Man : Insight (Wisdom)

Wisdom In Mind

Wisdom provides us with the capacity to solve real life problems. 
For human being to live a life endowed with many facets of characteristics such as love, hate… by acting wisdomly, a meaningful life can be achieved. 
Reflecting life experiences, knowledge, with wisdom will make our subsequent steps in life easier.

As Immanuel Kant, a famous philosopher said that “Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.”

Wisdom : 
a. enables a person to make sound decisions, 
b. take a straight path to success, 
c. recalibrate values for the better, and 
simply live a better life. 
As Will Durant, a renowned philosopher and Pulitzer Prize winner stated, “A wise man can learn from another man’s experience; a fool cannot learn even from his own.”

What is Wisdom?

Humanity is too clever to survive without wisdom. — E.F Schumacher

Wisdom is a : 
i. deep understanding and realization of people, things, events or situations, 
ii.resulting in the ability to apply perceptions, judgments and actions 
in keeping with this understanding.

    It requires control of human emotional reactions (the "passions") so that universal principles, reason and knowledge prevail in determining actions. 
   Wisdom is human action is based on a true and with judgment. Synonyms include: discernment, or insight.

A basic definition of wisdom is the use of knowledge. The opposite of wisdom is folly.

We each would like to have more wisdom. And for others to have it as well. Lack of wisdom has caused too much human hurt and suffering.

Scientific Definition:
"Knowing and understanding the genuine nature of matters; the knowledge of relating results (effects) to causes as relevant to the physical composition and function of the matter."

Practical Definition:
"Doing what is required in the right manner, at the right time, and in the right place."

         In psychology have defined wisdom as the coordination of "knowledge and experience" and "its deliberate use to improve well being." With this definition, wisdom can supposedly be measured using the following criteria.

• A wise person has self-knowledge.
• A wise person is sincere  and direct with others.
• Others ask wise people for advice.
• A wise person's actions are consistent with his/her ethical beliefs.

    Psychologists agrees that  it involves an integration of knowledge, experience, and deep understanding that incorporates tolerance to meet the challenges of uncertainties in  life as well as its ups and downs. There's an awareness of how things play over time, and it is a sense of balance on applying to world challenge.

Wiseman

Wise people generally share an optimism that life's problems can be solved and experience a certain amount of calm in facing difficult decisions. Incorporating:

a.       Intelligence —a necessity for wisdom,

b.      an ability to see the big picture,

c.       a sense of proportion and considerable introspection also contribute to its development.

Characteristic

• A wise man lives rightfully and in that manner he successfully controls his emotional states.
• A wise man can feel what is right or wrong before he even starts thinking about it. These feelings unmistakeably lead him through life.
• A wise man has a productive orientation.
• A wise man cannot accept destructivity because it would destroy his fine-tuned emotions that lead him down the wise path.
• A wise man is modest because he feels a virtue.
• An immodest person attracts troubles and that is not wise.
• A wise man is responsible towards himself and his environment, he constantly improve himself and his environment and therefore has a good life.  

• A wise person has self-knowledge.
• A wise person seems  sincere and direct with others.
• Others ask wise people for advice.
• A wise person's actions are consistent with his/her ethical beliefs.

Psychology

According to Russell Ackoff, a systems theorist and professor of organizational change, the content of the human mind can be classified into five categories:

1. Data: symbols
2. Information: data that are processed to be useful; provides answers to "who", "what", "where", and "when" questions
3. Knowledge: application of data and information; answers "how" questions
4. Understanding: appreciation of "why"
5. Wisdom: evaluated understanding.

Ackoff indicates that the first four categories relate to the past; they deal with what has been or what is known. Only the fifth category, wisdom, deals with the future because it incorporates vision and design. With wisdom, people can create the future rather than just grasp the present and past. But achieving wisdom isn't easy; people must move successively through the other categories.

A further elaboration of Ackoff's definitions follows:

1. Data...

Data is raw. It simply exists and has no significance beyond its existence (in and of itself). It can exist in any form, usable or not. It does not have meaning of itself. In computer parlance, a spreadsheet generally starts out by holding data.

2. Information...

Information is data that has been given meaning by way of relational connection. This "meaning" can be useful, but does not have to be. In computer parlance, a relational database makes information from the data stored within it.

