We’ve noticed a large number of people today who appear to have partial knowledge, but who think they know it all (i.e., have full knowledge). They think they know everything that’s important and are unwilling to allow any room for other knowledge that might contradict and be important in a larger, global or universal, perspective.
Could we refer to them as intentional mental invalids?
Not having studied and learned the most relevant and extensive information available when making decisions can lead to problems.
Making decisions is a very complex process.
Something which can be useful for a lead into decision making is the Data, Information, Knowledge, and Wisdom (DIKW) model. This became popular late in the last century. It was represented by a hierarchical pyramid, with data at the base and wisdom at the top. Now it’s easy to get tangled up with the definition of terms here. Data is fairly straightforward. Information, knowledge, and wisdom become more subjective. But we’ll use the model here for illustration.
The processes leading to such wisdom are critical and once you think you have wisdom, there are a couple of very important factors in making decisions.
First, your knowledge, from the data on up, must be correct.
What if the data you have is wrong or incomplete?
That would invalidate any information, knowledge, and wisdom you supposedly have — and likely your decision as well.
Second, involving emotions in making decisions can introduce bias, because they may lead to ignoring or preferentially treating certain data.
Maybe we can illustrate with a relatively simple example.
Say you want to determine the name of a state within the United States. You are given a list of the state names. But to make the effort more realistic, since you don’t know in advance the end results of real research, other names besides those of true states are included in the list.
Suppose you know from previous research or experience that the state name you want to identify begins with the letter A.
You can’t name the state with that limited amount of data. Many names in the list begin with A.
So you do some more research. You get the next letter as L. But you still can’t name the state with certainty because there are several possibilities in the list beginning with AL.
It takes more research. You pursue and discover that the next letter is Z. You search your list and find a name Alzerta. Since there are no other names in the list beginning with Alz, you are convinced that you have the correct state name.
But do you?
If you don’t realize that your data are wrong or incomplete, your decisions are likely to be flawed.
You may go on with your life, satisfied that you have done a good job, maybe even trying to convince others of your “truth” that there is such a state.
Is there really a state named Alzerta? No.
So you have invalid data. Any information, knowledge, wisdom, and decision you base on that data are false or wrong.
Something is wrong — your premise, your research, or something else.
Maybe at some point you realize your error and decide to carry out further research. Or maybe you don’t and accept an untruth, to live in ignorance forever.
Let’s presume the former, since you are basically an honest person and want to know the real truth.
So you do further research with tighter controls and reduced assumptions. You discover the next letter is really A, not Z.
In checking the list, you find that multiple possibilities still exist.
Further research.
This time you discover the letter S.
Now you are down to two possibilities in the list, Alaska and Alasham.
It takes further good research to determine that the next letter is K.
You have discovered the correct answer, Alaska.
Real research is much more complex than this analogy, but it serves to illustrate the point. Finding truth is not always easy. We can be led astray by inadequate, improper, or biased research and the wide promulgation of those results.
It is said that those prevail write the history. But the path to understanding the universe should not be written under the control of those who alter well-documented history for self-serving desires.