[MENTION=11455]dogman6126[/MENTION]
So, are you saying that having knowledge means we naturally know what to do with it? Does someone always know they have information which is valuable? If they don't, is it really powerful if they don't know they have it and/or don't know how to use it?
When I first posted about this, I thought about this to myself, and was kinda curious if anyone would point this out. I didn't know how to answer that, but I've been thinking about it.
To answer this, we must remember that so far as we have discussed, there are three types of knowledge. When I made that statement, I was referring to knowledge in the general sense, so now we can discuss this implication in these three types of knowledge. Lets also make a scenario. Lets say your about to get on a plane, and unknown to you to you, a terrorist attack is going to occur.
The first is personal knowledge. This would be if you were to meet the terrorist, you gain this kind of knowledge of that person. Now in this case, this is to say nothing about anything else. Lets say all you knew was this personal knowledge. On its own, no you might not do anything. Technically, you might not even know that terrorism is a bad thing (depends on your perspective on morality). It also depends on the amount of personal knowledge you have. You might not gain enough personal knowledge to know to do something. In this case there is a random chance that you say something to a third party that has procedural knowledge of what to do, in which case the attack could be stopped.
The second is procedural knowledge. This is to say you have knowledge about what to do in the case of a terrorist attack or whom to notify of the terrorist attack. Again, it also depends on the amount of procedural knowledge you have. Now in this case, you might know what to do, however you might not know that you need to do it. In this case, nothing would probably be done because you don't know to act.
The third is propositional knowledge. This means that you might know the facts of the case. A terrorist attack will occur. You might know of a story where someone had intervened in a terrorist attack. You might know every detail of the event. However, this isn't to say that you would act successfully or that you would act at all. This one also depends on your perspective of morality. In this case, it is more likely you would be successful in stopping such an attack, but knowing of a story where someone stopped a terrorist attack doesn't mean you would know what to do in this terrorist attack. And most importantly, that doesn't say anything about you actually doing anything with this knowledge.
In any case, it is a combination of these three types of knowledge is the type of knowledge you actually have. Now lets say you have some combination of knowledge that is sufficient for you to enact change. Now comes the action. This is about the person, and whether they choose to act or how to act on that knowledge. According to Aristotle, knowledge that a person has exists in two ways. The total sum of their knowledge, and that knowledge they consider in any given circumstance. Because of this, any two people could have the exact same knowledge available, but each could consider different subsets of that knowledge. That can lead to different conclusions/actions, or even the same conclusions/actions. To many possibilities to predict, but this does explain why people can think or act differently with the same information available. Also, I think it's safe to say that no two people will ever have the exact same set of knowledge available, so that's another difference. Next you have to consider perspectives on a persons natural disposition, tendencies, and all kinds of other variables before an action is ever made.
Basically to sum it up, the power is in the action in my opinion, not the knowledge. An action that is taken can happen two ways it seems to me. Dumb luck or with intent. For it to be with intent, you must have some kind/type/combination of knowledge. To me, the power is with the person, knowledge is just what we use to make an action (usually).