Why is knowledge so powerful?
Connecting the dots between new information and making inferences of that information is what gives knowledge its superpowers.
This might sound like a high-school essay question, and stating that “Knowledge is power” seems obvious, but the question is not that straightforward.
Take Scaramouche, my cat. He is a very big, lazy Maine Coone. Dogs love chasing him. But he spends hours exploring and checking his territory around our condo. He knows every wall, every bush, every hiding place. Within seconds he can be out of reach and tease his best friends.
He always wins despite not being the most agile cat in the neighborhood.
Knowledge alone does not give any power.
When Scaramouche escapes dogs, he is combining his knowledge of the place and his knowledge of dogs, with some basic form of prospective thinking: dogs can’t jump, so if I climb, I’m ok.
Knowledge, without the capacity to project and make inferences, is useless. I know that our bed has wooden bumpers, but I still hurt my toe every morning. The knowledge is there, the engine hasn’t woken up yet.
This capacity to make inferences — to connect the dots — is not particular to humans, but we have developed it at a scale such that this has become our most prominent trait. And this trait is actually the real power, not the knowledge itself.
This is of course true for individual human beings, but also — which is more interesting — for organisations and societies.
Leveraging Knowledge creates actionable insight.
One of the most striking examples of useless knowledge is within large organisations. If a company is too siloed, or there is no culture of communication, there is no collective connecting the dots. The information is there, so the company knows. But since there is no communication, the dots can’t connect.
Until only recently, the three organisations that were collecting the largest amount of information on earth were scarcely communicating: CIA, FBI and NSA. According to several studies, the intercompany jealousy had prevented the sharing of intelligence that might have prevented the looming 9/11 attacks.
But, well oiled information chains can prove effective. 200 years ago it was possible for one person to know everything that was to be known. Rigorous science was only at its debut, and information was travelling at the speed of horses. One of the early Rotschild was known for having made a fortune at the London stock exchange, letting people believe that Waterloo was lost, while he had the information that it was a victory — through a faster communication chain.
Finding a needle in a haystack.
In today’s modern world, information is no longer power. Information is available almost freely at anytime, to anyone. Making sense of that information is the real superpower.
Warren Buffet will spend hours every day, sometimes up to 9, reading news, company reports, analysis, technical documents to gather enough knowledge on a sector or a company he plans to invest in — or not. His remarkable intelligence can extract, from the thousands of scattered pieces he absorbs every day, the right pattern, logic, gears that might drive a company’s business up, and on the long run, its share price.
This article was written by the team at Weavit — for more information on the exciting product we’re building: check out our website here. If you’d like to get in touch to chat or join our team — reach out at hello@weavit.ai
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