I agree with you, but I think there is a degree of truth in what you quoted, although it is not the truth that is commonly considered. The idea you quoted is very similar to a kind of criticism that sometimes is made to young people, who have no idea of a life with difficulties and sacrifices. I think the question is essentially the same. The problem, in my opinion, is not how easy you get information or welfare. The problem is that, when something is got very easily and quickly, our mind is not encouraged to explore the value, that is, the deep connections that that thing has with other things or ideas. This is essentially the problem of encyclopedias: they give you quick access to a lot of information, but they don't let you experience a really specific style, an individual hermeneutic, a single way of living. Encyclopedias cannot do this because they are supposed to be objective, while what I'm talking about is rather subjectivity, that thing that you experience when you follow a single teacher for a long time. Of course, we know, the experience with a single teacher has its own drawbacks.
So, I would say that the real problem of easy things is that they don't guide you to see deep connections, those connections that you get with slowness, meditation, long paths.

Beware of unearned wisdom. — Bret Bernhoft

It's interesting that here in China, this is not a common perception that one shall encounter often. I understand that in your area of expertise, taking the shortest path is almost aways a priority. Culturely, I do think Chinese most of the time prefer a shortcut.

It seems to me, that those who are against so-called "shortcuts to wisdom" are protecting something. — Bret Bernhoft

However, I wonder if it is possible that they are protecting ingenuity, innovation and individualism. Because in a society where cutting the corner is a social norm and deemed much more efficient, you would see the decline of innovation and creativity. From this perspective, I guess "Beware of unearned wisdom" has its merit. But in the end, the goal is what matters. If you want to start from scratch, go head; if you prefer taking a shortcut to expedite the process, totally fine.

About protecting something, you made me remember that both in religions and in ancient philosophy we find an interest to keep certain knowledge secret. You can have a look at esotericism in Google. The following webpages can be some examples:
Wikipedia: Western esotericism
Deciphering the Esoteric Meaning: A Conceptual Analysis
Plato’s Esoteric Teachings
In Jesus as well we find some requests to keep certain things secret.

One essential and ancient reason for this secrecy was to protect certain doctrines and knowledge from trivialization and contempt. In this context of thought, popularizing knowledge would have as a result people who think that they know, they have understood, they don’t need to go deeper, which is what Jesus called pearls given to pigs.

This is actually what has happened in the history of philosophy: philosophy was born as a spiritual activity, with spiritual exercises, as Pierre Hadot has shown, but over time it has become an activity of detached and indifferent rational, logical reasoning. We can think that even more now, with AI and GPT, people of any cultural level are strongly pushed towards thinking that they have at their disposal an immense power on knowledge, reasoning, understanding, while they are missing the essential aspect of knowledge as a deep, subjective, spiritual, intimate experience .

But I am also in complete support in having an Artificial Intelligence write a good portion of my code. — Bret Bernhoft

If good code is wisdom and artificial intelligence is a shortcut, then your claim would make some sense. Trouble is, I'm not convinced that good code is wisdom (or is comparable to wisdom). Neither would I want to call wisdom "what works, what is effective." Usually when we talk about wisdom we are talking about something more than that, and that something is not particularly susceptible to shortcuts. Maybe another way to say, "Beware of unearned wisdom," is, "Don't make the mistake of confusing that bumper sticker with wisdom." "Do not believe that you are wise because you have read lots of bumper stickers, or because you spend a good deal of time on Facebook."

Neither would I want to call wisdom "what works, what is effective — Leontiskos

Isn’t wisdom the ability to make pragmatic sense ( what works) of an aspect of the world, to effectively anticipate events using some interpretive scheme that one has erected for the purpose? I would agree that when we have to creatively revise our schemes in the face of invalidation, there is no shortcut to painstaking trial and error.

in my experience, when a quicker route to understanding is available, it is often wise to take said journey. — Bret Bernhoft

I certainly agree. Shortcut or "longcut" knowledge is not a criterion. The first can sometimes even be more valuable than the second. There's a lot of "condensed" knowledge in some philosopher's sayings that proves much more valuable, useful and truthful, than the conclusions one can reached to by examining a subject thoroughly, which, in fact, is not a guarantee that one can "get to the bone" of it.

