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What's the difference between knowledge and wisdom?

Psyduck

Psyduck

Bluelighter
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Feb 24, 2008
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What's the difference between knowledge and wisdom?

I can't quiet say it, it's intuitively very clear to me, yet I can't put up criteria.
 
Knowledge is having the information. Wisdom is having the information and choosing to use it (or not) in the appropriate way.
 
Knowledge is knowing that tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
 
knowledge is the understanding of material you may of studied, how things may work, what to do in such situations and to some extent memory retention along with a practical understanding of how to apply.

Wisdow is more your intuition as to the best way to xplain the material you have studied that best accomodates the audiences capacity if presenting it. Wisdom may be why things work in the manner they do rather then how they work. Wisdom would be dissecting the knowledge one might have on something in order to gain a deeper understanding of why such and such is how it is or looking beyond the evidented information and gaining an understanding of motives behind. I find wisdow to mean looking at things beyond face value and understanding motives or reasonings behind them
 
knowledge is information
intelligence is the ability to process the information in a constructive manner
creativity is the ability to see beyond the information to mutate it into an original form
wisdom is the acknowledgement and acceptance of the fact that ALL the information is made up anyway, and therefore is subject to change.
 
knowledge is a rote capacity for processing and retaining information (smart and intelligent people)

wisdom is a creative, objective, intuitive insight (only the wise)


not to say that wisdom can't be noted, processed and retained by intelligent people, rather: only the wise are capable of creating the new knowledge.
 
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JayJohnson said:
Knowledge is knowing that tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
Click to expand...

haha nice! very true. i would end the thread at that but there's one thing i see that nobody is including and that is the fact that wisdom comes from experience.

i don't think intelligence has dick all to do with wisdom. i can't even count on all my fingers and all my toes how many very intelligent people i've met who i've seen doing things in a manner that just didn't make no fuckin sense. on the flipside i've seen stupid people exhibit a surprising amount of common sense.

like ArcsAngles says, wisdom is intuition. it's someone being able to do something without knowing how to explain what they're doing. when you add intelligence to that all you're getting is someone being able to do something AND explain their method.
 
JayJohnson said:
Knowledge is knowing that tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
Click to expand...

as someone that cooks for a living...(yes, i've heard this saying before, and my response is the same here as always)... a wise man would know how to artfully integrate a tomato into a fruit salad imo :)
 
“Knowledge is proud that it knows so much; wisdom is humble that it knows no more.” -William Cooper
 
I agree that wisdom is intuitive, and is built more by experience and reflection upon it, than by reading or talking about others' experiences. Granted, others' experiences and opinions definitely augment the acquisition of wisdom. But there's no substitute for going out, trying things for yourself, seeing what happens, and then using what happened to guide what you're willing to try later on.

This gets to my problem with 'hip' as an end in and of itself. Being hip essentially means being very, very informed. But just because you're informed doesn't mean you have a good sense of how and when to make use of that information. A hipster who annoys the people he meets by rubbing the obscure facts he knows in their face is being very unwise, I'd argue, by alienating potentially great friends and valuable real-world connections.
 
The wisest man in the world could live his life in complete happiness without being educated in the least. Wisdom is innate.

Knowledge is the information that one has learned as they have went through life. If they aren't well balanced in other ways, they could be absolutely brilliant, yet have a miserable existence.

A balance, though tough to attain, is best.
 
in one word: praxis

wisdom is internalized knowledge, ie. knowledge that is not viewed as distinct from oneself.
 
Wisdom is knowing without having been taught or learned.

Knowledge is taught, learned, and remembered.


That's how I look at them anyway...
 
Often knowledge is specific and concrete, wisdom is often an incorporation of other domains and sorts of realities. Knowledge might positively identify something as a problem. Wisdom would be involved in who should be told about it and when.

In wisdom a person is usually aware of their own limitations and the limitations of their knowledge. Wisdom has an awareness of values that aren't quantifiable in a formulaic manner. Most knowledge can be diagrammed or put in a spread sheet. Wisdom tends to be qualitative rather than quantitative.

If you were moving Aunt Jenny to the nursing home solid knowledge about the process could be garnered from google. Wisdom in helping Aunt Jenny would come from awareness of her values, your values, the others involved, and an incorporation of data from knowledge based references.
 
Knowledge is the information a person has learned about drugs.

Intelligence is using them the most efficient way.

Wisdom is using them the most fulfilling way.

A person cannot be told what works best for them, that person has to learn it themselves and apply it.
 
MyDoorsAreOpen said:
I agree that wisdom is intuitive, and is built more by experience and reflection upon it, than by reading or talking about others' experiences. Granted, others' experiences and opinions definitely augment the acquisition of wisdom. But there's no substitute for going out, trying things for yourself, seeing what happens, and then using what happened to guide what you're willing to try later on.

This gets to my problem with 'hip' as an end in and of itself. Being hip essentially means being very, very informed. But just because you're informed doesn't mean you have a good sense of how and when to make use of that information. A hipster who annoys the people he meets by rubbing the obscure facts he knows in their face is being very unwise, I'd argue, by alienating potentially great friends and valuable real-world connections.
Click to expand...

I have to disagree about out-sourced knowledge augmenting the acquisition of wisdom.
Great insights (which are the basis of wisdom) can come from experiencing two or more points of view and condensing it into you own conclusion.
 
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