sing. datum/ pl. data
The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.
All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,
All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,
But nearness to death no nearer to God.
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
T.S. Eliot, The Rock. 1934.
There is a certain hierarchy in which the content of human mind is organized, and considering the way in which we understand this content, it can take higher forms of understanding in the human mind. In the field of knowledge management this is referred to in various ways, but we know it commonly as the knowledge pyramid, or the DIKIW¹ scheme, which stands for Data, Information, Knowledge, Insight, and Wisdom.
Even before the existence of the internet and computers, Thomas S. Elliot was one of the first ones to formalize this hierarchy (or at least the IKW part), and to point out the erosion of the knowledge pyramid (see the poem excerpt above). Higher levels (insight, wisdom) are getting lost in the information and knowledge. To clarify, …
We live in the age where we are overloaded by the amount of information on a daily basis. Despite the abundance of data and information unlike which we have never experienced before, it seems like something is missing. What is missing may be the knowledge.
One of the causes for the erosion in this age may be not knowing where to put our focus on. Before there was an app for everything, the burden of living and and organizing our lives was often outsourced.
Mass media is contributing to the issue further, as we are constantly bombarded with information, and then again with more information. In fact, the span of time in which we would be blasted with another wave of information bombs has reduced from … to … Monetary model with which news media works in way where the information overload is incentivised, and the burden of making sense of these information has been mostly lifted off the journalist’s shoulders, and transferred to the consumer of information - us.
In the age where information is as abundant and easy to access, the problem we are encountering is knowing where to put our focus. Same as the job of travel agents, personal assistants, and salespersons was Before we had an app for everything, we were often able to distribute the burden of living and organizing our lives to different people, such as travel agents for booking holidays and accommodation, personal assistants would help people with their correspondence, and journalists and people of related professions would help people to make sense of the information, filter out the unimportant things, and combine many pieces of information into a coherent picture of the world.
Instead of outsourcing these things, the responsibility has been put on the individual, and individuals have different capabilities to make sense of information. What is more important, making sense of information with proper tools we can inform the human mind in different ways. Information can be taken to different levels of understanding, from combining seemingly unrelated pieces of information to gain knowledge, using that knowledge to get insight, and taking that insight and transforming it into wisdom.
Further, our ability to discern between what is data, what is information, and what is knowledge is missing. The phrase “data is more valuable than oil” has pervaded our culture and entered the zeitgeist. Many companies and organizations today claim to be data-driven when it comes to the decision making. On its own, data is pretty much meaningless. Data does act as the foundation of data-driven approach, but in order to extract its real value, data needs to be taken to higher levels of hierarchy of understanding.
However, it all starts with data… Russell L. Ackoff, a pioneer in the field of systems thinking and knowledge management, divided the content of human mind in five categories¹ - data, information, knowledge, insight, and wisdom. These categories also translate into the … of data.
Data
On its own, data is meaningless. Data simply exists. But without data, many things are also meaningless. Data gives us the inital signal about the world around us, however we need to put data in context and organize it in order to turn data into information.
Information
When we relate independent, meaningless data points to each other in a given context, we give meaning to data and turn it into information. Information can give us answers to the “Who”, “What”, “When”, and “Where” questions. Depending on who is asking these questions, and what is the context, the meaning of information can be useful, but it does not necessarily need to be. Information can therefore give us answers to four out of five Ws (fifth one being “Why”). To get to the “Why”, we need to take data and information further down the hierarchy of understanding.
Knowledge
A collection of information with intended use gains us knowledge.
Insight
Building of knowledge can give us insight.
Wisdom
When we combine information, knowledge, and insight, we can gain wisdom. In this hierarchy, wisdom is found on the highest level, and as such it is the most difficult one to reach (if ever). With wisdom we can come to a judgement call on best paths between different sets of information. Wisdom is arguably a trait unique to humans, as wisdom calls for, in a lack of a better word, a possession of soul. Wisdom dwells both in the deepest parts of mind and heart, and it connects to all previous levels of understanding, as well as our morals, ethics, compassion, and empathy. The great economist E.F. Schumacher summarized this the best:
On this page, I will do my best to take the data, and carry it over these levels of apprehension. I’ll try to give it a human touch, following a paradigm laid out by the brilliant E.F. Schumacher, hence this page is called pretty data, both in its adverbial and adjective meaning.
Information is not knowledge
Knowledge is not wisdom
Wisdom is not truth
Truth is not beauty
Beauty is not love
Love is not music
Music is THE BEST…
Frank Zappa
¹ - different authors use different paradigms. In this context, I’ve chose the DIKIW paradigm.