Super Rough Draft

Warning, this essay is not a light read. Its awash with philosophy, and might have brought about more questions than it answers. If that sounds intriguing, then please continue. Words were meant, from the beginning of time they were created, to define a certain aspect of life and the world around us. When examined in the dictionary, words have a cut and dry meaning. Usually a word will be defined and presented with the different connotations of the particular word. Like a lot of occurrences in life, words seem to be nothing but what they are on the surface; words that define a certain aspect of life. Its only when a word is scrutinized to the point were it starts to take on new abstract meanings does one truly understand the word. One such word is knowledge.

When asked what knowledge is, people's returning answers vary to a certain extent. They usually agree on its definition, but have opposing views on how its used and presented. The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word knowledge as “To own the knowledge of; to confess; to recognize or admit as true” It also says refer to acknowledge, which its definition is “With complement: to recognize or confess (someone or something) to be the thing specified.” . In other words, knowledge is the act recognizing concepts repeatedly till they form memories in one's mind.

Knowledge is defined with being able “to recognize or admit as true.” There in lies the first of many questions. Is knowledge always true?It all depends on who is being asked. A person's perception with out a doubt has an affect on knowledge that is presented to them. When asked asked about perception, during an interview process, Caleb, a twenty three year old co-worker, responded with “ You can show a shade of a color to ten different people and get ten different responses.” Humans are not born with a repository of knowledge at their disposal. We are however born with the tools to gather, interpret, and reverberate knowledge. So this leaves one to put their personal stamp on what ever they have learned. Meaning, a person chooses what to believe and what to discard as they see accordingly, thus making knowledge a word that has to be defined on an intrinsic level.

I know this is no were near complete, its because I'm just clueless on were to go next. I'll put more time in over the weekend for the next draft. sorry

Cause and Effect

When a person stumbles across knowledge that they have never known before, it tends to change them in certain ways. It might not be a change that is noticeable on the surface, but it still may take a toll in one's mind. In the late 1920's and early 1930's physicist Niels Bohr was doing groundbreaking work in the field of quantum mechanics. His work with the atom and its sub-atomic particles had never been conceived before, he and his team created much of what we learn today. However, there was opposition in the form of Albert Einstein, and his theory of General Relativity, which at the time was the leading case. At a conference in Geneva, France two parties argued theirs sides of which was a better fit for a theory to describe the universe. Both parties had convincing essays and arguments for their respected theory, but only one left the clear victor. Niels Bohr trumped Einstein and his supports at every turn, and his work started to gain more funding and research, while General Relativity was left behind somewhat. Einstein never fully recovered his career after this, and most of his work went unnoticed afterward. He never accepted quantum mechanics as an accurate description of the universe, and was left out of the new research that was taking the physics world under its coat tail. This new knowledge was unacceptable in him, and it changed Einstein in more ways than one.

Classification and division

Knowledge can be broken down into three simple parts: intellect, personal experience, and wisdom. These three parts define aspects of the word knowledge that the main definition does not include. A person's intellect describes their ability to gain and decipher that knowledge. So this could incorporate a person reading comprehension skills to fit the above definition. Intellect might also define ones ability to expand the knowledge even further than what was presented to them. A persons intellect can not be their only judgment of knowledge. Personal experience also lends much insight in to a one's thought process. The more experiences a person has on a certain subject, is a direct effect on the outcome of a solution they might come up with. Personal experience may play a role in a person's intellect, by shaping the way they observe information given to them. A person's wisdom incorporates the first two aspects, but uses this knowledge for completely different purposes. Wisdom is knowledge one has built up through many different experiences about a similar subject. This is the form of knowledge that has been based on intellectual thoughts from personal experiences. Wisdom is often knowledge pasted on to people that are experiencing some sort of personal dilemma. There are probably more, but these define the word as a whole without leaving out too much.

