I recall taking a class back in high-school and it was a great class. It spoke about knowledge. I don't recall the class, but it was akin to a college philosophy class. It discussed how one gains knowledge. How do we truly know something.
I'm not going to go over each of the ways that we gain knowledge. That's what school is for. However, I wanted to address how YOU know something. I guess my thought spurs from hearing people have opinions on subjects that I think they could not possibly have come to a conclusion on. I think most of us are guilty of it. But I think we, as a society, are in danger of getting completely lost in knowledge which doesn't exist.
I believe we could blame many things on this, for instance, television, radio, and the internet. However, I think the biggest blame should be on ourselves.
I think our standards have decreased drastically. When we read something on the internet, we claim to have that knowledge. When we see something on the TV, we say that we now know what they reported. The problem is, we don't. We have taken their word for it. This is knowledge from authority (again, open up a philosophy book). However, authority is one of the most faillible types of knowledge. The most abused. And for some reason, the most accepted. Now I realize that we cannot simply learn all things by ourselves from scratch. Really, who has time to do the chemistry that would determine the next cure for cancer? We don't, so when someone says they have found it, we accept their authority and statement as knowledge. We expect the scientific comunity to have filtered the cruft from true knowledge.
But the issue is that most of us don't realize we accept their authority. It's such an automatic process, it has become dangerous. We have now become the equivalent of religious fanatics. Just taking someone's word for it without question or rational deduction. Part of the problem is that we live in the information age. Information is knowledge. And there is no possible way we can validate all this information given to us. So we just accept it by default.
Here is why that is bad. You will no doubt sound like a complete dumbass at one point or another when talking about something you don't "know" but have ingested the information without discrimination.
Really, this can be avoided, very easily. **Interjection: Sometimes, I'm not convinced that one can cause a paradigm shift in another, so my writings feel a little like self-pleasuring, as opposed to being my hope that I can get to the next level by helping myself or someone else increase their understanding of themselves or the world.** And here's how: you don't know jack-shit. That's such a simple premise. Simple and said many times before. I like to think Socrates and myself are on the same level, but I'll make a confession which you probably need to enjoy because it won't happen often: I think Socrates had a leg up on me in the philosophy department.
You don't know ANYTHING. So when you make a statement that contains is, was, were, there is a likelihood you may be misspeaking. Unless you experienced it, witnessed it, have reasoned it, (and a couple others), you really are taking someone else's word for it. For instance, if you say, "The President is x," x being some noun or adjective that describes him, really, you are taking someone's word for it. How do you know? How do you know the person who was voted in was black? We take the media's word for it. They parade him around on tv and we accept it. Perhaps you have shaken his hand. How do you know that was the president and this isn't all just a big hoax? You are making an assumption. You are reasoning. And you are trusting.
I realize this borderlines getting deep, and heaven forbid I do that. :-) I'm hoping to maybe stir your internal dialogue, that perhaps you know nothing. When you open your mouth, say what you know or qualify what you say. Police officers get really good at this. They start thinking in very short truthful sentences because they is how they write their reports. "He clenched her fists. He took a step back with his right foot and bladed his body at me. He clenched his teeth. He started shaking and flexing his muscles. I recognize these as pre-attack indicators.... <rest of stuff about how "he" got his ass kicked>". Short, factual sentences (whether all officers put only factual sentences in their reports or what the trustworthiness of our authorities is for another thought).
If you ask them, "did he hit her," and the officer didn't see it. You will seldom get a, "yes," out of the officer. Instead you will get a, "she stated he hit her. I observed a large bruise in her eye socket. And the imprint on her forehead matches the 1976 football state championship ring with his initials on it, which are also clearly marked on her forehead." Do you see what he (statistically more cops are dudes, so we are sticking with he) did? He made statements based on his own observation. He can't say that the suspect hit his girlfriend. He CAN lay out his observations the would lead him to believe it though. Even our courts don't recognize 100% truth. They go for "beyond a reasonable doubt." Which is not fact given by God and written in his stone tablets. It's, "we are pretty damned sure, and there is no doubt that is reasonable." Do we know pink elephants from outer space didn't steal his ring, punch her, then slip the ring back on his finger (subsequently going back into outer space lest they be interrogated)? No, we can't know that. We can assume it didn't happen. We can rationalize it didn't happen. We can't know it, unless we were there to witness it. However, that excuse is not reasonable.
Now, this isn't an argument for agnosticism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism). Although, I believe some people, mainly the characters of every reality show out there (and most of their viewers), could stand a healthy dose of it. Or perhaps it is an argument for you to be more agnostic. I'm not talking religion, as is the primary topic of agnostics. I'm talking everything.
Ok. Ok. I'll wrap it up. Really, the two points are that of humility and communication. You can always learn something. And if you already "know", you remove the possibility of knowing it again. You see this with teenagers. Their heads are filled with already "knowing", so they limit their capacity to learn more knowledge. I once coined a phrase (which I had forgotten until now, so thanks), which was, "Humility is the key to understanding." If you know, you're done. You must interact with the world NOT knowing lest you miss the lesson it has for you.
And I fall back to communication. I've spent more time in communication correcting misspoken statements than in the actual giving and receiving information. So stop.
Carry on.
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