#2: Examples on Wisdom (and counter examples of wisdom)

" In Plato's Apology, Socrates and his friend Chaerephon, visit the oracle at Delphi. As the story goes, Chaerephon asks the oracle whether anyone is wiser than Socrates. The oracle answers “No, Socrates is the wisest person.” Socrates reports that he is puzzled by this answer since so many other people in the community are well known for their extensive knowledge and wisdom, but Socrates claims that he lacks extensive knowledge and wisdom. Socrates does an investigation to get to the bottom of this puzzle. He interrogates a series of politicians, poets, and craftsmen. As one would expect, the Socratic grilling reveals that those who claim to know either did not really know any of the things they claimed to know, or else they knew far less than they proclaimed to know. The most knowledgeable of the bunch, the craftsmen, knew quite a bit about their craft, but they claimed to know things far beyond the scope of their expertise. Socrates, so we are told, neither suffers the vice of claiming to know when he does not know nor of claiming to have wisdom when he does not have wisdom. "

[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/]

Wisdom as Epistemic Humility is mentioned and briefly presented in the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy from the above Socratic example. What it utilises is the small-scale sharp and infallible tool of logic in order to attempt to deduce epistemic humility as a foundation for wisdom. My humble intuition suggests that one or two paragraphs are insufficient (regardless of how efficient and ground-breaking they may be) in order to weave the small scale logical arguments into an organised knowledge and fashion it into a definition of wisdom. What the passage lacks is an appeal to the author's intuition. Without intuition the small scale logic will not transform into wisdom - not to mention knowledge of wisdom.

Unlike the example in the comments of the previous post (where Einstein begins with a holistic wisdom in his mind and then reconstructs it from logical first principles), the above argument begins with humility theory i.e. propsed conclusion (not true knowledge let alone wisdom).

"S is wise iff S believes S does not know anything." is suggested as the second humility theory (ignoring that the word "anything" is illogically deduced; it would have been better to say "everything"). This statement alludes to an intuitive notion, or an old (wo)man's tale, that wise men speak little and listen much. As discussed in the previous post, wisdom without its small scale counterpart (logic) is unable to communicate details to others due to barriers in language. And one who possesses wisdom, is so engulfed in serenity and calmness and wonder that he is left speechless and attentive to something residing within of much greater value.

Thus the amended "S is wise iff S believes S does not know everything" may have an element of truth, but its justification is not logical - thus it is not true knowledge. (knowledge = infallibly justifiable true belief. see comment to previous post).

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[[[May it be possible, that with a direct link from an individual to another individual, from a link from one mind to another mind, from brain to brain, from neuron to neuron ... that wisdom can be conveyed directly without any language or logic or knowledge as preludes?]]]

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Four examples of wisdom in the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy are discussed.

The Wisdom as Epistemic Accuracy arguments also fall into the

logic -->knowledge

example highlighted above. After the distinction attempted in the previous post between knowledge and wisdom:

logic(1) --> knowledge(1)

[sum of (from n=1 to n=infinite; logic(n)-->knowledge(n)] ---(intuition)---> Wisdom

...wisdom cannot be attained through logical formulations of knowledge alone.

The third argument (Wisdom as Knowledge) also falls short of the above model. It is mentioned that "S is wise iff S knows how to live well."

All the above arguments: Wisdom as humility, as accuracy and as knowledge of how to live well are not wisdom itself per se, but merely a consequence thereof.

It must not be forgotten that wisdom here is being used in its broadest sense. Just as there is knowledge of an historic event, knowledge of quantum physics and knowledge of deep sea organisms, there exist wise (wo)men whose wisdom may be restricted to one or more domains.

And the fourth argument states:

"S is wise iff (i) S knows how to live well, and (ii) S is successful at living well." (Wisdom as knowledge and action).

Again, this action is simply a consequence of human motivation.

In the brain, we sense through the five senses (sensation) and depending on exact circumstances we feel emotions as a result (if a stranger kisses us we may be repulsed and sad but if a loved one does we may feel an emotion of warmth and happiness). Emotions are processed and contribute to motivation, which leads to motor action (push the stranger away, kiss the loved one back) and a cumulation of action determines our behaviour.

Where does Wisdom fit in the above emotion/motivation?

Read Socrates' story again at the first paragraph of this post. Do not analyse it further. Did you get an overall picture of what wisdom may be? Wisdom is not described in the passage. Its effects, and the behaviour of one who possesses it is described, however.

Wisdom is knowledge that is not bound in time nor space. If knowledge of an historic event is the retelling of the story in its precise chronological order as revealed in time, then Wisdom is the mention of one word, a single word, which represents the beginning, middle, end and moral of the story and guides the bearer of wisdom towards making a decision or understanding a current phenomenon encountered by the bearer of wisdom. Wisdom is the mind map, mind image, and mind story, which in one flash of thought remembers the beginning and middle and end of the story and is left speechless where to begin to convey the story from a small scale level.

We must appeal to our intuition (transformative mind-process) to convey the logical, chronological (bound in time) story above and teach us on wisdom. Small scale logical arguments would not suffice (or will be very messy and long).

Thus what we lack is an understanding of intuition which seems to be the key in our understanding in general, and our transformation from knowledge into timeless wisdom.

The last few centuries have seen a revolution in logic, and its principles have been discussed and argued to near perfection; creating a vast body of knowledge which has produced innumerable technological "miracles".

What the present generations must do is revolutionise our fundamental understanding of intuition, and the laws it is based upon. Such an imagination may not only help us understand ourselves better, but may yet prove useful in other fields (conscioussness, space-time fractals, wisdom).

Think of intuition as Maxwell's electromagnetic equation: it neatly summarises the 2 aspects of a single force. Bring in the electro-weak theory and we summarise 3 aspects of one thing. A charge that moves in space and time reveals another aspect of its intrinsic existence: that of a magnetic field. The magnet and the charged particle are views of the same thing from different zoom levels, different perspectives. So too are Logic, Knowledge and Wisdom: 3 aspects of understanding and truth (or understanding of truth I am not sure which). Intuition is the unifying transformation. To it we should attend.

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[[[Why are sleepless nights conducive to intuition? Too tired for logical thought? Or easy to be deceived and hallucinate in the dark?]]]

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