Compare and Contrast

Knowledge is some what of difficult word to compare and contrast with. The only thing that comes to mind would be to compare and contrast how knowledge is gained and applied. The easiest way to achieve this is to compare and contrast how knowledge is gained by the masses and scientific communities. I'll start out with the comparison of the two. For starters, after gaining knowledge both will apply this new information in a manner they see fit. Say if both gained the knowledge of using stem cells for disease control treatments, they would apply this differently into their life's, but they still apply it none the less. The masses might use the new knowledge of medicine for treatment of a particular disease, while the scientist use it to create new treatments for different forms of a disease. The two parties are using the same basic knowledge of what the stem cells do, but for two different outcomes. Also, when gaining knowledge both sides know personal observation is key. They both realize that one can only truly understand a certain subject or idea by actually witnessing it first hand. I also believe there is a similarity in how the two parties observe before committing something to memory as fact. When an everyday person goes about learning, they tend to research a subject or idea a great deal before they make a decision on whether it's factual or not. In the same way, a scientist does research and tests in a lab on a particular hypothesis they might have. So in many ways the two have similar traits with gaining knowledge, more so that the application of that knowledge.

Contrasting the gaining and application of knowledge between the masses and the scientific community comes with a little more ease. How both go about trying to research a subject or an idea comes in two completely different outlets. The scientific community researches mostly using the scientific method. They come up with a hypothesis, set up experiments, and run multiple tests before coming up with a conclusion to their data from the experiments. This allows the scientific community to have well documented information to share and be judged by their peers. For the masses, we have: books, media outlets, other people, the Internet, and personal observation to base our ideas on. These kinds of information tools are wonderful, and usually will provide an answer, but they don't allow us to share our knowledge. Even if it did, it's not necessarily backed by concrete evidence like a scientist's work would be. This also leads to the application of that knowledge. Most science works can be read and applied directly to life with little effort, so the knowledge there is less trial and error. I believe knowledge of the life lessons we learn have to be repeated more often before we as everyday people start to realize a pattern. So the two parties seems to be intertwined at points, and polar opposites at others. It just depends on which side one looks at.

3 Field Observations

1:30 Mon. March 2 Origin of Thought
It occurred to me that maybe a lot of people's knowledge could be thoughts extrapolated from tid-bits of information. So its quite possible that much of ones knowledge could be nothing more than a somewhat educated guess. This could lead to bountiful new information and knowledge if the ideas of the person were researched and proved to be true.

10:59 PM Tues. March 3 Philosophy Verse Fact
This kind of goes along the same line as the origin of thought observation. I was watching a program about parallel universes that gave me a fleeting thought. In the program they spoke of many different theories of there being parallel dimensions. I dug fairly deep into a book afterward and mulled over some questions I had come up with; only to find there were not any concrete answers. This is quite obviously due to the fact it was nothing but a theory I questioned. On the surface there seems to be a wealth of knowledge, and there very well is for the ones creating it, but the deeper the layman digs the less he will likely discover. This leads me to the question, can we really use theories to explain the still yet to be explained? Are they philosophy or are they fact?

10:20 AM Wed. March 4 Gained Knowledge
Gaining knowledge is a process humans go though on a daily basis, or at least I hope. It's somewhat difficult to observe a person gaining knowledge, so I can only go off of what I do. I don't think most are quite as skeptic as I am. I usually observe and listen carefully and then try and find an outside source to correspond with a subject before I commit it to memory. After saying that, I think I will ask a question in my interview process about how knowledge is acquired by the person.

4 Field Observations

1:30 AM Friday February 27 1984
I was watching the movie 1984 based on George Orwell's Novel. Close to the end the thought police were torturing and doing experiments on Winston, the main character. O' Brien, thought police, was holding up four fingers, and questioning Winston about how many fingers he was holding up. Winston replies four, only to have the torture increased. It is only when he replies he doesn't know that the torture and experiment ends. I found that sicking, someone being able to manipulate knowledge because they held some kind of power over another.

5:15 PM Saturday February 28 Tickets
I sometimes wish knowledge was not so spontaneous. Just as I had arrived at my Uncle's Birthday party my friend called me and said he had Thrashers tickets. Had I known this a day or even a few hours ahead of time, I would have never gone to Buford for the party.

6:30 PM Saturday February 28 Uncle's B-Day
My cousins and I were sitting at the dinner table conversing about different topics. My cousin Tim is reading a book I've read called A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. I asked him if he had heard of entanglement. He said no, and asked why. I replied by saying I could use some clarification on the subject. He laughed and said if I don't, then he probably wouldn't understand it either. I thought this was strange because he just might be smarter than I.

11:45 AM Sunday March 1 Snow
I can't believe it actually snowed for once. I had heard a report of snow on Friday, but I rarely believe a word meteorologists have to say. For the most part predicting the weather is just kind of a cruel joke. I wish there existed a more exact science on this subject.