INFORMATION IS NOT KNOWLEDGE

An enigma of our modern world has never been more evident than over the past several months.  The more advanced our culture becomes, the less we seem to know.  The more tools we have to solve problems, the more unsolvable the problems appear to be.  Perhaps an answer to this paradox lies in the immortal words of Frank Zappa: “Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom.”

This is the information age and we are drowning in it.  Before my next plane flight I will first check ticket prices from multiple sources within minutes. I will then be issued my ticket electronically, choose my own seat and be able to check on any delays, with a few key strokes. Once on the plane, I can use the internet from my seat and make calls on my cellular phone to any corner of the globe.

We track climbers as they ascend Mt. Everest and a woman rowing across the ocean.  Trucking companies know the exact location of each of their rigs, 24/7.  The minute a freedom fighter is killed in Syria, it is recorded on You Tube.  We can detect a small earthquake anywhere on earth and the explosion of a star a quintillion miles away.  But for several weeks and counting, we have no idea where or why a massive commercial airliner with its passengers and crew disappeared into a modern day  twilight zone.

What does this incident tell us about our use of information to solve problems?  Certainly, in hindsight, there was enough information available to locate this aircraft had a knowledgeable plan or technology been put in place. Either the problem was never imagined or the solution thought to be too expensive. (Does anyone think this scenario could happen to Air Force One?) In either case we have limited our ability to solve a problem by not properly using the information available to us.

There are other recent examples.  The roll out of HealthCare.gov was a disaster. This was not because of limited information, but because unknowledgeable actors who thought in terms of social concerns and not technology, were placed in charge.  Sort of the opposite of the team that came together to perfect the atomic bomb. 

Global warming events are another example.  The information supporting these phenomena has been available for many years and have translated into pockets of unassailable knowledge by the world’s leading scientists.  This knowledge explains the problem and proposes solutions.  Unfortunately many individuals and even global leaders have twisted or simply ignored the science for their own purposes.  If enough sources are willing to take this risk, the information becomes useless.

Sometimes there are tradeoffs between obtaining information to gain limited knowledge on the one hand and human rights, most notably privacy, on the other.  The more cameras that are installed, listening devices utilized and mail read, by well meaning investigators, the more crime that can be prevented.  But how much is too much and what is the cost to democratic principles?  Should the information be used, simply because it is available?

On a larger transcendental scale, one would think that the more information that is synthesized into knowledge about our shared evolutionary past and most recently, the disclosures on the beginning of the universe, the closer we would become as a world community in respecting each other.  Of course the opposite is the case.  Tribalism, kinship culture and fundamental religious beliefs rule the day, not the common cause for humanity.

Part of the problem may be that the information age is so new.  We like to have fun with it by getting immediate answers to all our questions, like a 24/7 Jeopardy game.  We do not like our old traditions and beliefs to be challenged.  We see the new information revolution as a means to instant gratification, not a path toward change or growth.

I believe that in the decades to come, the information age will give way to the knowledge age.  This will be a time when the view that more information is better will be replaced by the urge to sift through the existing data to find value.  The fun and games of social media will become passé.  The need to know everything about each other will be replaced by the desire to know more about ourselves, how things work, where we fit into the world and how we can improve it.  This will be a major step forward in our history.  Information will be crafted into knowledge on a global scale.

When this happens, commercial aircraft will not disappear without answers, the government will learn how to implement large computer projects and scientific evidence will be accepted and acted upon.  But this will be the least of it. As humankind begins to understand who we are, where we came from and where we are going, hostilities will diminish.  Perhaps this will be the beginning of the next major transition: from knowledge to wisdom.