Knowers & Knowing
- 'Shall I teach you what knowledge is? When you know a thing, to recognise that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to recognise that you do not know it. That is knowledge.' (Confucius)
- 'Where there is shouting there is no true knowledge.' (Leonardo da Vinci)
- 'Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.' (Martin Luther King)
- 'Mediocre minds usually dismiss anything which reaches beyond their own understanding.' (Francois de La Rochefoucald)
- 'Education is learning what you didn’t even know you didn’t know.' (Daniel J. Boorstin)
- 'It is very good for a man to talk about what he does not understand; as long as he understands that he does not understand it.' (G. K. Chesterton)
- 'Those who are convinced they have a monopoly on The Truth always feel that they are only saving the world when they slaughter the heretics.' (Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.)
- 'A very popular error – having the courage of one’s convictions; rather it is a matter of having the courage for an attack upon one’s convictions.' (Anon)
- 'There are many who know many things, yet are lacking in wisdom.' (Democritus)
- 'The most important truths are likely to be those which… society at that time least wants to hear.' (W. H. Auden)
- 'Never assume the obvious is true.' (William Safire)
- 'The criterion of truth is that it works even if nobody is prepared to acknowledge it.' (Ludwig von Mises)
- 'The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery.' (Anais Nin)
- 'If one is estranged from oneself, then one is estranged from others too. If one is out of touch with oneself, then one cannot touch others.' (Anne Morrow Lindbergh)
- 'Now there is one outstandingly important fact regarding Spaceship Earth, and that is that no instruction book came with it.' (Buckminster Fuller)
- 'Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.' (Carl Jung)
- 'The universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.' (Eden Phillpotts)
- 'The dumbest people I know are those who know it all.' (Malcolm Forbes)
- 'Self-knowledge is like a garden. If it is not cultivated, it cannot be harvested.' (Ghanaian proverb)
- 'In times of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future: the learned find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.' (Eric Hoffer)
- 'The more you know the less you understand.' (Tao Le Ching)
6 comments:
Yixia Gu:
'Education is learning what you didn’t even know you didn’t know.' (Daniel J. Boorstin).
This phrase is a very interesting one, because how do we acknowledge or realize that we actually don't know something if we haven't been taught to recognize this uncertainty? Once we receive education, we are simultaneously enlightened in our thoughts and how we view the world, and at this point we find that there are actually many things we haven't come across upon in experience.
This quotation of Daniel J. Borrstin is suggests that the original, fundamental purpose and existence of Education is simply to open doors of the 'unknown' in a world of the apparent 'known'.
Education as defined, is the power of reasoning and judgment to prepare ourselves for intellectually mature life. This, I believe is a valid point in my view of knowledge: if a person walked through a garden and didn’t know what the bunches of ‘colourful-many petalled-thing on a stalk’ was, he or she wouldn’t be able to appreciate the ‘flowers’ in the garden fully- the apparent ignorance limited their perspective, and only allowed them to see ‘flowers’ as lovely colourful things.
Take sports for instance, perhaps playing basketball may seem easy enough; the players dribbling balls and passing them with agility and ease. However, once I actually had a basketball lesson, I realized that I didn’t actually have the knowledge of handling the ball or playing it properly which was reflected during the basketball games. This example ties in quite well with our lives as students. One of the reasons why there were a range of pictures of ‘school knowledge’ was because each us valued the knowledge from school environment differently. We were influenced by our preferences and we are eclectic in learning “what we didn’t know, and the things we appeared on the paper could have been due to their importance in paving the way for greater depth in understanding. Thus, Education to me is also learning to know.
'Self-knowledge is like a garden. If it is not cultivated, it cannot be harvested.' (Ghanaian proverb)
Brainstorm:
Knowledge is only knowing
Wisdom is understanding
Learning is not enough
3 Key words:
Garden
Cultivated
Harvested
Main message:
We have to understand and not only know something. Through understanding we get the full potential of our knowledge.
Paraphrase:
We may have the basis to which knowledge can be placed and only know many things, but building on knowledge in itself is not enough. We must act to develop our knowledge further in order for it to be really successful. By doing this, knowledge will become wisdom.
Opinion:
In accordance to the west wing clips where knowledge is questioned and it is concluded that knowledge is not perfect, I think this quotation shows that perhaps the reason why knowledge is not always right, is because we do not fully understand the knowledge we acquire. By connecting the quotation to the exercises I think the action of ‘cultivating’ maybe to explore our learnt knowledge deeper and to question it.
In connection to my view of knowledge (where knowledge should be accurate and it is hard to accept different theories that contradict my previous knowledge,) I think this quotation is correct in saying that knowledge isn’t much alone.
This quotation suggests that what we learn in school is only the basis, where knowledge is only built and we don’t really learn how to apply the knowledge. It hints that school does not help us develop our knowledge and experiences. This in turn tells us that we can’t really be fully successful just by acquiring knowledge from school.
'Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.' (Martin Luther King)
The quote above by Martin Luther King implies that being ignorant and unaware with stupidity works out to be the most dangerous outlook in the world. Carrying forward an oblivious attitude preventing one to understand the various cultures, people, global issues, religions around the world will only cause, or deepen tribulations. Hence being ignorant with what is around us pays of as being the most dangerous aspect.
I would have to agree with this quote, because unawareness often does lead to misunderstandings but also enhances problems. For example if more people were less ignorant about excess waste and Hong Kong landfills filling up, they would perhaps decide to recycle and produce less waste. Not knowing, in this case could be lethal. Another example would be how a common courtesy for one culture is an offense for others. These examples demonstrate how a gap in knowledge can lead to serious consequences. In the same way I do believe that my view of knowledge is rather limited. We often blindly follow what society and figures in authority show us is right. The episode of west wing revealed how maps showed third world countries smaller than they actually were implying they were less significant. Most of us would go on to believe what a printed map would show us unintentionally surrending to conscientious stupidity. This ultimately would end up dangerous.
Sharing everyone’s ‘map of the world’ I came to learn how everyone shared a varied view on their center of the world. Again with the school knowledge activity no two people interpreted their school life knowledge in the same way. This taking me to a conclusion that all of us have a different perception, and referring back to the quote, showing ignorance to other viewpoints will only wind up as dangerous.
Without being aware of issues around us, and other believes that surround ones personal opinion will only work out harmful.
'The more you know the less you understand.' (Tao Le Ching)
Brainstorm:
The more you know, means that you know more...which means you remember more, which furthermore helps to create complications due to what you understand about what you know.
Three Keywords:
Know (you can never know it all)
Understand ( you can never truly understand something until you look at it from every angle at an unbiased point of view.
More ( learning is infinite, you cannot know it all)
I think the main message behind this is that you can know alot of things but the more you know meaning the less you can understand about everything you know, the depth in what you know it becomes less futhermore making it more complicated and confusing you which ends up in your being not so knowledgable.
To what i understand, using examples from maths class, yes i know it all.. i know algebra, division, time tables, i know it all, but since i know so much, it limits to me in what i know in the depth of this, i only know it in a few ways so if i learn a new method in algebra i would say it is wrong, such as that woman in west wing and how when the map was turned a different angle or not her country in the middle she thought it was wrong simple because it is different, but what seems to be different to you soon will become normal after it becomes normal to you because you have seen it so much.
Cole Pamuk
Post a Comment