Jacqui.W - Knowers & Knowing

'The more you know the less you understand.' (Tao Le Ching)

I think that what Tao Le Ching means is that the more we know about something, meaning the opinions and thoughts from other people about that thing, the less we'll understand the original concept of that thing and the original message it's conveying as well as our own personal thoughts and opinions of that thing. Or another way to think of it is, by knowing more, you don't necessarily become wiser and understand more about life.

"The more you know the less you understand" - This quote explores knowledge and wisdom. I think what Tao Le Ching is talking about is that, if we know more data, this does not necessarily mean we gain more knowledge and understand life more. The whole point of gaining knowledge is to understand life more and live our life. Some think that by knowing the most means they are 'the smartest'. But what correlation does this have to understanding life and living life? Just by being smart and getting a good job doesnt show that they understand even the simplest things of life like who they are and why they're here.

Here is a way to interpret the quote:
There is a person in a poor, starving country who wants to be the president and he tells people that if he becomes the president, he'll give everyone food for free. At this point, he knows the people are starving and need food therefore using his knowledge he says he'll give them food to solve the problem. But this shows he doesn't understand the whole situation yet. He hasn't realised that the way to get food is to have resources and grow food, or to buy food, and in the condition the country is in now, it's hard to get resources as everyone is starving with no energy to farm food. If they had energy to farm food, they don't have the resources needed in order to farm food and without the resources, it's simply impossible to farm. Whereas if this person was not aiming to be the next president a just a normal, struggling, starving to death citizen, he would realise and understand that in order to fill up his stomach and survive, he'd have to get resources and grow food. To reach this understanding, he didn't have to 'know more' to reach it.

This shows exactly what the quote means and what Tao Le Ching is trying to show the reader. By knowing more, it doesn't mean you become wiser and understand more. Overall, this is what I think Tao Le Ching means by his quote. This shows that Tao Le Ching thinks of knowledge not by its quantity but by the quality of it. I think by applying this to life as a student it shows that students don't have to be the one that can list out every president's name, or be the one that knows the dictionary off by heart to be the wisest.