Re: virus: Silence

Robin Faichney (robin@faichney.demon.co.uk)
Fri, 1 May 1998 11:35:17 +0100


In message <199805010933.CAA12180@smtp.northlink.com>, John Dale
<johnd@northlink.com> writes
>
> In moments where I experience what I might call wisdom, it
>feels more like my awareness acquires an added dimension
>which surrounds facts in a kind of depth.

Know what you mean. I think this implies there's a
psychological component to wisdom. In fact maybe
wisdom, at least as contrasted with knowledge, is
entirely psychological. Where knowledge is a simple
correspondence between what's "out there" and what's
"in here", wisdom is more like a mode of mental
operation.

> There is perhaps also a value dimension to wisdom which
>goes beyond fact.

That's true too. Values are subjective -- though no
less valuable for that! In many many cases (IMHO),
when things turn out to be difficult to analyse in
objective terms, it's because they have a subjective
component. Eliminating subjectivity can often be
done, and is often benficial, depending on what you
are trying to eliminate it from, but it absolutely
definitely cannot always be done. (IMHO!)

To be wise, at least in part, probably means to have
"the right" values, where that's judged in subjective
and/or intersubjective terms.

It also looks much easier to link wisdom and silence
where the former is seen as a psychological phenomenon.

-- 
Robin