They say knowledge is
power. What is more powerful, to know something or to believe
something? Let’s take a closer
look…
What we believe is what
shapes how we feel. What we feel we know can be thought of as
a belief about something that we are sure of and therefore we
don’t question it. We question beliefs, but we
don’t often question what we feel we know. What can we
say about what it means to “know”
something?
-
That we are done
with that bit of understanding.
-
That a contrary
belief is not correct.
-
That to know
something is a step beyond belief.
Metaphor
If you were
to become aware of being a chicken embryo, your experience of the
past would not give you any real understanding of what your life
will be when you hatch out of the shell you grew up in. That
same newly hatched chicken, finding itself now outside of the egg,
trying to understand its past to gain knowledge, would create a
very false idea of life if all it witnessed was a hatchery for eggs
devoid of hens and adult chickens.
What we consider knowledge
is dependent upon the past being an accurate indicator of the
future. Therefore it always, always, holds the potential to
lead to inaccurate conclusions. Remember, everything changes
and additional experience will lead to better
understanding.
