A Measure of Knowledge by James R. Simms, Human Factual Knowledge ed. by Mark Levensky (review)

Leonardo, Vol. 5, pp. 357-374. Pergamon Press 1972. Printed in Great Britain BOOKS Readers are invited to recommend books to be reviewed. Only books in English and in French can be reviewed at this stage. Those who would like to be added to Leonardo’s panel of reviewers should write to the Founder-Editor, indicating their particular interests. A Measure of Knowledge. James R. Simms. Philosophical Library, New York, 1971. 234 pp., illus. $8.75. HumanFactualKnowledge. Mark Levensky, ed. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1971. 218 pp. E1.00. Reviewed by: James W. Davis* Simms presents an intriguing theory concerning the quantification of behavioral knowledge, taking into account the broad premise that all things exhibit the capacity for a systemic recognition of and response to the environmental conditions in which they function. Regarding the question of why man himself has knowledge, Simms states that ‘man knows and has knowledge so he can adjust to, cope with, and fit into his environment’. This hypothesis is then extended to include all things in terms of their adaptive and functioning properties within systems that are categorized as ‘mineral’, ‘plant’, and ‘animal’. He takes the position that knowledge may be measured through the direction and exchange of energy between bodies in their pursuit of survival: ‘. . . an individual’s knowledge is directly proportional to its capacity to direct energy.’ He stresses the fact that the directing of energy is not always willed. A knowledge-energy relation is established according to three axioms: 1. Amount of knowledge of a substanceis afunction o f the energy the substance can direct. Substances must have sufficient knowledge to obtain energy from the environment to satisfy minimum energy requirements for survival (examples given in reference to man are: (a) fire, (b) domestication of animals, (c) agriculture , (d) explosives, (e) printing, (f) use of major laws of the physical sciences and (g) application of atomic energy). 2. Knowledge of a substance is equal to or greater than zero (zero knowledge meaning there is no capacity for directed energy). One premise is that, as in the physical sciences, absolute energy is positive. Perhaps one can question this postulation as applied to life-sustaining systems, for under it the directing of energy may occur only with a partial regard of the energy potential of another given substance. The manifestation of knowledge as a prevalence of one energy source over another in a system, such as in parasitic activity, may be observed to reinforce the prominence of a given particle and, in some of these instances, negates the energy potential as well as the energy duration of another. 3. Upper limit of knowledge is a function of the ratio of the directed energy to the total available energy. The total energy system is taken to be composed of both the energy internal to a given substance and the total energy externally available to it. In the second book, Human Factual Knowledge, a series of essays is compiled that examines three domains toward which philosophers have turned to verify our existence through knowledge of things and events: past events and their interpretation, what can be surmised to be within the minds of others and physical objects in one’s immediate vicinity. Art history, criticism and the making of art are all highly dependent upon the value and plausibility of each and, in consequence, an understanding of such philosophical inquiry could be of interest to readers of Leonardo. R. F. Holland in his essay discussesthe view that when a person remembers a past event in his life, part of what occurs is that he has an image of the event in his mind. William Earle argues that when a person remembers a past event, part of what occurs is that the person experiences the event itself. E. J. Furlong proposes that, although it cannot be shown that usually a person’s memory of past events in his life is reliable without assuming that it is, one is still justified in accepting the general reliability of this sort of retrieval as a tentative hypothesis. Furlong also suggests that a substantial portion of one’s conscious experience is manifested by his remembrances . ~~ * 3425 Johnson St., Macomb...