The human mind is a fundamental unit of knowledge management. Over the years, this function (of knowledge management) has been outsourced to automatic/pre-programed systems: for example, electronic data, computerized information systems etc).
Be it in organizations or societies, human beings make up the basic unit of these ‘organizational wholes.’ Thus, understanding the essence of knowledge management on the individual/human being level is crucial to the understanding of knowledge and information systems on the larger scale or context.
Today, I came across this excellent collection of essays by an anthropoligist (and philosopher) Gregory Bateson titled “Steps to an Ecology of Mind.” It was a rare and pleasantly surprising find. His essays articulate (with clarity of thought and intricacy of introspection) the questions that have been lingering in my own my for the past couple of years.
I have only read through less than a tenth of his essays and cannot claim to understand and rearticulate his thoughts accurately. However, the questions he raised are certainly worth pondering, to gain a deeper understanding of how the mind interacts with knowledge, information and ideas:
How do ideas interact? Is there some sort of natural selection which determines the survival of some ideas and the extinction or death of others? What sort of economics limits the multiplicity of ideas in a given region of mind? What are the necessary conditions for stability (or survival) of such a system or subsystem?
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Citation:
Gregory Bateson, 1972. “Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology.” Web: http://www.edtechpost.ca/readings/Gregory%20Bateson%20-%20Ecology%20of%20Mind.pdf
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