Actionable Information and Critical Thinking

REFLECTION ON 2 ARTICLES

An Application to Critical Analytical Thinking and Knowledge Management

‘The Intellectual Infosphere’ by Peter J.M. Nicholson

The 2 articles provided great insight on how information and knowledge are being communicated and understood by today’s generation. We can observe how information overload can affect our view on what is relevant information and what is knowledge making intellectual authority more important than ever. This is the essence of the article ‘The Intellectual Infosphere’. The other article can provide us insight on how our current generation reacts when information is provided to them in the form of ‘gossip’. Gossip as mentioned in the article, reveals that individuals sometimes place so much stock in gossip that they accept it as true even if their own observations and experiences suggest otherwise. The lesson we can learn from gossip, is how strongly social groups affect our thinking. “If people would act rationally, they would only base their decisions on what they really see because they know exactly the past behavior of these people. But they were still influenced by gossip.” This demonstrates how vulnerable we are because we are easily persuaded by hearsay. Or are we undermining the value of gossip/hearsay? Just how much of our decisions are affected and are based on simply what we heard? Do these decisions tend to be good or bad decisions?

The lesson of course is being strong-sense critical thinkers. How strong are our values and principles against such powerful forces as information overload and gossip? How much of the information can we decipher as being true and reliable? This brings light to the concept of knowledge management where ‘experience’ or ‘actionable information’ is the primary means of understanding information. The information presented is understood based on the person’s own view. That person’s view carries with it his/her background, experience and skills, therefore the interpretation of the presented information can be said to be tacit knowledge. The concept of knowledge management is to extract such knowledge and provide an explicit form so others can make use of such knowledge. Imagine we are able to extract the tacit knowledge of the CEO of a company and how he views certain information? A good example of knowledge management is wiki-pedia. The information presented is based on the most updated and most credible and reliable author selected by a consensus of authorities/experts of that field.

The point of the matter is we have different interpretations when we are presented with information. With technology today, it becomes easier for us to disperse our own views. An important point provided by the article Infosphere mentioned how technology, globalization, and postindustrial affluence have affected an unprecedented extent to culture that celebrates and empowers the individual that there has been such a decline of deference to all forms of traditional authority. This is frightening especially as the first article mentioned how strong an influence gossip has on the individual. We should therefore be aware of intellectual authority on who should we trust. As we learned from Enron, people can be easily persuaded to ‘push the button’ as long as an authority confirms the action.

The bottom line is still critical thinking. How well we assess, analyze and evaluate the information based on ethical reasoning. The challenge is awareness. Awareness of socio-centrism (i.e. gossip, intellectual authority, and information overload) and the individual’s selfish motives based on self-deception, manipulation and egocentrism. We must protect ourselves from others and our own self. Yes I know.. easier said than done.