Re: Perfect State of Knowledge

[Stein Smaaland <smaaland@sys.no>]

Dear DENizens                    Oslo, May 12th, 2002

Ed wrote May 9th;
>My question for DENizens: Is "perfect state of knowledge" possible, or
>is it nothing more than an idea that can never be?
let me join in with my 2 Norwegian ORE.

I, myself, live with an image of an "objective",
perfect state og knowledge out/up there somewhere,
not only within the area of science.

This idea functions like a vision, a direction, a
motivator, hopefully not only for me but also for the
companies I (try to) manage and/or coach.

I guess a more left-minded comment could be that the
answer depends on what view we adopt, i.e.;
1. (epistemic) realism (science AIM is to accumulate
knowledge based on observables and unobservables
(metaphysical questions))
2. instrumentalism (anti-realism)(science AIM is
to accumulate knowledge based on observables)

To my understanding;
No. 1 is in agreement with Thomas Kuhns three
aspects (illusions?) of our current Western
paradigm; progress, science and democracy.
No. 2 is more to my liking. More known individuals
include John Dewey, Bas van Fraassen. Through my
own 15 years within the natural sciences, I have
come to regard science as a tool, as the means,
not the end. 

The two views seem to focus both on improvement,
right? And that, I guess, is our everyday life.
We focus on improvement. We use METHODS to assist
us, in improving our work, our environments.
And ourselves.

This was my 1/8th of 0.02 USD.

Still learning
Deming Scandinavia
Stein
(stein.smaaland@deming.no)
(www.deming.no)
*** The Quality of a SYStem ****