Knowledge. Before going into this complicated in-depth topic, let's start from a simple question. Why do we go to school? A practical answer, for most of us students, would be because we need to achieve certain grades to apply for a university. Other reasons may be to socialise and interact with friends, or because going to school is an obligation as a student. An ideal answer, or someone might call it a lame answer, would be to learn and acquire knowledge.
Knowledge is what we know, what our brains are aware about. If we say we know a certain fact, it means that we understand, though not completely, but at least we know the thing goes like the way it does. For instance, we know that the Earth orbits around the Sun, though we do not know why.
Knowledge can be obtained either first-hand or second-hand: by experiences or by teachings. One can have an experience, either positive or negative, and after that s/he knows what to do if the same thing occurs again since s/he's already got the preceding experience. S/he might not acquire the knowledge at once, but at least s/he can figure out to make a better choice than the former one. One can also obtain knowledge from other people who have their other own experiences. The teachings are usually given from the teachers, parents, or antecedents to the students or kids through various ways such as lessons, books, or speeches. Students go to school and learn English, humanities, and mathematics. Parents teach their children not to be rude and respect others.
However, knowledge is not acquired in a simple, perceptual, or passive way just by listening to a lecture or watching a video. It is rather an active job that you should do it to get the knowledge for yourself. In order to obtain the knowledge, one should understand, comprehend, discuss, debate, write essays, or go through question papers. There are a variety of ways that each fit one's style of learning.
Not only its ways of conveying vary but its types vary. Knowledge is ubiquitous, regarding all areas of studies. There exist cultural knowledge, scientific knowledge, lingual knowledge, artistic knowledge, and a lot more. Knowledge is the concept that truly encompasses all the fields and furthermore can break down the barriers between the areas and integrate them. Perhaps knowledge is the only thing in the world that is limitless and eternal. All people die, but the knowledge never dies. It is passed onto the next generations, yet it may be extended or altered.
Having a lot of knowledge enables a person to be wise. And wise people in general have a stereotype of an elder with glasses and white long beards. Away from their appearance, wise people are usually old as they have gained most of their knowledge from their first-hand experiences. Proportional to the amount of time they lived, they gained a tremendous amount of experiences that most of the others haven't yet.
But here's a quite critical and radical question: how do we actually distinguish 'knowing' and 'not knowing'? For instance, if you have somebody as your roommate, and when people ask you if you knew him/her, you'll probably going to answer yes you know. But can you ever 'fully' know the person? Even though s/he is your best friend, always hangs out together with you, and tells you his/her secrets, it is not really possible to get to know a person who is not yourself.
To go into more general forms of knowledge, as in academic knowledge, the question continues. If you get 100% in your maths exam, can you say you fully know maths? Do your grades represent your knowledge? It rather depends on how much in depth you keep the knowledge, as if it's part of you, so it is quite natural for you to apply in your life.
Here goes another critical question: can the knowledge be an absolute truth? The answer, on my perspective, is "No". What we know now as the facts proven from the discoveries, are only how we humans observe and define the nature. The nature, even before the humans have ever existed or developed, was in that place all the time. It is just how humans view the nature, creating our own hypotheses and substantiating them with our own proofs based on our views on nature. For example, it is we humans who classified all those living organisms; hence cats are cats, fish are fish, sunflowers are sunflowers, and pine trees are pine trees. We never know, pine trees might have had their own names. It's just what we call and name the pine trees as pine trees; pine trees being pine trees therefore cannot be an absolute truth. In my personal view, all the scientific discoveries and mathematical formulas are mere promises made on our humans' behalves, in our own world. The others from rest of the world, or even from the outside of our world, may consider us ignorant and arrogant. We never know the absolute truth, but rather we believe in certain things to be true.
Perhaps obtaining knowledge is not about learning new things, but rather getting to believe in new things.
Knowledge is what we know, what our brains are aware about. If we say we know a certain fact, it means that we understand, though not completely, but at least we know the thing goes like the way it does. For instance, we know that the Earth orbits around the Sun, though we do not know why.
