John L Gordon takes a light-hearted look at the knowledge family tree.

This  short supplement is intended to be a sort of light hearted look at the knowledge family. The family tree I have drawn here may not agree with all of the description that has taken place in the book but I have attempted to put something together that agrees with the sentiments in the book in very general terms. After all, this is not really a serious attempt to discuss knowledge, it is simply another tool which the reader can use and manipulate for themselves to help them to think about knowledge, learning and wisdom. I also hope that any readers who are particularly friendly with the belief side of the knowledge family will not be offended by the interpretation shown here. If you know belief better than I do then you may feel quite differently about it and you may feel that my
discussion of its parentage are scurrilous and just lies.

The knowledge family actually starts to look like one of those dysfunctional families which could appear in a TV soap. There does seem to be rather a lot of conflict, antagonism and maybe even improper breeding within it. But the intention is to try to draw together the information in the book to actually create a partial family tree for knowledge, that poor, misunderstood, concept that seems to get blamed for things that it has had absolutely nothing to do with. Other members of the family like the clandestine member, belief, may actually be responsible for many of the problems that poor knowledge experiences.

Nobody can be really sure of the knowledge family tree but records show that it may bear some resemblance to the diagram shown above.

On the positive side of the family, justification and observation were happily married and gave birth to truth. What justification did not know was that observation was having a secret relationship with imagination. Imagination was exciting and vibrant but it did not seem as safe as justification. So observation kept the relationship secret from justification because it did not want to break up with justification yet was attracted by what imagination had to offer. Really, it may be that imagination is the black sheep of the family because its relationship with observation could be thought of as the source of many of the later family conflicts. Yet without imagination and the conflicts that it introduced, one could argue that the entire family would look very different and wisdom may never have been born.

The secret relationship between observation and imagination gave birth to ideas. Ideas was always a bit of a renegade and nobody can be sure of the other party to the child of ideas, belief. Some say that it was desire that was the father of belief but nobody really knows. Yet belief, a bit of an outcast in the knowledge family, was to cause no end of trouble and some say that belief actually destroyed the family altogether. Yet belief did represent the pioneering spirit in many ways but its occasional entrenched opinions where the thing that caused the problems. Knowledge, the offspring of truth and information, never hit it off with belief although their family histories were entwined. Knowledge got on much better with interest and eventually they became partners. This liaison resulted in expertise. However, belief came to dislike any of the family who had anything to do with knowledge and tried to persuade expertise to become something else.

Expertise could have gone either way because belief was really very persuasive. However, when expertise met with experience, a true romance blossomed and they became long lasting partners. Even so, belief was always in the background and whenever it got the chance, it would disrupt the efforts of expertise and experience and cause more family problems.

In spite of the difficulties, the liaison between expertise and experience gave birth to wisdom. Belief, although still persistent, was not easily able to influence wisdom. Belief continued to cause problems with expertise, experience and their close family but wisdom seemed to be able to rise above it to some extent.

Dr John L Gordon works for AKRI Ltd. His book - 'Thinking About Knowledge Learning and Wisdom' - can be purchased at Amazon here.