Distributed Cognition Supported by Information Technology Can Help Solve the Knowledge Management Bottleneck

Abstract

Information theory describes three types of information: syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic. We argue that knowledge is pragmatically tested information. Validating syntactic and semantic information is easy and inexpensive, but pragmatic testing is more complicated and expensive since it deals not only with information but with matter, energy, and often people. Information Technology (IT) can be used to generate and validate new syntactic and semantic information, but its usage has been very limited at the pragmatic level. This asymmetric usage of IT has given rise to a Knowledge Management (KM) bottleneck. This article looks into new ways to apply IT to minimize it. Pragmatic Minimization is achievable with the help of Virtual Reality (VR) and Internet based Distributed Cognition (IDC). VR simulates energy and matter in computers, making the pragmatic test fully informational, and IDC leverages the massive testing capacity of a huge social pool of Internet users.