Knowledge can be obtained either first-hand or second-hand: by experiences or by teachings. One can have an experience, either positive or negative, and after that s/he knows what to do if the same thing occurs again since s/he's already got the preceding experience. S/he might not acquire the knowledge at once, but at least s/he can figure out to make a better choice than the former one. One can also obtain knowledge from other people who have their other own experiences. The teachings are usually given from the teachers, parents, or antecedents to the students or kids through various ways such as lessons, books, or speeches. Students go to school and learn English, humanities, and mathematics. Parents teach their children not to be rude and respect others.
However, knowledge is not acquired in a simple, perceptual, or passive way just by listening to a lecture or watching a video. It is rather an active job that you should do it to get the knowledge for yourself. In order to obtain the knowledge, one should understand, comprehend, discuss, debate, write essays, or go through question papers. There are a variety of ways that each fit one's style of learning.
Not only its ways of conveying vary but its types vary. Knowledge is ubiquitous, regarding all areas of studies. There exist cultural knowledge, scientific knowledge, lingual knowledge, artistic knowledge, and a lot more. Knowledge is the concept that truly encompasses all the fields and furthermore can break down the barriers between the areas and integrate them. Perhaps knowledge is the only thing in the world that is limitless and eternal. All people die, but the knowledge never dies. It is passed onto the next generations, yet it may be extended or altered.
Having a lot of knowledge enables a person to be wise. And wise people in general have a stereotype of an elder with glasses and white long beards. Away from their appearance, wise people are usually old as they have gained most of their knowledge from their first-hand experiences. Proportional to the amount of time they lived, they gained a tremendous amount of experiences that most of the others haven't yet.
But here's a quite critical and radical question: how do we actually distinguish 'knowing' and 'not knowing'? For instance, if you have somebody as your roommate, and when people ask you if you knew him/her, you'll probably going to answer yes you know. But can you ever 'fully' know the person? Even though s/he is your best friend, always hangs out together with you, and tells you his/her secrets, it is not really possible to get to know a person who is not yourself.
To go into more general forms of knowledge, as in academic knowledge, the question continues. If you get 100% in your maths exam, can you say you fully know maths? Do your grades represent your knowledge? It rather depends on how much in depth you keep the knowledge, as if it's part of you, so it is quite natural for you to apply in your life.
Here goes another critical question: can the knowledge be an absolute truth? The answer, on my perspective, is "No". What we know now as the facts proven from the discoveries, are only how we humans observe and define the nature. The nature, even before the humans have ever existed or developed, was in that place all the time. It is just how humans view the nature, creating our own hypotheses and substantiating them with our own proofs based on our views on nature. For example, it is we humans who classified all those living organisms; hence cats are cats, fish are fish, sunflowers are sunflowers, and pine trees are pine trees. We never know, pine trees might have had their own names. It's just what we call and name the pine trees as pine trees; pine trees being pine trees therefore cannot be an absolute truth. In my personal view, all the scientific discoveries and mathematical formulas are mere promises made on our humans' behalves, in our own world. The others from rest of the world, or even from the outside of our world, may consider us ignorant and arrogant. We never know the absolute truth, but rather we believe in certain things to be true.
Perhaps obtaining knowledge is not about learning new things, but rather getting to believe in new things.
It's true that you cannot completely know and understand a person even if they are your closest friend, as everyone has their own unique personality that they aquire by themselves mostly. I think only a part of their personality is aquired through gained knowledge from their surroundings, and the other part they were simply born with.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteGreat to see us reflect on what we 'know'. Thanks for post and response!
ReplyDeleteAn extremely interesting and captivating review on knowledge which has expanded my understanding on knowledge. Your views on every individual seeking and gaining knowledge in different ways is very true and I personally agree with you. Also knowledge doesn't necessarily have to be true, because we only believe in things we can define and understand.
ReplyDeleteIt was a good read overall!