Knowledge: It's a jigsaw puzzle

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Knowledge: It's a jigsaw puzzle

Most everyone has played with jigsaw puzzles and recognize how we put such puzzles together. When we start a new puzzle the first thing we do is construct the frame. We gather all the pieces with one straight edge and slowly construct the outer perimeter of the puzzle.

Such is the case when we organize knowledge. When we begin to learn a new domain of knowledge in school our teachers help us set up the frame. They hold our hands while we construct the outside boundary and slowly fill in the image by adding new facts.

After we leave school if we want to become a self-learner and to become knowledgeable of new domains we will follow this same procedure but with a significant difference. We will have no teacher to supply us with the pieces of the puzzle. Especially difficult will be gathering the appropriate side pieces so that we can frame our domain. After this we might very well have to imagine the image of the puzzle because we will not have a teacher to help us ?'see' what the domain ?'looks like'.

When we become a self-learner we will often find pieces of knowledge that do not fit our already constructed frames, when this happens we have two choices. We can throw away the new fragment of knowledge or we can start a journey of discovery in an effort to organize the construction of a new domain. The odd piece of knowledge is either trashed or we must begin a big effort to start construction on a new big puzzle.

I think that knowledge is easily acquired when that knowledge fits easily within one's accepted ideologies. If we have a ready place to put a new fragment of knowledge we can easily find a place to fit it in. When the knowledge does not fit within our already functioning ideas that fact will be discarded unless a great deal of effort is made to find a home for that fragment of knowledge.

We are unable to move beyond our ideologies unless we exert great effort. No one can give us that type of knowledge; we must go out of our way to stalk it, wrestle it to the ground and then find other pieces that will complete a frame. That is why our schools do not try to take us beyond our narrow world because it is too costly in time and effort. Our schools prepare us to be good workers and strong consumers, anything beyond that we must capture on our own.

No one can give us that kind of knowledge. It can only be presented as an awakening of consciousness and then we can, if we have the energy and curiosity go and capture the knowledge of something totally new and start a new puzzle.

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We are unable to move beyond our ideologies unless we exert great effort. No one can give us that type of knowledge; we must go out of our way to stalk it, wrestle it to the ground and then find other pieces that will complete a frame.

I put it to you that this is simplistic. "Knowledge" like "information"is always relational never "neutral". For example, in Piagets celebrated exposition of cognitive development the current schema (or frame) is receptive to a certain level of information which may lead to metamorphosis to a new schema. "Observer" and "observed" are mutually dependent aspects of a unitary process.

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Cob

The best place to learn is never a teacher.
You might go to one, but where do you suppose he leaned what he teaches? Probably from some other teacher. So it goes right down to the first teacher, and he didn't have a fellow human tutoring him. He had the thing which he wanted to learn about, and examined this.
Why should we not do the same?

Some, when wanting to know about the world, go to someone with more experience and question them. Others go to the world, and it is always they who come to possess the most profound insights.

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I discovered that few people know how to go about the process of learning a new domain of knowledge. When they are given a fragment of knowledge that does not fit into their puzzles that they have been working on all their life they do not know how to start a new puzzle. They had teachers to help them start new puzzles but they never learned how to start one of their own. Instead they take the fragment of new knowledge and either tosses it out the window or they cut it up to fit their present puzzles.

What is needed is for young people to learn how to start new puzzles. Your teachers will never teach you how to do this, you must learn that your self or remain ignorant of new domains of knowledge the rest of your life. The reason many find my posts to be incomprehensible is because I am presenting a bit of knowledge that does not fit the puzzles that our teachers taught us.

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cob

To be honset, I believe that the reason many of your posts are incomprehensible is that you define the parameters of the idas involved in ways that do not apply to the actual sceme of things.

In so doing, I have several times wondered if it is not you who are slicing up new pieces of the puzzle to make them fit into your scheme. Have you considered this possibility?

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Cyracuz

That is always a possibility I must admit.

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Well, with that attitude you'll probably do fine. The most important ingredient in any accumulation of knowledge, understanding or wisdom is the genuine desire to grow as a person. As far as I can tell this desire is strong in you.

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Cyracuz wrote:

The best place to learn is never a teacher.
You might go to one, but where do you suppose he leaned what he teaches? Probably from some other teacher. So it goes right down to the first teacher, and he didn't have a fellow human tutoring him. He had the thing which he wanted to learn about, and examined this.
Why should we not do the same?

Some, when wanting to know about the world, go to someone with more experience and question them. Others go to the world, and it is always they who come to possess the most profound insights.

Sometimes it takes a teacher to allow us to view the world in a different way- do you think that we would have ever developed complex ideas like the atomic theory or space time if we had all just gone out on our own, without asking others what they found? As ideas are passed down, they are reformed and corrected, bringing us closer to truth. What you are saying is only applicable to those who are so close minded that they will never think for themselves.

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There's nothing wrong with letting others supply their knowledge, or seeking out this knowledge. But if we let the thing we study be our teacher we will invariably understand it a whole lot better than we would if we turned to someone else for the understanding. Others can only offer the knowledge that makes understanding easier.

And that is why I think that coberst will never get the gist of the things he reads, because he swallows it raw, never putting it to the test by what I can gather.

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Cyracuz wrote:

Cob

The best place to learn is never a teacher.
You might go to one, but where do you suppose he leaned what he teaches? Probably from some other teacher. So it goes right down to the first teacher, and he didn't have a fellow human tutoring him. He had the thing which he wanted to learn about, and examined this.
Why should we not do the same?

Some, when wanting to know about the world, go to someone with more experience and question them. Others go to the world, and it is always they who come to possess the most profound insights.

A good teacher is someone with real experience. That is the difference between a middle school teacher and a college professor. The middle school teacher may just be regurgitating info from a book, while the college professor has spent his entire life reading and contributing to the field.

This makes them very valuable resources. Do not discredit the learning that others have done. The only reason humanity has gained so much knowledge is because, what one man spends a lifetime discovering, can often be explained in just a few words or paragraphs to the next generation.

According to your philosophy, every car manufacturer should ignore the lessons of engineers in the past and attempt to rediscover the wheel and everything else?

Whether you are talking about learning how to integrate complex mathematical functions, understand particle physics, or contemplate the nature of life, it is all still learning -- and you can always benefit from the knowledge that others have discovered before you.

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stuh

You said it; valuable resources. I do not question that. But even a college professor, with his extensive experience, will tell you to seek out your own experience guided by what he has to tell you. I am not saying we should close our minds to those who have gone before us. But I am saying that the main focus should always be on the object of our study, not the teachers pointing the way.

Or... "The fool looks at the pointing finger"

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Knowledge: It's a jigsaw puzzle

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