3. Knowledge...

     Knowledge is the appropriate collection of information, such that its intent is to be useful. Knowledge is a deterministic process. 
   When someone "memorizes" information (as less-aspiring test-bound students often do), then they have amassed knowledge. This knowledge has useful meaning to them, but it does not provide for, in and of itself, integration such as would infer further knowledge. 
   For example, elementary school children memorize, or amass knowledge of, the "times table". They can tell you that "2 x 2 = 4" because they have amassed that knowledge. But when asked what is "1267 x 300", they cannot respond correctly because that entry is not in their times table. To correctly answer such a question requires a true cognitive and analytical ability that is only encompassed in the next level... understanding. In computer parlance, most of the applications we use (modeling, simulation, etc.) exercise some type of stored knowledge.

4. Understanding...

Understanding is an interpolative and probabilistic process and is cognitive and analytical. It is the process by which knowledge is taken and synthesizes new knowledge from the previously held knowledge.

The difference between understanding and knowledge is the difference between "learning" and "memorizing". 
  People who have understanding can undertake useful actions because they can synthesize new knowledge, or in some cases, at least new information, from what is previously known (and understood). That is, understanding can build upon currently held information, knowledge and understanding itself. In computer parlance, AI systems possess understanding in the sense that they are able to synthesize new knowledge from previously stored information and knowledge.

5. Wisdom...

Wisdom is an extrapolative and non-deterministic, non-probabilistic process. It recalls upon all the previous levels of consciousness, and specifically acts upon special types of human programming (moral, ethical codes, etc.).

      It gives us understanding about which there has previously been no understanding, and in doing so, goes far beyond understanding itself. It is the essence of philosophical probing. Unlike the previous four levels, it asks questions to which there is no (easily-achievable) answer, and in some cases, to which there can be no humanly-known answers period.

    Wisdom is therefore, the process by which we also discern, or judge, between right and wrong, good and bad. Computers do not have, and will never have the ability to process wisdom. Wisdom is a uniquely human state, wisdom requires one to have a soul, for it resides as much in the heart as in the mind. And a soul is something machines will never possess (or perhaps I should reword that to say, a soul is something that, in general, will never possess a machine).

Barriers to Building Wisdom

a.      Ego

One of the biggest obstacles to achieving wisdom is our own ego. We have knowledge, and assume that we have enough information to take sound action. The problem is, we don't know what we don't know.

Some of us recognize the need for more information and go looking for it. We surf the Internet, post on message boards, and confide in friends. However, we rarely examine whether those sources are providing us wisdom or knowledge.

b.      Perception

Another obstacle is our way of seeing, perhaps the most difficult barrier to overcome. It interfered with my own progress on seeing on our own sight , not based on analyzed knowledge.

Imagine a teenager introduced to drug by her friends at school. Her father is recovering drug users who regularly pep talks about the ills of drug, and she feels taunted as drug is a fad today. Instead of seeing her father as a source of experience (wisdom), all the information’s (father, friends, and schools) have  equal validity even though they present conflicting information. Although she has the knowledge that she's at a higher risk of developing an addiction, and although she remembers the bad things that happened when her father still on drug , she still chooses to be on drug on weekends. She sees her friends as having more worthwhile experience without considering that his experiences took place with many more people and over a longer period of time than her pals who started experimenting with alcohol six months ago. She adopts her friends' brief wisdom rather than her father's extensive wisdom.

Factors contributing to public wisdom

• Promote quality conversations among diverse people and perspectives –

Have conversations that generate public wisdom with  spectrum of people. We will get relevant perspectives in  diverse terms of information and the. Conversations that generate public wisdom high lightened:

• help discern and investigate lies and manipulation
• hearing every voice — and that every person feels well heard;
• engage productively with differences, disturbances, and expressions of emotion;
• help to step out of oversimplifications to creatively tackle the true complexity of real situations
• Help connect with their shared humanity, aliveness, needs, interests, etc.
• Creatively engage diverse forms of intelligence.

Help people use their full human capacities—
   i. reason, 
 ii. emotion, 
iii. intuition, 
iv. humor, 
v. movement, as well as 
vi. aesthetic and 
vii. spiritual sensibilities, capacities, and activities. 
Different people have different ways of learning, engaging, and expressing themselves, and these differences are among the most valuable to respect and use creatively.