If knowledge or any piece of information is valuable and/or useful, depends on whether it "works" and covers the subject or solves the problem for us or not.

Now, we must certainly notice that there are a lot of exceptions to the "unearned wisdom". A basic one is for any kind students in any kind of subject. In these cases one learns much more by working hard if it is needed for solutions to problesm and answers to questions. In these cases, the journey is more important than the destination. And, if one uses "unearned wisdom" often, one will develop a lazy thinking and an inability to solve problems and answers to questions by oneself.

I think you make some good points, but it might be worth recalling the link between 'wisdom' and that little-used term, 'sapience' (little-used, but actually a part of our species designation!) I think, nowadays, the distinction between knowledge and sapience is quite difficult to discern, as modern thought tends to deprecate what was hitherto known as 'the sapiential dimension'. And that was understood to refer to a dimension or aspect of knowledge related to deep insight into fundamental truths or principles. It often pertains to philosophical or spiritual knowledge that goes beyond mere factual or intellectual understanding.

if happiness (eudomonia) consists in activity in accordance with virtue, it is reasonable that it should be activity in accordance with the highest virtue; and this will be the virtue of the best part of us. Whether then this be the Intellect (nous), or whatever else it be that is thought to rule and lead us by nature, and to have cognizance of what is noble and divine, either as being itself also actually divine, or as being relatively the divinest part of us, it is the activity of this part of us in accordance with the virtue proper to it that will constitute perfect happiness; and it has been stated already* that this activity is the activity of contemplation — Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics,1.1177a11

The idea being that true 'wisdom' discerns the commensurate objects of the understanding, such as the first principles of metaphysics. As to whether there are short-cuts to attainment of that understanding, I think a great deal would depend on the aptitude of the enquirer - some might grasp it straight away, others never.

Isn’t wisdom the ability to make pragmatic sense (what works) of an aspect of the world, — Joshs

I don't think so, but if you have a source in mind I would be willing to look into it. I think captured it well.

Here is another quote from Aristotle:

We have said in the Ethics what the difference is between art and science and the other kindred faculties; but the point of our present discussion is this, that all men suppose what is called wisdom to deal with the first causes and the principles of things. This is why, as has been said before, the man of experience is thought to be wiser than the possessors of any perception whatever, the artist wiser than the men of experience, the master-worker than the mechanic, and the theoretical kinds of knowledge to be more of the nature of wisdom than the productive. Clearly then wisdom is knowledge about certain causes and principles.

Since we are seeking this knowledge, we must inquire of what kind are the causes and the principles, the knowledge of which is wisdom. If we were to take the notions we have about the wise man, this might perhaps make the answer more evident. We suppose first, then, that the wise man knows all things, as far as possible, although he has not knowledge of each of them individually; secondly, that he who can learn things that are difficult, and not easy for man to know, is wise (sense-perception is common to all, and therefore easy and no mark of wisdom); again, he who is more exact and more capable of teaching the causes is wiser, in every branch of knowledge; and of the sciences, also, that which is desirable on its own account and for the sake of knowing it is more of the nature of wisdom than that which is desirable on account of its results, and the superior science is more of the nature of wisdom than the ancillary; for the wise man must not be ordered but must order, and he must not obey another, but the less wise must obey him. — Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book I (Tr. Ross)

Specifically, "and the theoretical kinds of knowledge to be more of the nature of wisdom than the productive." For example, we would not call the effective businessman wise. He may be crafty, or clever, or intelligent, or efficient, or administratively gifted, but it would be uncommon to call him wise.

Beware of unearned wisdom — Bret Bernhoft

You haven't really defined what you mean by wisdom. That's fine, then I won't have to either.

Wisdom takes time. You have to marinate in the world, bash your head into walls until you finally realize how to stop. Unearned wisdom isn't wisdom at all.

