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GLOSSARY INQUIRY: KNOWLEDGE
In complexity terms, a system’s knowledge is its current repertoire of possible action—where ‘action’ is understood to encompass both “physical” and “mental” activity. (Note: Complexity offers an expanded notion of physical activity which includes mental activity as a sub-set.)
In the case of humans, knowledge is rooted in both biology and culture. As with all other species, we are born with knowledge (i.e., newborns have an already-established repertoire of possible action). And, as with many other species, we quickly enlarge the space of the possible through learning. Humans have a unique advantage here. Through access to current cultural knowledge, personal knowledge comes to be greatly amplified. Through technologies such as language, we have access to knowledge developed in other times and other places by other minds.
To make sense of this notion of knowledge, one must be clear about both the knowing agent/system and the context of the knowing. This point becomes particularly significant in discussions of education, where several overlapping and nested knowledge-producing agents/systems tend to be considered at the same time. For instance, cultural knowledge and individual knowledge are two intertwining, mutually constituting phenomena. It is impossible to consider these sorts of categories separately. (A key point here is that complexity science problematizes the notion of knower-less knowledge. For there to be knowledge, there must be a knower. Knowledge is not a static form that is hiding “out there”, waiting to be found.) A system’s knowledge is not only inseparable from its activity, it is also indistinguishable from the system’s identity.
See related terms: Learning, Learner, Language, Education, Identity.
