledge in the story. (Often stories are told to convey important knowledge). Typical learning would be, not to cheat others and be cautious not get cheated too. The knowledge most readers do not capture is as follows.
The Fox tricked the crow and enjoyed its food is the information in the story and not the knowledge.
Every specie has its merits and demerits.
• Crows are black and not beautiful as peacocks & doves.
• No human being take them as their pets.
• They have voice which is not pleasing.
They eat out of filth and taken a nick name as Scavengers on the sky.
So they have every reason to have an inferiority complex. Feeling inferior is a weakness.
What the crows did not realize is the few truth that
• Crows have no enemies. No one hunts crow for food.
• Human beings attach special importance to crows and treat them as representatives of their dead relatives.
• Most families feed the crows before they eat.
The knowledge one should derive from this story is as follows:
• There is no one inferior to other in all places and in all situations.
• There are situations that everyone is superior to another in some ways.
So one who feel inferior succumb to anyone praising a non-existent virtue.
Internalized knowledge, from the above story is:
• Learn your weakness as well as virtues.
• Beware Of people people who praise you.
Example 2: A short story on Tenali Rama, one of the most celebrated minister in the court of king Krishnadevaraya, explain the tacit knowledge.
Thenali Rama, had a son who had thieving as a hobby. He was caught red handed, while stealing roses from the Royal garden.
Being a minster’s son, the soldiers who caught the boy took him to the kind’s court in a palanquine along with the basket of Roses he had stolen.
The witty minister Tenali Rama was passing by when saw his son being taken by soldiers and the basket full of roses. He quickly grasped the situation and wanted to save his son from punishment. The message should not alert the soldiers. He said, any one who has a mouth can manage. Several meaning can be attributed to this statement.
Mostly one would read that any who can SPEAK properly or intelligently could escape.
The minister’s son was quick enough to understand the knowledge contained in his father’s message. He ate-up all the flowers before the soldier’s reach king’s court.
The knowledge was, should he eat-up the roses, there will nothing to prove his guilt. There by he can escape.
The internalized knowledge could be as follows:
Situation: Caught stealing. Action: Erase the evidence.
Note: On the next occasion, if the soldiers are smart, they will learn a lesson and update their knowledge. The soldiers might ensure that they secure and carry the evidence with them. So this this Knowledge would become obsolete.
The soldiers could not produce the flower’s as an evidence that the boy stole them. Therefore theaccused was acquitted.
Knowledge type III
(3) Combining several discrete information and knowledge can lead to a new knowledge.
I had a student who was a very good learner. He once argued with me that there are a lot of superstition in India which explain our poor progress as a nation.
He is a brilliant boy and good at Chemistry, botany and was abreast with whatever he learnt some ten years ago. He said one day that our country lags behind west because of superstitions.
I asked him to cite one superstition.
He said he had heard in villages about Ghosts that lives in trees. Villagers say, he continued, if some one sleeps at night under the Tamarind tree, the Ghost living in the tree would kill the person.
I told him, that it is a perfect science and not a superstition. He refused to accept.
I asked him, if the plants breath.
He said, animals and plants do breath. I asked him if he had heard of aerobic and anaerobic respiration?
At this moment, the boy’s face lit up. He took a few seconds and said. Sorry sir, it is not a superstition. It is definitely a science.
I explained him, only in villages people sleep anywhere and everywhere. We city folk need closed room to sleep peacefully.
Most city folk can be told that certain trees like neam and Tamarind, breath- in oxygen and release Carbon-dioxide during night time.
With the tree breathing in oxygen and releasing carbon-dioxide is sufficient to choke a person sleeping under the tree to death.
Most villagers may not believe when you say trees breath. They would start searching for nose in every tree.
What is the substitute to knowledge to ensure that people would be deterrent some one to sleep under a tree that breath out Carbon di oxide. Faith !
Villagers believe in Ghost. Here we mix information / knowledge from two different domains. The belief systems from villages and botany, to know a truth in superstitions.
Knowledge type IV:
PATTERNS
I would say, a person with knowledge identifies knowledge. An intelligent person identifies pattern in every aspect of life.
This is one of the higher level of abstraction of knowledge. This enable people to be knowledgeable across several unconnected domains. You generally refer them as intelligent people.
(a) Identifying patterns in every natural objects, events and live processes. (b) Comparing new events with discovered patterns (c) Identifying solutions through pattern mapping/ matching,
The rule:
• Every object and event in the universe follow certain patterns.
• Every such pattern varies from the other by a small extent.
• Identifying such patterns in the information that we gather, to process and add to our knowledge.
• The future becomes reasonably predictable with - extrapolation - and interpolation using patterns.
Example: If knowledge represents the essence of scientific investigation, then astrology is a Science.
Long long ago Astronomers must have been the first set of scientific explorers on earth.
Astrology should have grown, as an off-shoot of Astronomy.
The science of Astrology is a pattern matching solution to human problem. A correlation between star constellation and birth time and birth place of an individual is the essence of Astrology.
Knowledge type v: Domain transfer.
(a) Mathematical & (b) Logical;
We use knowledge to find various types of solutions that we face in every day life. There are several knowledge domains that we know of. There could be many which we do not know.
To master several domains we need to gather patterns from information, rather than knowledge.
There are several real life problem which when transferred to mathematical domain or a logical domain, finding solution is quite simple and fast.
Example: A boy was asked to fetch 6 apples and 12 Oranges. He paid, say Rs 300. He could not remember the price of each.
Another boy bought 3 apples and 15 Oranges and paid Rs 240. Find the price of each.
Any other way other than through simultaneous equations ill take quite a long time to solve.
6 A + 12 O = 300;
3 A + 15 O = 240
Solving we get price of an Apple , Rs 30 and price of an orange Rs 10 .