Wisdom is not the same as knowledge. As an engineer I am willing to go so far as to say beware of unearned knowledge. Data becomes information becomes knowledge. The only way for that to happen is through manipulation - tabulation, statistics, visualization, modeling, fiddling, analyzing, running sensitivity analyses. Doing it once, doing twice, and then doing it again. Developing a conceptual model. Whether or not you can afford to do all that depends on what you're doing, what your budget is. Likely you'll have to cut corners. That's where experience comes in - learning where you can cut corners and where you need to focus you attention. Quality assurance.

The only way for that to happen is through manipulation - tabulation, statistics, visualization, modeling, fiddling, analyzing, running sensitivity analyses. Doing it once, doing twice, and then doing it again. — T Clark

I seem to recall reading a biological snippet about C S Peirce who was very much a working scientist - spent years doing hydrological measurement. He said something similar. Very disdainful of armchair experts.

Isn’t wisdom the ability to make pragmatic sense (what works) of an aspect of the world,
— Joshs

I don't think so, but if you have a source in mind I would be willing to look into it. I think ↪Wayfarer captured it well — Leontiskos

What Wayfarer captured is a classical Greek notion of wisdom carried over into the Enlightenment. What I am depicting is a postmodern notion of wisdom (Later Wittgenstein, Deleuze, Foucault, Rorty, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Nietzsche).

, that which is desirable on its own account and for the sake of knowing it is more of the nature of wisdom than that which is desirable on account of its results, — Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book I (Tr. Ross)

What is the motivation for this knowing if not the desire to make sense of an aspect of the world, or the world as a whole. How do we distinguish wisdom from folly except on the basis of its results in terms of guiding our subsequent interactions with the world? In this sense the highest and seemingly most impractical wisdom is the most practical form of knowing.

I seem to recall reading a biological snippet about C S Peirce who was very much a working scientist - spent years doing hydrological measurement. He said something similar. Very disdainful of armchair experts. — Wayfarer

If you read "Origin of Species," you see that Darwin starts out with building blocks - daily observations over many years - and then builds the wall of natural selection from that. Focus on the details before you try to systematize. That's the major thing I learned from reading Stephen Jay Gould. He took that up in his work both implicitly and explicitly. Implicitly, that's how he wrote. Explicitly, he talked about writing always from the specific to the general.

About protecting something, you made me remember that both in religions and in ancient philosophy we find an interest to keep certain knowledge secret. — Angelo Cannata

This is something I'm familiar with, yes. Occult secrets are kept as such, as you refer to, for many different reasons. Some of those justifications include the protection of said information and tools. As well as maintaining powerful agendas.

In my studies, I've even read that the Great Mysteries have a life force of their own, and are capable of revealing "itself"/"themselves" to the correct initiates, at the appropriate time. One of the common reasons given for this is keeping powerful gnosis away from the unprepared.

But, in my opinion, this perspective doesn't work for the betterment of mankind. It keeps a few priests in charge of truth. When every human is capable of receiving and digesting "major wisdoms", from the moment they choose to do so.

If good code is wisdom and artificial intelligence is a shortcut, then your claim would make some sense. Trouble is, I'm not convinced that good code is wisdom (or is comparable to wisdom). Neither would I want to call wisdom "what works, what is effective." Usually when we talk about wisdom we are talking about something more than that, and that something is not particularly susceptible to shortcuts. Maybe another way to say, "Beware of unearned wisdom," is, "Don't make the mistake of confusing that bumper sticker with wisdom." "Do not believe that you are wise because you have read lots of bumper stickers, or because you spend a good deal of time on Facebook." — Leontiskos

You make good points here. And I agree with another commenter that I should have defined wisdom at the beginning of this thread. With that said, my core assertion here is that sudden enlightenment is possible, even probable, for anyone who seeks it. But there are prisons and firewalls constructed by man to prevent this artificially scarce resource (true wisdom) from being shared.

