A First Principles Framework of Wisdom
We have already established that wisdom is having the knowledge of how to lead a good life. Now we also have a first principles framework of leading a good life. We should therefore be able to create a first principles framework of wisdom by analyzing what we need to know in order to know how to lead a good life.
The good life model states that leading a good life is when we perform the actions that bring about situations that are in accordance with the specified values. Thus, in order to have wisdom, we must have knowledge of what actions bring about situations that are in accordance with the specified values. This then includes having knowledge of the values in question, so that we can evaluate whether the situation is in accordance with them. This of course also means we must have a lot of knowledge of the situation itself, so that we can make an accurate judgement of it. So part of having wisdom is to have knowledge of all the parts of the good life model.
But there is more. In order to know whether an action brings about a good situation, we also need to have knowledge about our current situation, i.e. the situation just before performing the action. Otherwise we will not be able to tell which is the right action to perform. For example, if we are about to pour some tea from our teapot, then this is a good action if in our current situation there is a cup in front of us. If the current situation is different, for example, there is a book in front of us, then the same action will be bad, because we don’t want our book to be covered in tea.
Another thing that is necessary in order to be able to choose the right action is to be able to predict what situation will occur when we perform an action. For example, if I have a hammer in my hand, it is useful to know about gravity, i.e. that objects fall to the ground when nothing is holding them up anymore. If I don’t have such knowledge I might let go of the hammer, thinking that it will just float in the air, and find out that instead it falls to the ground and hits my foot. So we must also have knowledge of how the world works in order to achieve wisdom.
Putting all these things together we can create the wisdom model.
Figure 1. The Wisdom Model
Wisdom consists of knowledge of the current situation, knowledge of the goal situation, knowledge of the actions that take us from the current situation to the goal situation, knowledge of our values (and how the current and goal situation relates to these) and knowledge of how the world works.
We can now take a closer look at these different parts and what it means to have knowledge of them.
1 Current situation
Knowledge of the current situation involves knowing the way things are at the moment. What counts as “the current situation” will depend on context. If the context is one of deciding what to eat for lunch, then making a wise decision involves knowing things like what ingredients you have at home, which recipes you could use, how hungry you are, how close the nearest restaurant is, whether you have any allergies, etc. If we decide to make some pizza and realize halfway through that we don’t have any tomato sauce or cheese at home, then our decision wasn’t the wisest. So it is important to have knowledge of our current situations in order to perform actions that make our lives good. If, on the other hand, the context is one of politicians discussing how to improve healthcare in the country, then knowledge of the current situation involves knowing what the current healthcare system is like. What kind of treatments are offered? How many patients seek help, and what do they seek help for? What kind of professions work in the different facilities? What are the costs of different treatments? etc.
Once we have knowledge of the current situation, we can evaluate it by looking at how it aligns with our values. This evaluation helps us know which things in our current situation are good, and which things are not so good. For example, if you see that there is a spider in your home, you need to know whether you think this is a good thing (e.g. you think they are cute) or a bad thing (e.g. you think they are scary) in order to know what to do with it. Only by having this knowledge can we determine what things, if any, would be good to change. If we try to improve something, or try to perform an action that makes our life or society better, we need to have knowledge of our current situation and how it relates to our values, otherwise we risk changing things that didn’t need to be changed, or “solving” problems that weren’t actually problems.
2 Goal situation
Knowledge of the goal situation involves having knowledge of possible future situation(s) that we think would meet our values better than the current situation does. For example, when we are hungry there may be several options that could make our hunger go away: we could make a sandwich, some pasta, or a pizza, or we could go to a restaurant nearby, etc. If we don’t have knowledge of different possibilities we may miss out on an alternative that would be better than the one we chose. If we knew that we didn’t have tomato sauce or cheese at home then going to a restaurant may be a better option than to try and make a pizza at home. Then there are also several values that can be used to evaluate our options. For example, we may value food that is rich in fat because it tastes really good, or we may value food that is organic because it is good for the environment. These values affect whether we may prefer one option over another.
The same thing applies on the societal level. For example, when politicians are trying to improve a problematic health care system they may want to consider several different options, and compare which future situation would be the best. One potential goal situation may be building more health centers and hiring more health care workers. Another may be to find more efficient routines and collaboration to more effectively use the current resources. A third option could be to implement new technology. And of course another option could be a combination of several options. Unless the politicians consider several possible goal situations and evaluate their benefits and drawbacks, they are likely to make decisions that aren’t optimal.
