Knowledge Proliferation

Knowledge and its proliferation has been one of the essential methods used by those who survive as a result of what they know and do ThinkingOutLoud.DonaldNoyes.RichardHenderson

--- Knowledge spreads when mankind is seeking to survive, finding the following to be of vital importance:

to Communicate: To say, speak, paint, sculpt, engrave, to monument, and to write.
to Make Tools and Devices: in order To carry, dig, plant, hunt and make war, and build.
to Explore and grow: In search of water, food, companions, or to trade and to satisfy curiosity.
to reason: About the concepts of self, others, his surroundings including plants, animals, earth, sky, supernatural, location, time, building knowledge upon knowledge, developing and integrating concepts internally.

--- Knowledge is preserved through devices and methods including Language and Writing, Illustration and Art, and through Stories.

Because it is important to pass this knowledge on, and to preserve it, devices and methods for doing so are discovered and implemented.
As time passes, additional innovations of means and methods continue to be developed to widen the range and influence of the mediums of communication including the manner and method of access, and storage in order that an integrated, orderly knowledge base survives.

--- Employment of Means

Interpersonal communication: demonstration and imitation, gestures, sounds and speech.
group communications: demonstration and imitation, gestures, sounds and speech, preservation by representation through the use of images, scribblings, marking, art and writing, engraving, sculpturing, painting, printing and publishing)
Establishment of archives and libraries of knowledge thought worth keeping and passing on:
- Papers, Periodicals, Books
- Drawings
- Designs
- Development of Singular Artifacts
- Development of Discovery and Processing Artifactories
- Creation and Maintenance of
  - Repositories
  - WebDocuments?
  - Blogs
  - HyperInformationStructures?
  - Data Storages and Structures.
  - Multimedia Presentations of visual, audible and tactile objects utilizing mechanical, magnetic, wireless, and optical techniques.

---Rough Outline of Proliferation -- What, How and Why

The following is a rough outline of the development of man's ability and application to the task of preserving and the transfer his acquired knowledge to others, those in his own time and to those who he knew would follow:

Invisible:
- Inaudible Thought
Visible:
- Mimicry, Signal, Gestures
- Paintings, Sculptures, Monuments, Structures
- Symbols, Words (Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives and Adverbs), Sentences, Compositions
- Writings, On Walls, Clay Tablets, Stones, Animal Skins, Papyrus, Scrolls, Parchment, Paper
Audible:
- Grunts, Formed Sounds, Alarms and Warnings, Words, Sentences, Stories

--- Factors influencing Knowledge Content and Progression or Regression

Certainly the factors mentioned are part of the KnowledgeEquation

They have to do with the "what" of KnowledgeProliferation
- Reflected in the knowledge content present in the community at that time
- The nature and location of the community are also important
- Knowledge pertinent to their own community and to others communities
- Knowledge found necessary for survival and the conduct of daily life
Some of the knowledge may coincide with other communities in space and time
Some of the knowledge being unique or special
- The knowledge of nomads
- The knowledge of farmers or hunters
- The knowledge of communities that travel and trade
- The knowledge of those who desire through conquest of lands and peoples to dominate using all possible methods including hostile actions and reactions
- The knowledge of those who take up residence in a single space

--- Accumulated and Applied Knowledge Changes when

a society transitions or transforms
a society relocate
a society develops, introduces, and facilitates new forms of expression and memory

and are reflected by

losing part of the accumulated and applied knowledge while gaining an adapting knowledge
the destruction of knowledge and knowledge devices by those wishing to impose their systems and life styles upon those who think and act differently

the resulting accumulation may be negative:

movement forward in time does not necessarily mean that knowledge moves forward
- When the knowledge having to do with what has been abandoned or destroyed is greater than that of the knowledge taking its place , or the hole left by its abandonment, which is installed or imposed by a new ways of living and thinking, A loss in knowledge results.
- Therefore it is possible for a society in a later time to be less advanced in knowledge than that of a society earlier in time.
  - It is not a certainty that societies always advance in knowledge

--- Tools -- Methods and Machines

The ToolsOfKnowledge? are very important to KnowledgeDevelopment and KnowledgeProliferation and any full discussion must bring them into account, since they are all valid topics and a reasonable areas of study and collaboration by those who frequent this Wiki.