I do however, disagree that simple expressions cannot hold wisdom, such as bumper stickers. It is my observation that such things are more often doorways to exponential growth. And while a bumper sticker may not be the truth or wisdom itself, their significance is best not to be underplayed.

When every human is capable of receiving and digesting "major wisdoms", from the moment they choose to do so. — Bret Bernhoft

I was going to give my answer, but actually you did it:

there are prisons and firewalls constructed by man to prevent this artificially scarce resource (true wisdom) from being shared — Bret Bernhoft

Physically we are all able to get access to any degree of wisdom, we are all humans. The problem is that we humans are also able to discourage and destroy this potential. When a child is sorrounded by parents, relatives, companions, who don’t encourage any interest for wisdom, they are automatically destroying the potential of that child, they might even prepare that child to despise wisdom.

We know from history that, unfortunately, people who were not so good at wisdom, but very good at fighting, were able to prevail over other people who were the opposite. Unfortunately we humans are able to destroy wisdom and love for wisdom.

I think that bumper stickers can hardly hold wisdom, simply because they don’t have a context. We know that any word, outside any context, means almost nothing. That’s why I think that practically all proverbs, commonly considered important sources of wisdom, are all stupid. For all proverbs it is possible to find another proverb, or at least another way of thinking, that claims exactly the opposite and is able to support it with experiences and evidence.

Physically we are all able to get access to any degree of wisdom, we are all humans. — Angelo Cannata

I find that to be an extremely questionable statement. Do you really think so?

Obviously there are impaired people, medical cases, about whom we can even have scientific evidence that they are unable to reach certain kinds and levels of brain activity. Other than that, I cannot imagine other cases where we have evidence of a predetermined limitation. Can you?

What Wayfarer captured is a classical Greek notion of wisdom carried over into the Enlightenment. What I am depicting is a postmodern notion of wisdom (Later Wittgenstein, Deleuze, Foucault, Rorty, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Nietzsche). — Joshs

I am not convinced that even the postmodern vision of wisdom is based in practicality. Do you have any quotes or sources that would support this thesis?

One of the recent philosophical trends that I've noticed welling-up across the Internet is the perspective that if one doesn't work hard, suffer and overcome ignorance through labor, that the begotten wisdom is dangerous to the individual.

Does it make someone smart just because they can learn easily? Someone who can learn to advantage themselves is considered intelligent, but if they really are intelligent they are just learning easily. Maybe pain and strife make them more worthy of praise as intelligent, or maybe it is more a question of a will to power. If the smart one is the person who has and the dumb who has not, the measure of intellect may take place mostly in deception and betrayal.

I find that whole wisdom of antiquity refreshing. There's so much we can pick up on the way to knowledge and understanding. Like Blaise Pascal and his triangles, Euclid with his geometry, and Descartes coordinate system, patience and contemplation is enough to arrive at something all the books (or websites) in the world can't teach you. It's one thing to hold knowledge in brain cells, and a whole other game to contribute and build upon it.

I am not convinced that even the postmodern vision of wisdom is based in practicality. Do you have any quotes or sources that would support this thesis? — Leontiskos

If the begin­ning point of wisdom for Socrates is the realization that you don’t know what you think you know, for Plato it is that you do know what you think you don’t—you just don’t know that you know it. We are ignorant not of the relevant facts, but of the fact that we are not ignorant of them. Thus is the Socratic acknowledgment of ignorance replaced by the recollection and recognition of one’s concealed knowledge. In order to avoid traditional biases, Heidegger examines Dasein in its “average everydayness,” that is, amidst the mundane activities that fill our days. In spite of philosophy’s overwhelming emphasis on abstract theoret­ical thinking, the briefest glance at our daily conduct shows that “the kind of dealing which is closest to us is as we have shown, not a bare perceptual cognition, but rather that kind of concern which manipulates things and puts them to use; and this has its own kind of ‘knowledge.’”

