Editorial

Abstract

Do we transmit information or wisdom in our articles?

Dr. Eduardo López Bastida.

Director.

EDITORIAL

A scientific journal is an instrument for communicating scientific knowledge; its main objective is to create a space for analysis, discussion, and reflection in an area of ​​knowledge, using information and communication technologies.

Knowledge is divided into three types:

INFORMATION: What is it there?

KNOWLEDGE: What can I do?

WISDOM: How do we use information and knowledge ethically and sustainably, without compromising the present and the past of oneself, others, future generations, and nature?

The knowledge society in which we live today is characterized by the speed of knowledge accumulation being much greater than the speed with which the impact of each discovery in other fields of science is evaluated. The transformation of new knowledge into new materials is so fast that access to knowledge and training becomes an essential component of development; the activity of generating technological knowledge has become faster than its speed of diffusion; The assimilation of knowledge and technology is no longer a realistic solution to development, unless it includes a significant component of scientific research. The time between discoveries and applications is getting shorter; the obsolescence time of technologies is constantly decreasing; technologies take less time to be replaced than they take to be evaluated; science has overshadowed the other knowledges.

All this situation makes the accumulation of information transmitted exuberant, due to the large amount of data, a large part of which is impossible to read; omnipresent because it is everywhere, eliminating geographical barriers; multilateral because it receives information from everywhere, with great interactivity, unilaterality, and heterogeneity. This set of characteristics often means that our scientific articles are limited to providing only information, which turns their readers into passive scientists, only receivers of information. Although this transmission of information is important for science, technology, and innovation, it is considered that it is not enough to form an awareness of solving emerging problems in today's world and it must be complemented by the transmission of other knowledge that forms a social conscience among readers and that they stop being passive citizens in the face of different problems.

It should be an aspiration, especially for social science journals, to transmit a science that forms social conscience through a historically formed system of ordered and staggered knowledge that achieves the objective of assimilating a science of sustainability, not isolated, that allows a group of people to help and stimulate each other to understand current economic, environmental and social particularities and act with prudence, temperance, strength and justice towards them. This is, in short, transmitting the knowledge of wisdom.

The wisdom or experience that is developed with the application of intelligence in one's own experience, obtaining conclusions that provide greater understanding, which in turn provides the ability to reflect, drawing conclusions that grant the discernment of truth, good, and evil. Wisdom is sometimes taken to mean a particularly well-developed form of judgment and common sense. Wisdom is synonymous with prudence, maturity, wisdom, discernment, reason, good sense, thoughtfulness, and foresight.

When transmitting wisdom in an article, it implies, as a complement to the information:

• Keeping in mind in the message that wisdom does not expire and knowledge does.
• It implies understanding the complexity of the world, therefore, living with uncertainty and generating solutions within it.
• Recognizing the existence of different ways of thinking and interpreting what is transmitted, seeking to establish a deep debate on how to solve the problems raised in the articles.
• Disseminating responsibility towards nature, others, and oneself.
• Adapting this knowledge to the cultural, environmental, social, political, and economic conditions of each place.
• Transmitting an ethics of sustainability that helps regulate behaviors and customs.
• Writing with wisdom means being aware that it is peculiar knowledge, establishing a peculiar relationship with reality, which cannot be imposed, it is a fruit of the perception of the value of reality

All this can be referred to as forming human maturity, an attitude towards reality based on a deep interest in everything and everyone, which goes beyond the limits imposed by the view governed by information, whatever the field. It implies that our readers understand and value the problem from all its complex angles and are capable of seeking sustainable solutions to the problems. It is necessary to go beyond transmitting heaps of information as if it were really closed and definitive truths. We know that we do not know! Cognitive sciences confront us with two certainties: the limited and instrumental nature of knowledge and knowledge does not flow along a single path.

As always, this editorial is submitted for consideration for reflection, and we leave you with the following questions: How do we combine transmitting information with wisdom? How can wisdom be applied in scientific journals? Is it possible? And, what and how can work be done to achieve this? How can it help and what is the importance of this for universities