It can be worth pointing out that “goal situation” is not the same as “goal”. A goal is usually more vague, like “finding a better apartment”. A goal is a description of the kind of values that we strive towards fulfilling. A goal situation is an actual possible situation that might meet the goal. Investigating our current situation is therefore often done a little differently than investigating our goal situation. When it comes to our current situation we tend to investigate what our current situation is like first, and then evaluate it by using our values. When it comes to our goal situation we tend to first evaluate what kind of values we would like to meet (i.e. constructing a goal), and then investigate what kinds of situations would meet those values/goals.
3 Actions
Knowledge of actions involves knowing what actions would actually take us from the current situation to the goal situation. It doesn’t matter that a certain goal situation perfectly meets our values if there are no actions we can perform that would take us to that situation. Let’s say that we are dreaming of eating the most exquisite meal that the world’s greatest chef serves at their restaurant. In order to be able to eat this for lunch, we must either have the money to eat at the expensive restaurant, or the ability to cook the meal ourselves. But if we don’t have that much money, and lack the ability to cook advanced meals, then this isn’t a viable option. No matter how desirable the meal is, it doesn’t matter if there are no actions we can perform to take us there.
Similarly, in politics we need to know not only where we want to go, but also how or if we can get there. If we want to improve the health care system and decide that we will do so by implementing AI to treat patients, then we need to know whether this is actually possible. If AI isn’t yet advanced enough to treat patients successfully then it will not be a wise decision to implement these in health care.
4 Values
Knowledge of our values involves knowing what kind of things that make life better for ourselves, our family, our community and/or the world. For example, we might have discovered that being treated with respect is an important value both for ourselves and others, that having a sense of purpose makes life better, as does being able to trust other people. Some values may be the same for most people, while others may be more specific to your life. For example, you may have discovered that being around animals and caring for them is an important value in your life, but it may not be as important to another person. Some values may also differ from one situation, or context, to another, for the same person. For example, you may value taking a rest in the context of having had a stressful day, but you may value being active if you have just been sitting in front of your computer for most of the day. You may also have different values in the context of working compared to being at home. For example, when you are at work you may perhaps value doing that which gives you the most money, but when you have your free time you may instead value doing whatever you find to be most fun.
5 How the world works
Knowledge of how the world works involves knowing about the laws of the universe, like the fact that objects fall to the ground if you let go of them (gravity), or if you stir salt in water the salt will dissolve. Basically this includes laws that are studied in science. But it also includes other types of knowledge, for example knowledge of how your friends “work”. You may know that one friend gets angry if you talk about car racing, that another friend always helps if you ask them for help, etc. Knowledge of how the world works also includes the laws of your country, how companies and authorities work, and also includes knowing the rules of games, like chess or football. All these kinds of knowledge are helpful when trying to predict what actions are desirable, or even possible. This kind of knowledge is also helpful when trying to make sense of situations. If you don’t understand the rules of football you will be really confused as to why a referee just said it was “offside”. You will be bad at predicting the events of the game. If you have poor knowledge of how your friends work (i.e. why they do what they do), you will be really confused when they react in anger at something you said. Lacking this kind of knowledge makes it hard to act in the most appropriate way.
Integrating the different parts
All the above parts (values, current situation, goal situation, actions, and how the world works) are necessary in order for us to be able to make wise decisions. And more importantly, knowledge of the different parts must be integrated into a coherent whole. So just like knowledge differs from information in that knowledge occurs when information is more integrated (and true), wisdom differs from knowledge in that wisdom occurs when knowledge is more integrated, but not integrated in any old way: integrated in such a way that knowledge of values, current situations, goal situations, actions, and how the world works are combined. Having lots of knowledge of the current state of the world is not going to help us lead a better life if we don’t also have knowledge of how it is connected to our values, with which we can evaluate the current state of the world, as well as knowledge of possible goal situations and actions we can perform to get there. Similarly, having lots of knowledge of possible actions is useless unless we have knowledge of how they are connected to possible goal situations to strive towards etc. Having a clear sense of our values is not of any help unless we also have knowledge of how they are connected to the current situation, and to possible future situations, etc.
