just wanna type this down before i forget (again). my recent ruminations considering the slippery subject of 'knowledge'.
knowledge, often casually defined as true beliefs, can be purely psychological, but is also undeniably impactful on social relations. hence, there is a sociology of knowledge, built upon some fundamental philosophical understanding of the definition of knowledge.
let's charter the course of knowledge across a social structure. knowledge almost always comes from the particular; i.e. it is created and first encountered at the individual (or agent) level. here, it already has immense potential to shape that individual's reality (and consequently the social reality of those around him/er) even before it is transmitted. within the agent, knowledge can produce manifold psychological impacts - justifying one's actions, inciting one to act, igniting various passions and emotions, impeding an ongoing action, or even just creating interest. of course, trivia (as a form of knowledge) can be of near-zero impact, but generally speaking, the agent's contact with knowledge preempts, and is causative of, action and change.
here, we also already have a layer of interpretation. when any raw data is first imputed to any individual, there may be some knee-jerk responses (especially sense-data of particular jarring nature). these would tend to be labelled information rather than knowledge. the key difference being that knowledge requires some "personal consideration" or interpretation of that information's significance, some level of decoding so that the data is useful rather than "noise". at this level of interpretation, it is already apparent that how a person interprets depends much on his/er prior socialisation and disposition. depending on which cipher one uses, information can decode into vastly different knowledge, and thus lead to drastically different action. yet, this layer of socially-assisted decoding is not purely undirected - the agent is capable of moulding both the cipher he learns and the cipher he wishes to use; apart from choosing what action to take subsequently. the agent thus is an active (and creative) moulder of knowledge.
nextly, things get exciting: the agent is never alone. knowledge gets passed on from agent to agent, both actively and passively. one may choose to transmit one's honest interpretation of some knowledge, or choose to embellish it, or choose to omit/distort parts of knowledge. he may do this in full knowledge of the receiving end's cipher (hence actively shaping the receiver's interpretation) or he may do this
hoping to shape the receiver. there may be any number of other intentions for the transmitter at this point - it only depends on one's creativity.
the receiver, of course, is far from unfiltered. she has her own layer of interpretation, her own ciphers to choose from, and her own moulding to participate in. subsequently, she has her own psychological space within which to react to this received knowledge - which may result in further interpretations or tranmissions.
individuals are up till now, assumed to function independently. however, that may of course, not be the case. groups of individuals may choose to interpret knowledge together, consolidating everyone's ciphers and resulting in greater permutations of interpretation. however, the net interpretation may not be completely received by all in that group - the subsequent absorption is more than often differentiated. these groups may also disseminate knowledge as one - both allowing a new entity to assume various responsibilities while allowing the composite individuals to diffuse theirs. as a loose affiliation, dissemination may often be less detailed than transmission, and such knowledge may also contain more interpretations.
these loose affiliations may be coordinated in hierarchies - thus becoming an organisation. here, we can talk about information flowing through various branches of said organisation - but what is often neglected is the grouped interpretation and individual interpretation concurrently going on when information reaches any subordinate entity. depending on how the ciphers are socialised throughout this hierarchy, decoding may be selective and uncontrolled - the net interpretation of such a structure is almost always greater than that allowed for by a single cipher, owing to the individual creativity of each agent and group. there may be both apparent interpretations and (perhaps multiple) latent interpretations of the same knowledge disseminated across such hierarchical organisations. control of information flow is never a guarantee of control over interpretation; hence subsequent actions may vary widely.
not all organisations are coordinated through hierarchies, however. some do not attempt to control information or interpretation, perhaps tacitly admitting to the ability of creativity to thwart these efforts. such networks may spontaneously generate ever increasing amounts of knowledge, often in uncontrolled amounts, yet still encapsulated in a form acceptable for interpretation. here, even though the mode of transmission is uncontrolled, standards of interpretation may spring up, either from a need for mutual understanding (which requires some standardisation, and thus control, of interpretation). of course, standardised interpretation is still not guaranteed to spontaneously emerge from such loose networks, although it generally has to happen if the network is to continue functioning as a disseminator and interpretor of knowledge.
the two (ideal) types of meta-groups described above are of course by no means exhaustive. but both demonstrate the ability of larger social groups with varying levels of coordination to further interpret and disseminate knowledge. thus, at the societal level, knowledge may be interpreted any multitude of times before the next entity encounters it - and adds her own interpretation to the mix.
questions:
- can society spontaneously create knowledge above and beyond its composite agents?
- could such creative non-human entities thus be said to have a conscious will?
- which steps should the process of 'translation' encompass?
- what other types of processes can be described? how useful are these ideal types?
notes:
- need to differentiate raw information from processed knowledge
- account for integrity of information/knowledge within great multiplicities of interpretation.
- account for different intentions and their effects on transmission.
- relate this mapping to creation of reality.
there. just a rough draft. for sc4209.
