A picture is worth a thousands words, they say. Take a look at this graphic: it almost doesn’t need any comment.

It makes the point that wisdom floats on top of understanding and understanding is built on knowledge.

It also clearly separates information and data. It’s been a saying of mine for decades that information implies consciousness. Information doesn’t mean anything much unless there is awareness present.

Shorn of interpretation and meaning, information is just data. A ton of data points mean little or nothing, unless there is intelligence viewing it, which can spot the patterns.

Below that is just noise.

It may be more important to understand noise than to understand wisdom (in a way). Noise appears random, arbitrary, unimportant, is not aligned and therefore not useful. It’s the opposite of coherence. Noise is a sort of psychic turbulence. It is best avoided. Continue reading →