Knowledge

I'm intrigued by the slide tonight, "What is knowledge?".  Historically, I think knowledge was something that was acquired through some sort of mentor.  People learned from a knowledge giver, so to speak.  Knowledge was passed down from generation to generation through story and through experience.  Once the introduction of ink (in whatever form), stories could be told - and captured- through pictures.  Eventually, stories could be told, captured, and saved through permanent ink.  This allowed knowledge to be saved for longer periods of time; thus, stories can be told with some degree of consistency.  Of course, as I describe these first few steps of story-telling and acquiring knowledge, I realize that this took an incredible amount of time.  Frankly, this is where the capturing of knowledge was only a few short years ago (pre-digital age).  Capturing of knowledge has exponentially increased over the past 20 years.  Now, this is how knowledge was captured.  The digital age has allowed knowledge to be captured and stored in a completely different way.  But still, what is knowledge?

I believe the concept of knowledge has changed.  Once upon a time, it was "Who could acquire the greatest amount of knowledge?"  He who could capture the greatest amount was considered to have the most knowledge - and also was considered the 'smartest'.  Given the ease of finding knowledge in the digital age, I believe knowledge and intelligence are drastically different now. Knowledge is a click of the button but intelligence is what one can do with the knowledge which is easily obtained.  And, I believe knowledge and intelligence are things that ought to be shared.  Because they can be shared so easily now, truly, an intelligent person will share their knowledge.