David E. Birren's reply to Marilyn Darling concerning "Wisdom consists
more of compassion than of logic, ..........." introduces intuitive
knowledge as a component. (I am a new LO member and have not seen the
whole thread of this subject. Forgive me if the following is old ground.)
He continued with: "My proposition is not a logical one. It rests on an
intuitive way of knowing that is very different from logic. If we base
our understanding on what's outwardly observable, we are limited in what
we see. What is inwardly observable is equally valid, perhaps more so.
And that, I think, is where wisdom comes from, the inward reality that
informs our judgments about the world."
I support David's point but would use different words. The intuitive (or
inward processes) are not very mysterious or abstract. The intuitive
processor relies on being able to readily see a pattern of possibility in
lean data and, equally important, by nature is willing to risk commitment
to that possibility.
Data, information, and knowledge are grounded in the past and present.
Intuition is a window to future possibilities, or at least is a sense
about the present that can not be confirmed until some later time. Logic
and intuition do not work in opposition but too much of either is
something of a liability. Where logic and intuition are in reasonable
balance (good inductive and deductive talents coupled with a willingness
to act) in a well informed mind, we have the opportunity for wisdom.
Wisdom seems to be the ability to decide or commit using limited data in
conjunction with a big picture perspective of the future. Usually we can
only judge true wisdom after the fact, i.e., did the action or advise
prove to be important and useful. I would not say that wisdom must have
an understanding of human behavior as one of its components, although one
could be wise about behavioral matters.
Consider a behaviorally neutral conclusion that one should not kill the
last breeding pair of a specie, even for basic needs such as food,
clothing and shelter. This requires one to believe 1) that this target
might be part of the last pair (incomplete data), 2) that the loss would
be irreversible (future possibility) and, 3) conclude, that in the long
run, it would do more harm than being hungry and cold. To forego the kill
based on such a process, though unpopular, would eventually be pointed out
as an example of wisdom, if indeed the specie and the hunter survived. (A
pitfall here is that if the known data was insufficient, and there were
plenty of surviving pairs, or the hunter starved, the "wisdom" would be
relabled as fool's thinking and the story would probably be recited at
every future hunting party. Wisdom might therefore be situational.)
So I end up agreeing with most of David's conclusion: "I think of wisdom
as knowing what is best in a given situation, the kind of knowing that
comes from an inner sense of how the many phenomena and actors within a
situation relate to each other. It is inherently intuitive, and that's
the realm of compassion, not logic. I don't mean to set up compassion and
logic as opposites, because they work together. But they do use different
mental resources and they work in very different ways."
But if my model for wisdom is a composite of logics, then perhaps
compassion is wisdom with empathy. I'm still thinking about that.
Paul Lindsey
Tracor Aerospace
PEL@eng2.tracor.com
(512)929-2815