Museum : What is Knowledge?

The present period of human history has been dubbed by some as "The Age of Knowledge" and by others as the "Knowledge Society". These buzzwords deny the fact that knowledge has always been important to the human race and probably always will be.

The actual age of knowledge is the same as the age of the human race. Knowing what plants are safe to eat can be knowledge as can knowing how to design a microprocessor. Knowledge is often redefined by people who use it differently or wish to distinguish it from other things such as information.

When dealing with knowledge it can be useful to know what knowledge is. This is not as easy as it sounds. It can be informative to ask 'What is not knowledge?' in order to help clarify this.

There is no single definition for knowledge. Two aspects of knowledge are considered here.

The first is a weak philosophical definition that is useful within the business context.
The second is a working definition used within Cognitive Science.

Philosophical Approach:

The basis for a definition of knowledge is given below.

A person 'P' has some knowledge 'K' if:

The knowledge 'K' is true

'P' believes 'K' to be true

'P' has justification for believing 'K' is true

Cognitive Science:

This approach is typical and aims to clarify a definition for knowledge to be used in automated machine based systems. The definition relies on a comparative analysis of data, information and knowledge as follows:

Data is unstructured values, symbols, numbers etc.
Information is data with structure and context added
Knowledge is a conceptual higher level abstraction of information

Example:

Data : 20
Information : 20oC
Knowledge : 20oC is a comfortable office temperature for most people

Analysis:

These two definitions seem quite different. The source of this difference lies in the use that each definition is to be put. It is much easier to say that a human knows something (has knowledge) than say that a machine knows something. Both definitions have their place within the scope of organisational knowledge.

Not Knowledge?

It is easier to be definite about what knowledge is not than what knowledge actually is.

However, if we take some of the definitions for knowledge found in this museum, it is possible to create some contention.

If something is not true then it is not knowledge.
If beliefs cannot be justified then they are not knowledge.
Therefore, information can only be knowledge if it is true and can be shown to be true.

Some argue that a rule of the form: if 'x' then 'y' is knowledge. Many computer based Knowledge Based Systems have been constructed with this understanding. However, the rule stated above could in fact be wrong. Is a computer system containing false rules and drawing false conclusions still a Knowledge Based System?

Context

Context is Everything Knowledge also has context, e.g. the statement: "Acceleration due to gravity is 9.81m/s" can only be knowledge if qualified by the place where the statement applies. i.e. "Acceleration due to gravity is 9.81m/s on Earth".

Dr. John L Gordon August 2001

Applied Knowledge & Innovation