Heidegger calls this noncognitive, nontheoretical, inconspicuous understanding “cir­cumspection,” and defines it as a tacit know-how that “‘comes alive’ in any of [Dasein’s] dealings with entities.” We understand the three kinds of beings—tools, objects, and people—because we’re constantly dealing with them in very different ways; Oliver Sacks’ patients excepted, we rarely mistake people for tools or vice versa. These three regional ontologies col­lectively constitute our understanding of being, which does not consist in learning an esoteric doctrine but in being proficient at living a human life.

In order to behave as humans do, we must know how to use some form of equipment, how to communicate with others, and how to examine objects—which means that every Dasein has mastered these three ways of being. This skillful engagement with the world represents our most basic kind of understanding, grounding all abstract thematic thought. Hei­degger pursues ontology by studying Dasein for the same kind of reason that Willie Sutton robbed banks: because that’s where the understanding of being is.”

( Groundless Grounds: A Study of Wittgenstein and Heidegger, by Lee Braver)

“ Ethics is closer to wisdom than to reason, closer to understanding what is good than to correctly adjudicating particular situations. I am not alone in thinking this, for it seems that nowadays the focus has moved away from meta- ethical issues to a much sharper debate between those who demand a detached, critical morality based on prescriptive principles and those who pursue an active and engaged ethics based on a tradition that identifies the good.”

“We always operate in some kind of immediacy of a given situation. Our lived world is so ready-at-hand that we have no deliberateness about what it is and how we inhabit it. When we sit at the table to eat with a relative or friend, the entire complex know-how of how to handle our utensils, how to sit, how to converse, is present without deliberation. We could say that our having lunch-self is transparent. You finish lunch, return to the office, and enter into a readiness that has its own mode of speaking, moving, and making assessments. We have a readiness-for-action proper to every specific lived situation. Moreover, we are constantly moving from one readiness-for-action to another.“

“My presentation is, more than anything, a plea for a re-enchantment of wisdom, understood as non-intentional action. This skillful approach to living is based on a pragmatics of transformation that demands nothing less than a moment-to-moment awareness of the virtual nature of our selves. In its full unfolding it opens up openness as authentic caring.”

( Ethical Know-how, by Francisco Varela)

This is to say that as those interested in philosophy, we should be open to what works, what is effective. — Bret Bernhoft

The truth must always be the goal rather than games of rhetoric, though it is nice to have fun. :snicker:

The truth must always be the goal... — chiknsld

I genuinely agree with you. The truth is the most important objective here, or anywhere in life really.

...rather than games of rhetoric, though it is nice to have fun. — chiknsld

But it is important to appreciate that "the truth" is a matter of results. Ideally beheld with fun embedded within.

The truth must always be the goal...
— chiknsld

I genuinely agree with you. The truth is the most important objective here, or anywhere in life really.

...rather than games of rhetoric, though it is nice to have fun.
— chiknsld

But it is important to appreciate that "the truth" is a matter of results. Ideally beheld with fun embedded within. — Bret Bernhoft

These are excellent insights. Much appreciated! :nerd:

The first quote you give does not seem to involve any direct claim about wisdom. The second does speak about wisdom, but if not for its Heideggerian lingo it could easily be from an Aristotelian. For Aristotle ethical wisdom is manifested in doing, not in discursive knowing. Of course Aristotle would not consider ethical wisdom the highest form of wisdom, so if that is Varela's claim then it is somewhat at odds with Aristotle. But the first sentence (and thesis) of that quote is in perfect accord with an ancient Aristotelian approach to ethics and ethical wisdom.

So perhaps there is a postmodern shift insofar as the ethical takes center stage, but I think the Heideggerian and the Aristotelian concepts of ethical wisdom are very similar.

Returning to that first quote, if skillful navigation of the world represents the "most basic" form of understanding, then I think wisdom involves more than this. The foundation must be properly laid, but the wise person will have a deep understanding of the fact of skillful navigation, along with how it works and comes about. That is, they will be able to write about it and provide insight into it. This is why Heidegger is considered wise, because he is able to do these things, and his exposition is a theoretical form of knowledge.