Machines: computing, recording, storing, gathering, measuring and forecasting, etc
How Knowledge Is Formed
The methods and manner of Recording and Preserving
The Accumulation, Assembly, and Safekeeping of important information
The Manner, Scope, Necessity and Timeliness of KnowledgeProliferation

--- Value of Universal Education via the Internet

The value placed on education and the passing of knowledge on a universal scale at low cost is in its infancy and the internet is certainly destined to play an important part. As appliances and infrastructures become more universal, and as more value is placed upon enlightenment and knowledge, Knowledge will be elevated in places which have not traditionally participated actively in the proliferation and acquisition of knowledge. When that becomes more universal, great social and cultural changes will follow.

--- Knowledge Extent and Essential Influence

When a particular knowledge proliferation begins is not as significant as the changes which inevitably take place when the transfer takes place. What is true is that behaviors and skills are developed in all times, using what the current generation has inherited as well as that which it develops, or which have been found useful in dealing with contemporary conditions. Primitive KnowledgeDevelopment exists in modern as well as ancient times. Isolation, availability, and necessity play crucial roles in the development and proliferation rate and density. This has been a ripe area of study and research in the last century among sociologists and archaeologists. We may here discuss new models and new methods and can also introduce or propose in this place or similar places how knowledge can be freely and widely dispersed to the benefit of the emergent global community. Such proliferation can facilitate a fraternity of peoples who are free to think and act in ways beneficial not only themselves but to all others.

--- Knowledge Evolution

Knowledge, once it is formed and categorized in contemporary minds and documents and included, combined and filtered with the objects passed on to us from the past (such as books, writings, data processings, etc., is evolving, generating new discoveries and fixing new knowledge. This knowledge set is spread rapidly in information friendly environments while slower or not at all in indifferent or hostile environments.

--- Guarding and Preserving Knowledge

An important factor worth considering is the guardianship and shielding of knowledge and information whether for protection or for proprietary reasons. Knowledge and information is subject to being irretrievable and thereby becoming lost to succeeding generations.

--- The Problem of Restriction and Loss of Knowledge

Social and Political changes can make for the loss of information because of changing values of the introduced society or polity which may de-emphasize the importance of passing knowledge on, or to accept as knowledge of the "new order." The present trend to repositories of information stored "off premises" and made available via browsers or indexers present a problem of this nature. Failure to protect the contents, or the making of the information "non-public" can result in loss of knowledge.

--- Open Distributed and Maintained Knowledge

For the widest possible Proliferation, Information should be generally and openly available, and distributed physically and copies maintained independent of political or social restrictions. Note: I am speaking of information and knowledge, not property. Laws which restrict the proliferation of knowledge by posing such knowledge as property and therefore subject to political control will prove to be counter to productivity and should be avoided where reasonable.

--- Knowledge Proliferation as applied to animals and plants

I think it is a false dichotomy to think in terms of man and the rest, too. If we generalize this to animals (and machines, why not?) then you avoid a whole host of arguments about peripheral issues and you get to include plant signalling with pheromones and ants and birdsong and all sorts of good stuff. Sorry if this misses the point. -- RichardHenderson.

''Your thoughts are definitely on target, up to now, when expressing knowledge, the idea in my mind is of "human" knowledge proliferation, utilizing human frameworks and expressions. Certainly plants and animals have a method and instinct which preserves a behaviour beyond the present. The extent to which it is proliferated to others and communicated to succeeding generations is a ripe topic for continual research.

I believe some work in this regard is going on with regard to chimpanzees. Animals communicate to be sure, and there is interest as to whether chimpanzees or other animals can pass knowledge about how they can communicate with each other without human intervention or introduction of human created communication aids, is a matter that can be proven one way or another. It certainly is something that should be pursued. Sociologist are pursuing research, But it is difficult to isolate the chimpanzees from the interactions with the observing experimenters. They are an unnatural component which introduces questions and problems in drawing valid conclusions of what solitary chimpanzees are capable of accomplishing. Controls and isolations however may be possible which allow an observation without human interference and influence.''

I believe that before we discuss whether or not plants transmit knowledge, we should discuss WhatKnowledgeIs. 20031219 It seems clear to me that Plants process structuralPatterns, generating and growing patterns, but that is not WhatKnowledgeIs.

--- World Brain

Some people are concerned and preoccupied by the possibilities of an evolutionary mindset which can make knowledge and cultural achievement available for all, and not just that of a CultivatedMinority?.

HerbertGeorgeWells had something to say about this in 1937 -- http://sherlock.berkeley.edu/wells/world_brain.html

--- See Also

HasWantedPages?

CategoryIdeaSpace CategoryKnowledge