What is knowledge?  This is a tough one!  This entry has been a long time coming.  I began to think of it deeply after a conversation between myself and two of my best friends about a month ago in Ottawa.  The conversation was about the origin of man.  It got pretty heated!

I’m not even really sure where to begin.  I think maybe a good place to start would be to start with things that I know, without a doubt.

1. I have brown hair.
2. I go to Ryerson University.
3. I went to St. Patrick’s High School.
4. I have had two year-long relationships in my life
5. It hurts to put your hand on a burning hot element.
6. Canada’s confederation was in 1867.
7. World War II was fought between 1939-1945.
8. Kevin Durant led the NBA in PPG in 2013-2014.

Now, let’s list a couple more that are a little… debatable.

9. Forgiveness heals more than grudges.
10. Material things don’t make me happy.

So now what we’ll do is try to find the trait that is common to all of these things that “I” “know”. Right away we would say that of course #1 is true. I currently have brown hair. All you have to do is to look at me, and you would know I have brown hair. So what makes that true is that it is directly observable.  So, we can then “know” something when it is directly observable.

How about #2?  I go to Ryerson University.  Well, this one is not as directly observable as my having brown hair.  If we were classmates together, you could know this to be true.  What if we weren’t?  What if we just met?  You could come visit me right now as I type this entry at my home, and you would not know in the same way.  In this case, you would need some type of proof.  You could follow me around for a couple weeks to see if I go to class.  But I could attend classes and not be a student of the university.  I could also not attend classes and be a student of the University.  You could ask me if I was a student.  But I could lie.  You could, though, ask me to look at my Ryerson student account.  This would tell you if I was enrolled in any classes without any shadow of a doubt.  Right?  Well, if you wouldn’t take my word for it, why would you take the word of an institution?  A very good question.

Well, the institution has good reason to give accurate information.  That enrollment information has value.  To register in courses costs thousands of dollars.  An institution wouldn’t make the mistake of inaccurately portraying a student’s status.   And even if they did, they have many employees that are paid to correct these mistakes.  This is the case because problems caused for the students are also problems caused to the institution.  The institution has a reputation to uphold.  The institution stakes its reputation and its livelihood on the validity of its information.  Because of that, we have enough reason to take the information that it presents as true knowledge.

We can obtain knowledge for #3 in much the same way.  We can ask the institution for the information.  What about #4?  There is no institution that keeps records of all relationships.  How could you come to “know” that I have had two year-long relationships in my life?  I can know it, because I have experienced it.  But what about you?  Well once again, if we were best friends for my whole life, you would know the truth of matter.  But what if we weren’t?  What if we just met?  How would you know this piece of information.  You would have to cross-check with many other people throughout my life who experienced these relationships with me.  I wouldn’t lie, but I easily could.  Are you willing to say you know something based off the word of someone you just met?  Even if a couple of other friends present confirm the information?  Maybe there’s one relationship that we just don’t talk about.  If you are a friend, rather than having just met me, it might be a little bit easier to confirm this information but it still takes a little bit more to say that you “know” this.

#5, you can easily come to know this by placing your hand on the element and experiencing it yourself.  For #8, although this is in the past, I witnessed and experienced Kevin Durant lighting it up last year and I can once again cross-check the information with an institution.

For #’s 6 and 7, the answer is similar to the institutional responses given to #’s 2 and 3.  This information has been presented by many sources who stake their reputation and livelihood on the validity of its information.  Further, with WWII, our grandparents lived through and experienced it.  The first-hand experiences they share with this give us some knowledge of the War.  They remember family members going away and not coming back, or if they went themselves they remember the horror of it all, they remember the day it ended.  With Confederation, the date and the separation travels further and further into the past.  There may be people living whose parents told them their experience of the day, but there is no person living who experienced this event.  The knowledge of this event comes from the fact that people once experienced this date.  The date was recorded in history books.  This information has passed along generations without changing, and so the information is trusted and known.

How far are you willing to go back?  Would you say that you know something that was recorded in the 1700s.  The 1500s?  1000s?  700s?  500s?  BC?  There are so many degrees of separation between the people who actually experienced the events to us, so much is lost in translation, that it is hard to say that we know these things.

Now what about #’s 9 and 10?  Looking at these list of ten things that I know, #’s 9 and 10 definitely are the most important and most impactful on my day-to-day life, my outlook on life, my happiness.  How do I know these things?  Experience.  I mean, I was taught by my parents and my Catholic school upbringing the power of forgiveness, but I could not say that I knew what they meant.  It was not until I suffered, felt hatred, and suffered more.  Then suffered again, felt more hatred, and suffered more.  Then suffered again, felt hatred, forgave, and felt it for myself that I really knew.

With the material, it was the same thing.  I had been conditioned some by our Western capitalist society that I needed to consume.  I needed material things to be happy and satisfied.  I also learned from other sources that it is only uprightness of spirit/ morals/ character (whatever you want to call it) that can make one happy.  It was only through experience.  Through my own feelings when I had and did not have material things, when I had and did not have uprightness that I came to know that material things do not make me happy.

I can know these things… How about you?  Really, as much as you “take my word for it”, you can’t really know until you experience it yourself.  Until you suffer, reflect, and understand yourself and your world.

***

There were ten things that I “know” on this list.  Of those ten things I knew, there were eight that you could plausibly confirm.  The things that are directly observable or experienced were the easiest to know.  As the degrees of separation increase, it becomes more difficult.  I want to raise another issue that can make it even more difficult.  This is not to say that you cannot believe anything, it is merely something to think about.

For things that were not directly observable, that we weren’t able to experience, for the things that we checked with institutions.  There is always a possibility that this information is not true.  I am not a cynic at all and I am not promoting cynicism.  But Ryerson University or St. Patrick’s High School or the publishers of history or whomever it may be could have reasons to give information that is not in line with reality.  Just a quick example that was first to come to mind.  A person can be a registered employee of a company.  He could be being paid a wage for a full-time work week for a certain period of time per records.  However, in reality, this worker was never on the job site.  He was merely getting his dirty money laundered through the financial system back to him through a cooperating company.  Institutions could have many reasons to misrepresent information.

Another thing to note is that out of all of these ten things, the two most important things on the list could not be known through the checking of facts.  They could only be known through experience.

Conclusively, it wouldn’t be prudent to distrust all institutions but it should be remembered that true knowledge may not be the only agenda.  This list of ten shows that knowledge comes, firstly, from experience.  Further, it shows that the most important things can only be known through experience.  It is my own opinion then, that we must value furthering our experiences if we want to increase not only our knowledge, but our knowledge of things of true value.