The Evolution of Knowledge and Knowledge of Evolution

Summary Human knowledge is a human creation: we seek to make sense by creating patterns, which are tested in various ways and with differing degrees and kinds of rigour. For each individual cognition is a scarce resource, but different people can apply it in diverse ways and to diverse subjects: each application has its own range of convenience and its own dangers. Thus the growth of knowledge is an evolutionary process of trial and error, the rate and content of which depends on its organization, both conscious and unconscious. In seeking to develop knowledge methodological choices are unavoidable, but often unconscious. As Simon pointed out, all evolution, of life, economic and social systems, and ideas, depends on quasi-decomposability, the limits of which can never be fully anticipated. Thus uncertainty is inescapable - but it is a condition of innovation.