The best possible knowledge
Given that wisdom consists of the integration of these parts, then in theory a person who has complete knowledge of all the parts, and their connection, in every single situation would have perfect wisdom, and would take the wisest possible action in every single moment. Unfortunately, having complete knowledge at every moment is not possible. Therefore, in practice, having wisdom does not consist of having complete knowledge, but of having the best knowledge that is actually possible to have of the different parts. For example, if you are thinking about applying for university or college, you would want to know what the different courses would be like so that you could figure out if they would be in line with your values. Unfortunately, it is not possible to know exactly what every course is like without trying each and everyone of them for yourself… You therefore have to rely on incomplete information when making your decision. Perhaps the best possible knowledge you can get of the courses is by reading about them, and talking to people that have taken them. Still, even if you did that, you would not be able to read and talk about every single course that exists in the world. You would have to limit yourself to a certain number of courses, perhaps limiting yourself to courses that are given at colleges and universities near you, or that you know that friends will apply to, or that have a certain ranking. Only by narrowing it down will you be able to make a decision, and so being wise involves knowing the most relevant knowledge, and to the extent that is possible, rather than knowing everything about everything.
We must also remember that gaining knowledge about something is an action in itself. It takes time and energy to investigate something in order to gain knowledge. In order to make wiser decisions it may be tempting to try to figure out every single detail about something before making a decision. We may worry that we will take the wrong action if we don’t know everything there is to know. But the time and energy we spend on investigating, analyzing, researching is time and energy we could spend on other things that might make our life or society better. Because of the complexity of the world, we can never really know with 100% certainty which action is the best, even if we try to get as much knowledge as possible about the situation. Therefore, in order to act wisely, we must also have some kind of knowledge of when it is helpful to increase our knowledge before taking action, and when it is better to just act. We can call this meta-wisdom.
The wisdom model is the foundation of everything that will be presented on A Wiser World. Thanks to this model we have a framework that tells us what we need to find in order to make the world a wiser place. The wisdom model can be applied to any situation. We have already looked at examples like deciding what to eat for lunch, creating policies for better healthcare, and deciding what courses to take at college or university. It even applies to this very moment, as you are reading this text. In the current situation you have just been reading some pages about wisdom. Perhaps there were some things that you read that you found to be unclear or complicated. Perhaps there were things you found interesting. Perhaps there are things you think have been lacking. Whatever it is, you can evaluate the current situation if you have some sense of the relevant values. Perhaps being confused is something you value negatively, and would like to change. Perhaps doing things that you find interesting is something you value positively. There may also be other aspects that are relevant in the current situation. You might be hungry, you might be at work and are actually supposed to be working instead of reading this, perhaps it’s late at night and you have an early meeting in the next morning. How you value things influences which action is most desirable in this situation. Perhaps your values would best be met if you kept reading this text, or got back to work, or got some lunch, or went to bed.
Knowledge that holds true
Another thing that is important for our knowledge to count as wisdom is that our knowledge holds true over as many different situations as possible, and over as long a time as possible. If we only had knowledge of what to do during the last minutes before going to bed, e.g. brush our teeth and put on pajamas, but had no idea of what to do in any other situation, then we wouldn’t have wisdom. Or if we had knowledge of what to do in every situation for the next week, but after that we were completely lost, then we wouldn’t have wisdom either. For these reasons, to the degree that it is possible, we want to have knowledge that holds true over as many different situations as possible, and over as long a time as possible.
Also, there are many facts in the world, and if we have to learn every single fact one by one, it will take a very long time. We won’t have the time to learn all the facts before we have lived half our life already, if ever. And so in order for us to have wisdom, we want knowledge that also makes it easier for us to learn new facts, or allows us to figure out more specific facts ourselves, right when we need them.
Luckily, there is a type of fact that fulfills both of these criteria, called first principles. First principles are facts that are true in all situations and for all eternity, and because they are the most fundamental truths of a topic, they allow us to figure out new facts by just using logic. If we can find the first principles of all topics (where they exist), then we will have maximized our wisdom. In order to better understand what it means to reason from first principles and derive new knowledge when we need it, let us take a look at reasoning more generally.
Next: Reasoning from First Principles
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