Alphabetize that thought.

You are a very smart person.

A little way into the book I'm reading, Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television by Jerry Mander, and it's very much about the loss in our technological society of the knowledge gleaned from directly from the living planet, knowledge you wonderfully describe:

"Knowledge - real, felt, patient, hard won, unassumable, unmanageable, creative knowledge - is like that man's vine collection, a rich, unique thing, won by one slightly lunatical lover, dizzy from his anomalous glimpses into the secret life of his beloved."

very nice post. thanks.

George, I've not read Mander's book, but have seen a few other references to it. I find this description:

When Jerry Mander suggested in his book Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, published in 1978, that television was not reformable no matter who controlled the medium... Mander argued that television is a primary tool in the ongoing mediation of human experience, the visual intoxicant that entrances the viewer into a hypnotic state and thereby replaces other forms of knowledge with the imagery of its programmers.

Sounds pretty prescient - thanks.

Greetings Tom,

Great post. Perhaps rich knowledge 'collections' really require a community to nurture and grow? Social capital, reciprocity, dialog and creative abrasion would be the inputs, patterns, distinctions, principles and working heuristics the results.

Knowledge sure does die if it is not 'tended', pushed and proded, cherished and verified. In my experience, it takes multiple caretakers to maintain the collection.