”

if skillful navigation of the world represents the "most basic" form of understanding, then I think wisdom involves more than this. The foundation must be properly laid, but the wise person will have a deep understanding of the fact of skillful navigation, along with how it works and comes about. That is, they will be able to write about it and provide insight into it. This is why Heidegger is considered wise, because he is able to do these things, and his exposition is a theoretical form of knowledge — Leontiskos

Writing about something and providing insight isn’t necessarily the same thing as understanding a fact theoretically. Heidegger defines the theoretical as a derivative, ‘present-at-hand’ mode of thinking which forgets its basis in practical engagement.

In Being and Time Heidegger argues:

“Theoretical looking at the world has always already flattened it down to the uniformity of what is purely objectively present…

Derrida says of Heideggerian Being:

“The Being of the existent is not a theory or a science. There are few themes which have demanded Heidegger's insistence to this extent. Being is not a concept or theory or existent.”

Heidegger adds:

“No matter how keenly we just look at the "outward appearance" of things constituted in one way or another, we cannot discover handiness. When we just look at things "theoretically," we lack an understanding of handiness. But association which makes use of things is not blind, it has its own way of seeing which guides our operations and gives them their specific thingly quality. Our associa­tion with useful things is subordinate to the manifold of references of the "in-order-to." The kind of seeing of this accommodation to things is called circumspection.

"Practical" behavior is not "atheoretical" in the sense of a lack of seeing, and the difference between it and theoretical behavior lies not only in the fact that on the one hand we observe and on the other we act, and that action must apply theoretical cognition if it is not to remain blind. Rather, observation is a kind of taking care just as primordially as action has its own kind of seeing. Theoretical behavior is just looking, noncircumspectly. Because it is noncircumspect, looking is not without rules; its canon takes shape in method.

Handiness is not grasped theoretically at all, nor is it itself initially a theme for circumspection. What is peculiar to what is initially at hand is that it withdraws, so to speak, in its character of handiness in order to be really handy. What everyday association is initially busy with is not tools themselves, but the work. What is to be produced in each case is what is primarily taken care of and is thus also what is at hand.”

I think the Heideggerian and the Aristotelian concepts of ethical wisdom are very similar — Leontiskos

For Heidegger the important difference comes down to this:

"Aristotle had a more radical view [than Plato]; every logos is synthesis and diairesis at the same time, not either the one-say, as a "positive judgment"-or the other-as a "negative judgment." Rather, every statement, whether affirmative or negative, whether false or true, is equiprimordially synthesis and diairesis. Pointing out is putting together and taking apart. However, Aristotle did not pursue this analytical question further to a problem: what phenomenon is it then within the structure of the logos that allows and requires us to characterize every statement as synthesis and diairesis? What is to be got at phenomenally with the formal structures of "binding" and "separating," more precisely, with the unity of the two, is the phenomenon of "something as something."

In accordance with this structure, something is understood with regard to something else, it is taken together with it, so that this confrontation that understands, interprets, and articulates, at the same time takes apart what has been put together. If the phenomenon of the "as" is covered over and above all veiled in its existential origin from the hermeneutical "as," Aristotle's phenomenological point of departure disintegrates to the analysis of logos in an external "theory of judgment," according to which judgment is a binding or separating of representations and concepts. Thus binding and separating can be further formalized to mean a "relating." Logistically, the judgment is dissolved into a system of "coordinations," it becomes the object of "calculation," but not a theme of ontological interpretation.""If the kind of being of the terms of the relation is understood without differentiation as merely objectively present things, then the relation shows itself as the objectively present conformity of two objectively present things.”

It seems to me, that those who are against so-called "shortcuts to wisdom" are protecting something. — Bret Bernhoft

Experts might simply fear that a fast pace lead to errors. It is easier to succumb to biases and fallacies if knowledge isn't meditated on beyond the emotional value you apply to it at the time of learning.

Generally speaking, people react far more than they contemplate and analyze. We are automated machines that require longer processing time in order to form actual understanding and wisdom. I'd say that the difference between knowledge and wisdom is time. With time you break down your learned knowledge and form a rational context. The holistic view through that context is what can be called wisdom.