• Consult global wisdom traditions and broadly shared ethics.

Ethical principles common to most major religions and philosophies provide time-tested wisdom. Augment what humanity has learned recently through science and global dialogue about what serves human needs and happiness. It will provide a deep insight into universal human needs.

• Seek guidance from natural patterns.

Wisdom is embedded in nature, in organisms, in natural forms and processes, and in the dynamics of evolution, providing a vast reservoir of insight and know-how tapped by today’s scientists and engineers. Among the good resources on this are biomimicry, the study of how nature solves engineering problems, and permaculture, the study of how to design fruitful natural systems from scratch, a science that offers many insights into how we can enhance community and societal health.

• Apply systems thinking.

Systems thinking can help people understand underlying causes and take into account how things are interrelated, how wholes and parts influence each other through power relations, resonance, feedback dynamics, flows, motivating purposes, and life-shaping narratives, habits, and structures.

• Think about the Big Picture and the Long Term.

Wisdom grows as we step out of our limiting perspectives to understand. Use creatively the histories and energies from the past, current contexts and trends, future needs, larger and smaller scales, and other mind-expanding perspectives. Expanded your views—role-playing into others’ shoes, visioning into the future and brainstorming into wildly creative perspectives and possibilities.

• Seek agreements that are truly inclusive.

The more many people contribute to, engage with, and believe in an agreement, the more likely that agreement will wisely address what needs to be addressed and the more likely it will be well implemented.

Don’t be satisfied with mere majority voting, which depends on majority domination and almost always leaves significant minorities dissatisfied. Dig deeper into shared values and needs. Every step of the way, seek out people’s concerns and take them seriously to see if they can be satisfied in ways that move group support closer to a supermajority (67 percent or more) or a consensus or breakthrough that all participants are pleased with.

A shallow, reluctant agreements and compromises, as well as agreements based on deals irrelevant to the issue being discussed may get results, but those results won’t be wise. Compromises and similar strategies arise from the group’s inability to actually address what needs to be addressed to produce a truly inclusive resolution of the issue—namely, their differences and the important realities hidden within those differences.

• Release the potential of hidden assets and positive possibilities.

In addressing a situation, cover more ground and inspire more support and participation if we notice and creatively engage energies and resources that already exist in the situation and tap the power of people’s aspirations, which often show up at the rough edges, on the margins. Each of which has its own powerful approach for evoking positive possibilities from problems and conflicts.

• Encourage healthy self-organization and learning.

Any situation or system contains people, experience, ideas, and capacities that can help those involved solve problems and self-organize in healthy ways.  Be involved in :

o             Creating an atmosphere of participation and collaboration.

o             Ask powerful questions.

o              Elicit crowd sourced ideas and resources.

o             Play games designed to bring out and explore the dynamics of the situation.

• Make information more accessible and meaningful as knowledge.

Information gathered and presented to should be diverse and true. In addition, both the information and its significance should be readily understandable. 
  a. Simple language, 
  b. narrative forms, and 
  c. meaningful visual and 
 d. audiovisual presentations can help tremendously.  
Journals and writeup  can also help clarify the larger stories that make useful meaning out of isolated pieces of data.

• Do it again.

  Redundancy and iteration are powerful patterns in nature. Redundancy means having more than enough of something. Having hand, arm, foot, eye, lung, and ear not only means that they can work together, but if we lose one, we still have the other.

Asking three friends about a car repair shop tends to produce more useful information than asking only one friend. Doing three comparable public deliberations and comparing the results is more likely to produce wisdom than doing only one.

Iteration means doing things again, informed by feedback from earlier attempts. Wise people notice the results of their actions and act accordingly, correcting their errors. Likewise, a one-time public process can generate a certain amount of public wisdom, but doing a similar activity every three months or every year increases the chance that each new iteration will learn from the previous ones and from the real-world effects of their earlier recommendations.

Wisdom can be gathered.
Wisdom can be learned, or gained.
Wisdom cannot be taught.

Excerpt taken with thanks from :

Gene Bellinger, Durval Castro, Anthony Mills

Kathy Batesel

Prof. Dr. Andrew Targowski, Western Michigan University (USA)
http://www.peterrussell.com/SP/Wisdom.php.

Ben Dean, Ph.D.