Beware of unearned wisdom. — 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.It seems to me, that those who are against so-called "shortcuts to wisdom" are protecting something. — Bret Bernhoft
But I am also in complete support in having an Artificial Intelligence write a good portion of my code. — Bret Bernhoft
Neither would I want to call wisdom "what works, what is effective — Leontiskos
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.in my experience, when a quicker route to understanding is available, it is often wise to take said journey. — Bret Bernhoft
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
Isn’t wisdom the ability to make pragmatic sense (what works) of an aspect of the world, — Joshs
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)
Beware of unearned wisdom — Bret Bernhoft
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
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
, 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)
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
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
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
When every human is capable of receiving and digesting "major wisdoms", from the moment they choose to do so. — Bret Bernhoft
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. — Angelo Cannata
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
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.
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... — chiknsld
...rather than games of rhetoric, though it is nice to have fun. — chiknsld
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
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
“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
"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
Writing about something and providing insight isn’t necessarily the same thing as understanding a fact theoretically. — Joshs
It is said that enlightenment is always sudden since it is outside time.In other words, I don't see much amiss about sudden enlightenment, or instantaneous downloads from the universe. — Bret Bernhoft
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.
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?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
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