Knowledge complexity

Computer-aided Visualization of Psycho-social Structures (Part #3)

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The number of fields of knowledge is increasing. This growth has been paralleled by specialization or fragmentation within disciplines as they encompass a larger range of concepts. This leads to a proliferation of sub-specialities and sub-disciplines. Accompanying these trends is an uncharted growth in the variety of forms of organized conceptual activity and a multiplication of meanings associated with any given term. These trends have been partially compensated by increasing recognition of the interconnected or multidisciplinary nature of many areas of interest and there have been efforts at establishing integrative overviews of programs in each discipline and a general systems discipline. These relatively static features of the body of knowledge are accompanied by the formulation of unsubstantiated concepts as a basis for immediate action because dynamic features of the system ("lags") prevent the rapid location and integration of relevant tested knowledge existing elsewhere -- this increases complexity particularly when the existence of such temporal niches is deliberately exploited to generate false concepts. Much damage can be done before compensating processes can be brought to bear -- it is the "appearance of truth" rather than "truth" which is significant within the lag time.