The most distinctive characteristic of the 20th Century is not population explosion but information explosion. Thanks to the almost universal presence of newspapers, radio, television and the internet, information knocks on everybody's door. Satellite communication is already a great thing. Computers and microchips will further make the communication systems aggressive, pervasive and Inescapable. It appears that one microchip, which is not visible to the naked eye, one can store all the thirty-seven and a half plays of Shakespeare. Man is already bombarded with information, but in the near future he will be subjected to a much heavier barrage of information missiles. As it is, I feel, the imbibing of information is so often and so heavy, that lots of us suffer from mental constipation.

Albert Camus says that modern man has two main occupations -reading newspapers and having fun. I am interested in the first. Newspapers are essentially the purveyors of information. A modern man begins his day with the newspaper. In his office he ingests a lot of office information and interrupts his day with an evening newspaper. Then in the evening at home he subjects himself to radio and television which endlessly dish out information. Today a boy in Mumbai can talk about electronic instruments, digital watches, and is bristling with general knowledge. He knows his tennis stars and film stars. He is a walking information computer. The man who has the most information has a fantastic memory. Gathering information is a matter of interest, attention and memory.

The question is, is that enough? My answer is no. In fact lots of well-read and bright people labour under fallacy, i.e. that information is everything. They will tell you when Tendulkar scored his first century, the year in which Indira Gandhi was assassinated, that Ottawa is the Capital of Canada, that the longest bridge is in San Francisco, the name of the first astronaut, etc. It is not harmful to possess information, but information is not everything. A man loaded with information cannot make any contribution with information alone. For that he needs knowledge. Knowledge is a response to that information. Knowledge involves analyses and drawing of inferences. Besides, the results of analysis and inferences should be systematised into cohesive patterns. With these patterns one sifts further information and enhances one's knowledge.

You take information and you put it through the filters of your mind. So what is left behind after the filtration is knowledge. Of course there is no finality or termination. It is an everlasting process, in the sense that one confronts fresh explosions of information very frequently. And this impinges on one's knowledge. One has to reflect on the new input and raw material. But knowledge is your own intellectual response in a certain context. But this is born out of an interaction of the information that is in you. If you tell us the biographical details of Shelley's life, all that is happening is that you are supplying us the information. But that is something I can get from any book on Shelley.

But if you give us an intelligent analysis of Shelley's poems, then we say that you are knowledgeable. We cannot get this anywhere. These are your ideas and responses emerging out of your reflction on the information you have about Shelley. People who make mistakes, and lots of people do, one for the other fail to see the wood for the trees.

By remembering the whole of the encyclopedia Britannica one does not become knowledgeable. In fact it is a wasteful venture. Knowledge is not contribution you make to a field. One does not have to publish all the time. Even while talking about a topic or a subject one can sound knowledgeable. It all depends on how much thinking one has done on the subject or the topic . Information is not knowledge. But it leads up to knowledge. One need not have information in one's memory all the time. Today there are various methods of obtaining information whenever one wants it. You extract knowledge from information like you extract gold from the ore, like thebees extract honey from the flowers, like the silkworms spin yarn after certain maturation. You get knowledge after you put it through various information filters. So to imbibe and parade information is easy but to turn that into 'gold biscuits' of knowledge is difficult.

There is another higher stage i.e. wisdom. This is the ability to apply your knowledge for your own well being and that of others. We admire and respect wise people because wisdom is so rare. Scientists who help in manufacturing hydrogen bomb and nuclear missiles are very knowledgeable, but they lack wisdom. They are not wise enough to realize that they may be putting these lethal weapons in the hands of a bunch of insane politicians. Just imagine what would have been the fate of the world, if Hitler had the atom bombs.

CONTENTS | HOME | IMFAA | IHCTM | SCHNELL HANS