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Coda I: Knowing in practice

Coda I: Knowing in practice

pp. 134-142
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Summary

I will end this first part of the book with a brief essay on the nature of knowing in practice. This essay, which is philosophical but in a lighthearted kind of way, will allow me to provide a summary of the themes introduced in Part I in the context of discussing a specific topic. Focusing on knowing for this purpose is a useful topic, but this choice should not be interpreted as assuming that knowing is all that communities of practice are about, especially if by “knowing” one refers to some instrumental kind of expertise. Communities of practice should not be reduced to purely instrumental purposes. They are about knowing, but also about being together, living meaningfully, developing a satisfying identity, and altogether being human.

Flowers and bits

I will start with two odd questions. The first one was concocted long ago by Zen teachers to help their students think more sharply: What does a flower know about being a flower? The second question is the information-age version of the first: What does a computer know about being a flower?

The question of what a flower knows about being a flower is somewhat troubling because there seem to be two contradictory answers. Being a flower is to no one as transparent, immediately obvious, fully internalized, and natural as it is to a flower: spreading those leaves, absorbing that specific spectrum of light from the sun, taking the energy in, building protein, sucking nutrients from its roots, growing, budding, blooming, being visited by a bee.

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