Member-only story
Wisdom is nothing more than new data. Wisdom is definitely not a pinnacle
When you hear or read the list that ends in Wisdom, starting from data, we are framed into imagining a triangle, with wisdom at the top. Yes, there is undoubtedly less wisdom than there is data, but that does not mean anything more than there will be more data than wisdom if we consider volume as a metric.
We do love the triangle as a shape. The pinnacle. We love to imagine that wisdom has more value than data, somehow it is more noble and worthy as only a few will get wisdom, and therefore if I obtain it I will be at the top of the tree.
Let’s unpack this thinking.
Starting with Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs. The first thing is that in his 1943 paper “A Theory of Human Motivation” Maslow’s present is a theory for motivation. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs was suggested as a framework to study how humans intrinsically partake in behavioural motivation. Interestingly he did not draw a triangle but a square block with each layer as a rectangle. “Hierarchy” was taken from describing the pattern through which human motivations generally move to a way of progression and achievement. We later converted to a triangle as a tool that we should aim for the top. However as shown below, the view that self-actualization is a peak a very western view of the world and does not align to all people and all beliefs.
The lesson here is that triangles are very subjective in terms of what they want you to think. A triangle with a point, like a mountain, is something to get to the top of. However, I have been to the top of a few high mountains (over 6,000m, 20,000 ft) and there are always more mountains to climb, even after the really big ones, there are way more peaks than days in my life. So getting to the top is not actually getting to the top other than for a moment in time.
Triangle frames our thinking; let’s question the framing
