Wednesday, January 24, 2007
~Information & Knowledge~
The preservation of the means of knowledge among the lowest ranks is of more importance to the public than all the property of all the rich men in the country.
~John Adams
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pramana
Pramana (IAST Pramāņa) (sources of knowledge, Sanskrit) is an epistemological term in Hindu and Buddhist philosophy. Pramana forms one part of a tripuţi (trio) concerning Pramā (the correct knowledge of any object arrived at by thorough reasoning, Sanskrit), namely,
1. Pramātŗ, the subject, the knower
2. Pramāņa, the means of obtaining the knowledge
3. Prameya, the object, the knowable
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http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=63266.63284
Hypertext as a means for knowledge acquisition
ABSTRACT
The most time consuming portion
of constructing an expert system
is the knowledge acquisition phase.
A general knowledge acquisition tool
designed around a hypertext concept
could allow a knowledge engineer
to list important concepts,
create nodes attached to these concepts
which explain their relevance,
connect related concepts by linking their nodes,
use graphics to explain difficult concepts,
and even critique information entered into the system previously.
In such a system, knowledge acquisition
would not be confined to linear input of information.
The knowledge engineer could use the hypertext system
to compile knowledge gathered from an expert after interviewing,
or s/he could enter the knowledge into the system
as the expert sits there telling her/him what information to encode.
The advantage of a hypertext knowledge acquisition tool
is that all knowledge relevant to the expert system
would be centralized into a hypertext knowledge base
which the expert, or experts, can peruse and verify
before the knowledge is encoded into a representation scheme.
Then when the knowledge engineer
does transfer the knowledge
into a scheme suitable for use by an expert system,
s/he can be sure that the knowledge
is complete, sufficient, necessary, and correct.
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http://www.ndu.edu/inss/siws/ch1.html
KNOWLEDGE STRATEGIES: BALANCING ENDS, WAYS, AND MEANS IN THE INFORMATION AGE by Lieutenant Colonel William R. Fast, United States Army
Means. Knowledge as a resource is not included in the current resource paradigm of manpower, materiel, money, forces, and logistics. Knowledge, the "ammunition" of information war, is inexhaustible. Once produced (at a cost), knowledge can be used repeatedly -- it will not disappear. In fact, it only increases! Digital knowledge can be copied and never missed. It can be given away but still kept. Digital knowledge can be distributed instantly. It is non-linear; it defies the theory of economy of scale. Knowledge is the key element of wealth in the information age. Compared with industrial age manufacturing, information-based industries can produce more with fewer resources, less energy, and less labor. Production runs of one are possible and even economical with intellectual capital (knowledge) encoded in software and used by smart machines. The result is an explosion of personalized products and services. Moreover, knowledge to inform people, coded as digital bits, can be turned into audio, video, or even graphics -- it is "mediumless." Manpower, materiel, and forces, on the other hand, possess none of these characteristics.
Knowledge as a resource is often cheaper than materiel. It uses limited manpower or forces and may require little or no logistics. Thus the information age opens the doors to the resource poor. Knowledge diffuses and redistributes power to the weaker actors. It redraws boundaries and time and space horizons. It enables organizations to open up. When it comes to balancing means with ends and ways, knowledge as a resource offers an economical solution.
In sum, it is difficult to apply the ends, ways, and means paradigm of strategy to information age security. Unlike traditional means, knowledge is relatively cheap and easy to balance with ends and ways. Unlike conventional ways, cyberwar defies the military principle of mass. And its primary objectives are control and paralysis. Unlike the clearly articulated ends of Cold War security strategies, national objectives in a globally networked information age are more difficult to define and thus to achieve. Clearly, we need a new framework for formulating information age knowledge strategies.
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http://www.brint.com/wwwboard/messages/395.html
While one may agree that investment of intellectual capital must be safeguarded, however, one must distinguish this issue from the sharing or creation of knowledge. As argued elsewhere (Malhotra 1997), knowledge is created by the humans when they interact with information. "To conceive of knowledge as a collection of information seems to rob the concept of all of its life... Knowledge resides in the user and not in the collection. It is how the user reacts to a collection of information that matters." Churchman (1971, p. 10). In this context, most kinds of 'information products' (intellectual property) are appropriated by the users who go about creating and sharing knowledge using such products. Given the premise of the non-linear, discontinuously changing environment, the only assurance against 'hardwiring of assumptions' is through dialog that encourages surfacing of assumptions... that makes individual knowledge explicit... allows social appropriation of individual knowledge... and social interaction that translates explicit knowledge into tacit knowledge of the various members of the 'community of practice.'
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http://www.knowledgelab.org.uk/wiki/Main_Page
What is the Knowledge Lab?
The Knowledge Lab is an attempt to provide a collective space for anti-capitalist reflection. It is located at the margin of the university, an institution essentially geared towards the production of knowledge as a resource for corporate interest and as justification for particular constellations of power relations. The Knowledge Lab is hence also an attempt to claim back some of the university's space, resources and know-how from the military-industrial complex and make them available for people concerned about and working against the status quo of unceasing commodification, exploitation, war, and biospherical destruction.
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http://hinduwebsite.com/jainism/knowledge.asp
Jainism: The Five means of knowledge
by Jayaram V
According to Jainism there are five ways in which the jivas obtain knowledge of the things and the world in which they live. Of them the first three are imperfect means of knowledge and prone to error, while the last two are perfect means of knowledge and convey the truth without error. These five means or instruments of knowledge are explained below:
1. Mati: Matignana is the knowledge that you gain through your mind, your senses, your memory, your remembrance, your cognition, and your deductive reasoning. It is something which you know with the help of your mind and its various faculties.
2. Sruthi: When you learn something from other sources, other people or beings, through your observation of signs, symbols or words, we call it sruthignana or the knowledge of sruthi or hearing. This type of knowledge is gained through association, attention, understanding and naya or varied interpretations of the meaning of things.
Avadhi: You gain this type of knowledge not through any physical means such as the senses or the mind, but through your psychic abilities, or through your intuitive awareness, by overcoming the limitations of time and space. It is beyond the boundaries of your ordinary awareness and faculties and is not generally available to every one.
Mahaparyaya: This knowledge is gained through the reading of others' minds and thoughts. It is the knowledge of others that you gain through some extraordinary process like telepathy or mind reading.
Kevala: It is the highest knowledge that you gain when you transcend your ordinary self and become a Jina or Kevalin. It is knowledge itself that does not require any outward means for its awareness. It is always there, unattached, unlimited, and without any constraint, in the consciousness of the enlightened Jina. It cannot be described to others satisfaction, but can be experienced when the soul becomes liberated from earthly bondage.
As we can see, the first two are indirect means of knowledge since we have to depend upon some external source to know things, while the other three are direct, where you do not have to depend upon some external source to know about things.
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