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Just what do we know?

There is more to know in how we know what we know than there is to know in what we know itself.

No matter what we know, it seems, whenever we learn something new, how we know what we know gets left out of the picture in favor of the immediate gratification of knowing what we now know that we did not know before.

Now there are philosophical arguments both pro and con regarding an objective reality, the real truth, or the way things really are, we might say. Without even taking sides on that issue however, it seems more pertinent to question whether we could know an objective reality if it really did exist.

Most of us humans, while giving no credence to either inquiry, live our lives attempting to place every bit of information we take in into a true or false model matching it against what we know to be objective reality. We actually think, no actually we have it as a given, that what we know and accept as objective reality is accepted universally as such. In cases where it does not occur to be, we are willing to argue for its reconciliation. Inside our own models for universal reality, it becomes inconceivable that other, differing, views could be valid.

This is where our general neglect for knowing how we know divides us up as humanity and locks us out from learning all that may be available and possible for us to learn. It also seems to be the root of all the intractable human differences and ideological struggles known to man up to now. In many ways, knowing can and does cut off access to learning.

What if we were to allow ourselves to start from a model of being aware of or being conscious of and granting space for the validity of any and all further information, or of other points of view? What if we gave up the positions of conviction, truth, and belief in learning?

In this new paradigm, we may find it possible to view anything from previously unavailable contexts, or viewpoints. We may find the validity in all things known. We may find the acceptable in things previously held in contempt.

In placing ourselves at the opposite ends of spectrums of learning, we have limited our power to know and make sense of the origin of our existence and of our purpose and virtually everything else there may be to know. There is everything to gain in giving up our position of knowing. Giving up that position is the beginning of learning and the foundation for wisdom. For, there is vastly more to know, in knowing how we know, than there is to know in what we know. Our contexts for knowing have always been carriers of much, much, more information than the things we think we know.

What we know can be referred to as the content of our knowledge. How we know is the context in which we know it.

Content occurs for us as facts. Bits of information stored up after the process of conceptualization has taken experience and made simple decisions or projections about them. It is the context that governs how the decisions, ruminations, calculations, and projections will be made on the experience that stimulates the learning.

 SRR

©2006