"The Kitchen Table" Presented by TPI Canada
The Kitchen Table purpose is to share with you an engaging dialogue that we hope will reveal the dynamic world of cognitive science and it’s role it plays in performance. For over four decade your co-host Ron Medved and Gregg Cochlan have work with hundreds of organizations to apply cognitive psychology, science and practices to ignite human and organizational performance.
"The Kitchen Table" Presented by TPI Canada
#122 Knowledge in the Service of Wisdom
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One of the key insights emerging from the Wisdom Project is that wisdom is not the same as accumulating information. When people think of a wise person, they often imagine someone who knows a great deal, and knowledge is certainly part of wisdom. But our exploration suggests that knowledge is only one component, and it is always incomplete.
We are rarely, if ever, able to know with total certainty what is really going on. Because of that, wisdom is not about having perfect knowledge. It is about doing our best to gather, assess, and apply information in a way that leads to a response that creates benefit.
In the Wisdom Project, knowledge is best understood as being in the service of a wise response. We gather information from diverse sources, weigh it carefully, interpret it through our own experience, and filter it through the maturity construct. The goal is not simply to know more, but to respond more wisely.
Two Broad Categories of Information
Our discussion suggests that information generally comes from two broad kinds of sources: traditional and non-traditional.
Traditional sources include science, research, education, journalism, and other forms of observable or repeatable evidence.
Non-traditional sources include intuition, spiritual insight, collective consciousness, and felt knowing.
Both can influence how people come to understand the world, but both require discernment.
Information Quality Also Matters
Not all information is equally trustworthy. Some information is reliable — evidence-based, consistent, verifiable, and coherent. Other information is unreliable — biased, incomplete, emotionally distorted, or shaped by misinformation and disinformation.
This means wisdom is not just about finding information. It is about evaluating the source, judging the quality, and using that knowledge in ways that are thoughtful, grounded, and beneficial
This means the challenge is not just to collect information, but to discern the kind of information we are receiving, evaluate its quality, and determine how it should be used.