N-D-I-K-Wisdom

Knowledge-to-Wisdom (K-to-W)

This level starts (in my opinion) to drift off into a spiritual realm as, perhaps, it needs to.  

Usually “wisdom” is considered to be some higher-order of knowledge than, well, Knowledge-with-a-K.  It is often considered to be more “subjective” than the lower levels and, while Knowledge might answer a mundane worldly question, Wisdom alludes to some higher or wider purpose that has labels that purport to address this purpose: ethics, principles, justice, freedom...

The pursuit of these attributes, the parsing, the purpose, and, indeed, the classification (read: structuring) of these characteristics has occupied the attention of some of the best minds the human race has produced.  I certainly cannot attempt a better understanding of them.  Perhaps I can add: even the highest level of Wisdom requires that we “know” things—that we acquire certain forms of knowledge and that knowledge is related to, but different from, the wisdom we seek.

Summarizing (N)DIKW

It’s a model and it is useful.  But at every step, transitioning stages in the model requires that we somehow already possess knowledge of some sort.   Part of the challenge is that the (N)DIKW model is a linear-progressive model that has been laid upon a highly recursive context.  At best, the model approximates a certain “level” of knowledge-ness.  Like a fractal, when we open up even a little piece of the linear model, we see that it consists of an identical model, which when we examine it, we find it too consists of an identical model.  And so on.

The problem with this is not so much the self-referential, recursive nature of knowledge, it is that self-referential things are hard to understand.  Our conscious-intentional linear reasoning brain has a lot of trouble processing it.  This linear-processing part of our intellect invented our linear-logical systems: arithmetic, Linnean classifications, trigonometry, language grammar, and many other useful models.  We always want to pursue a line of reasoning in a nice if-this-then-that straight line until we get to its end, to its final conclusion, like balancing our checkbook.  The reason we want to pursue reasoning like this is that this is how we think and how we have trained ourselves to think.  We want to be able to unequivocally assert that this is true and that is false and if this is true then it is not false and If that is false then it is not true [1].  

But with self-referential recursive systems, this logic may not apply and not only might Schrödinger’s cat be both alive and dead at the same time, all parts of Schrödinger’s cat may be dead and alive at the same time and different parts of those parts may be alive and dead.  At the same time.  And so on.  Etcetera.

FOOTNOTES

[1]  Edward De Bono, the psychologist and creator of the concept of Lateral Thinking, suggested that we need an alternative to the yes/no rigid duality of thinking and suggested the use of "provocation operation" or "Po."  So there is yes/true, no/false, and po/neither (or both).  Not coincidentally, the noun "po" in the Maori language means "night" (where things cannot be easily seen) and the abode of those who have died (which also tends to be rather undefined).
De Bono, Edward.  Po: Beyond Yes and No.  International Center for Creative Thinking 1990.  ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0140137828