As we are awash in knowledge we do have an extraordinary capacity for wise outcomes.
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Knowledge in action. Sagacity. Percipience. Having experience, knowledge and good judgement. These words and phrases all describe and define wisdom. But will an abundance of data lead us to a golden age of wisdom? Will a richness of facts and figures, statistics and evidence lead us to a never-ending harvest of good judgement?
If we give credence to the DIKW (data, information, knowledge, wisdom) information science hierarchy, the answer leans to the affirmative.
For with this framework, the following is the pattern: an abundance of data certainly leads to a wealth of information, or descriptions, about a plethora of matters. Which should, in turn, facilitate a breadth and depth of knowledge that is available for teaching and mentoring at a level unsurpassed in human history. Where all of this enabling of peoples across the world, regardless of where they sit in the strata of society, the opportunity to partake in the fruits of expertise, mastery and prowess. Thus, culminating in a golden age of wisdom. A time of good judgement and wise action.
But is the preceding flow true if we use a different time horizon? This piece you are reading is written for a timeframe of several decades into the future. What if you and I were to wind the clock back several decades to a time where “today was that tomorrow of several decades into the future”? Comparing this “back-in-time today” to the “current-time today”, is the latter enriched with an abundance of data? Do we, in the “current-time today” have a wealth of information about a plethora of matters compared with the times past. And thirdly, with respect to the current times, do we not have the ability, through information and communications technology, to teach and to share the fruits of expertise globally?
So yes, the argument can be made that we are better off today than yesterday. That we are wiser, that we have made sound judgements. While there is so much more to do, we can point to improvements in economic and physical health across the globe. We can make mention of the reduced rates of nation-state armed conflict and of improvements in education.
Turning the recipients of this information wealth to be beneficiaries
But as we cast our eyes forward, will the teenage grandchildren of today’s teenagers be enveloped in, and benefit from, a milieu of experience, knowledge and good judgement? Consider the following two scenarios.
While matters of family are a common thread, that young woman in Asia, on the cusp of adulthood, may well have a personalised AI avatar to guide her through career and social choices. Offering her advice that could be heeded. And what-about that young man, a product of his Western heritage, looking to develop a career in the physical trades, finding his options don’t include the routine work he desires. Just like he was told by all throughout his schooling years.
In both cases, wisdom offered but not infused. The prospects are that tomorrow will be just like today. Today we have that abundance of knowledge and the capacity for wise outcomes. And tomorrow? Our knowledge will have grown, we’ll have intelligence on hand and our capacity for delivering wise outcomes will be enhanced, but whether or not our results reflect these well-developed inputs is surely debatable.
These same arguments can be made regarding the generation of these teenager’s parents. Regardless of whether they live in Africa, the Sub-continent or in the Global North, one can imagine these parental pillars of society having responsibility in business or in policy making. Where the leaders in business are bound to a then long-established fiduciary duty to consult digital oracles. Where the policy makers can freely receive a finely curated harvest of good judgement.
Again it plays out in these two cases, decisions not quite fully imbued with the wisdom on offer. For across all four of these vignettes witness a surfeit of data, of information and of knowledge ripe with judicious potential. But where the consumption of this particular fruit is not universal. And the common denominator? What stands in front of this golden age of wisdom is surely our inherent human nature.
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