TITLE:
What Is Wisdom? Can We Define or Measure It? What Is Its Significance in Our Lives?
AUTHORS:
Katerina Kakoseou, Yiannis Laouris
KEYWORDS:
Wisdom, Intelligence, Artificial Intelligence, Artificial Wisdom, Collective Wisdom
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.11 No.11,
November
27,
2023
ABSTRACT: The
paper reviews and discusses several definitions of wisdom. The aim is to
stimulate and hopefully launch a debate regarding the challenges we face in our
attempts to understand and harness it. The authors begin with reviewing the
definitions of wisdom as kindness, well-being, and altruism, discuss practical
wisdom in medicine and consulting, and introduce attempts to operationalise it
as data compression. Further definitions consider the relation of wisdom to
logic, intelligence, language, ageing, experience, insight, and faith.
Following some theoretical considerations regarding uncertainty, heuristics,
unconscious mind, and free will, the article concludes with an introduction to
the concept of collective wisdom.