That we can learn knowledge fast is simply a good thing, short-cuts to gather knowledge has been an ongoing and an evolving "technology" for thousands of years. A book is a technology as well, and books managed to make more people knowledgeable faster. To the anger of the church who said that people shouldn't have such a fast shortcut when it takes years to understand everything (context). While of course they were afraid of becoming irrelevant and the church becoming weaker, there's truth in fearing a lack of wisdom to the knowledge learned.

What skeptics of shortcuts have been talking about every time there's a historical leap in technology for gathering knowledge, have never been about gathering knowledge but instead fearing the lack of understanding the context in which the learned knowledge exists.

In a time where knowledge is available to everyone, everywhere, all the time and unfiltered, this becomes a serious issue. Now we have internet as a radicalization machine that cannot give context and wisdom, but only pure data, pure knowledge. However, people do not see it as this two-fold system, but have instead just addressed everything as "knowledge", forgetting the idea and concept of context/wisdom.

It seems that the thing that is lacking the most today is contemplation and analysis by the subject. To "sleep on it", so to speak. People rarely feel they have time to gather knowledge and also contemplate on it and form a context before they are required to comment and formulate an answer. An answer which at such a fast pace can only produce a biased emotional reaction to this new knowledge learned.

Writing about something and providing insight isn’t necessarily the same thing as understanding a fact theoretically. — Joshs

I would say that when Heidegger writes and publishes he is doing theory, not practice, and he is manifesting theoretical wisdom. So long as we maintain that the one who can (theoretically) exposit as Heidegger does is wiser than the one who cannot, Aristotle's point about the relation of theory to wisdom holds. I don't believe your quotes from Heidegger are at odds with this. For example, that Being is not a theory does not invalidate the point I am making. We consider Heidegger wise primarily because of his theoretical exposition. It would not surprise me if Heidegger wished his theory to be non-theory, but it is not. The sort of exposition present in a treatise is inevitably theoretical.

In other words, I don't see much amiss about sudden enlightenment, or instantaneous downloads from the universe. — Bret Bernhoft

It is said that enlightenment is always sudden since it is outside time.

It seems to me, that those who are against so-called "shortcuts to wisdom" are protecting something. But in my experience, when a quicker route to understanding is available, it is often wise to take said journey. This isn't to say that integrating explosive growth won't take a while; it probably will. This is to say that as those interested in philosophy, we should be open to what works, what is effective.

The thing is that 'integrating explosive growth' does, as you say, take time. Thus while enlightenment may be sudden wisdom takes time to nurture. We may have a sudden realisation that E-Mc2, but understanding its meaning and implications is a long process.

I don't think those who are against 'shortcuts to wisdom; are protecting anything. They are against the idea that such shortcuts are available. The difficulty here is the meaning of the word 'wisdom; for by some definitions perhaps there are shortcuts. .

Going off-piste a little, this would be why I strongly disagree with the translation of the Buddhist philosopher-monk Nagarjuna's text Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way under the now widely used title Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way.. It seems to me a misuse of the word 'wisdom', as if one can get it from a book, which Nagarjuna did not suggest. .

Understanding something includes knowing when to take shortcuts. That AI example, ”a good chunk” of code (say a complex regexp) can be handed over to the AI, at the same time as knowing what need to be done by oneself.

Understanding take the time it takes, and no medals are given to the say effort. On the contrary, its often when one takes on the problem area playfully and open minded that you get to the understanding. Which includes knowing what you don’t need to understand.

The truth must always be the goal...
— chiknsld

I genuinely agree with you. The truth is the most important objective here, or anywhere in life really. — Bret Bernhoft

Whats the truth about being able to do good computer programs? Or discussing say politics wisely? Whats the truth about abortion being right, handling climate crises or determing the number of immigrants to be admitted to a country?

Is Wisdom and Understanding not beyond seeking truths, is it not about being able to manouver in the messy place called world? Where nice little facts and truths certainly become helpful in those processes?