On the Nature and Sources of Expertise, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief Wiki Systems Options

[Jonny Cache]

On the Nature and Sources of Expertise

Questions about the nature of expertise have been coming up in several of the forums where I spend my time of late, and I've begun to notice curious discrepancies among the things that different people say about it, not to mention the many divergences between those assumptions and the way that I've always thought about expertise, well, at least, for as long as I can remember. So I think I'll break the ice with that.

Just trying to resuscitate this topic that keeps coming up in parallel dialogues on both the old wiki and the new wiki, but that just as quickly keeps falling into some kind of narcoleptic coma. This time I'll try a tactic of selective cross-posting between the two wikiverses of Citizendium and Wikipedia Review.

Nota Bene. This essay is being transposted to the following two wikiverses:

• Citizendium Forums
• Wikipedia Review

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Fri 29th September 2006, 5:45pm

[Jonny Cache]

I do not normally think of myself as an expert in anything. I think of myself as a person who does not know anywhere near as much as he wanted to know about all of the things that he wanted to know about. But I do on occasion find myself in discussions with people where I come to realize that I have at least read about many things that they have not, and where I realize that I have had some actual hard-knocks practice in many areas that they have not. And when that happens there's no use being so humble and, er, "non-elitist", as to kid anybody about it -- indeed, it's irresponsible to do so, as it disrespects the lives and the works of those authors and teachers who took the trouble to pass on that knowledge to little ole me.

So if I were free to pick the terms of discussion -- a freedom that I may take back in a moment -- I would almost certainly replace talk of expertise with talk of experience and knowledge, and then I would almost certainly replace talk of knowledge with talk of the process by which we acquire knowledge, to wit, inquiry.

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Tue 3rd October 2006, 8:56pm

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This post has been edited by Joey: Sun 15th October 2006, 10:01pm