September 21, 2011

Knowledge

Personification of knowledge (Greek Επιστημη, ...Image via WikipediaFoods will not bring us to immortality, but we must eat; knowledge will not lead us to absolute truth, but we must know. This is for one reason: to know is like to eat, is our nature which we have no powerful to fight against.
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Posted by Yun Yi at 12:35 PM
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11 comments:

  1. Ran FuchsSeptember 21, 2011 at 1:31 PM

    I think you will find yourself in minority view. In this new brave world we believe that knowledge is dumb, and we should trust instinct and gut feeling. Learning is dumber, as we should be stupidly famous and rich

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  2. Yun YiSeptember 21, 2011 at 2:43 PM

    Thanks ranfuchs for your thoughtful comment.
    I think many people now have some sort of "disappointment" about knowledge because they had too much expectation on it, they demanded "absolute" answers for every question they had, and soon after they found out knowledge could not handle such job, they turned away from it.
    I think we have to face the limitation of our reason, at the same to trust it as our most reliable pathway to reach "truth" ( if it exists)

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  3. JaneneSeptember 21, 2011 at 4:48 PM

    I like it, Yunyi. I think it's human nature to be curious and want to understand things, even if the search for that knowledge drives us crazy.

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  4. Yun YiSeptember 21, 2011 at 5:42 PM

    thanks Janene!

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  5. nothingprofoundSeptember 21, 2011 at 8:13 PM

    I agree, yunyi, we all have a desire to know. The problem is deciding what's worth knowing. And I think that's something each person has a right to decide for themselves.

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  6. PSACHNOOctober 1, 2011 at 7:42 AM

    What is worth knowing can be different to different people, so yes, they absolutely should have the choice when they able to make informed decisions.

    I love this quote. Is it originally yours?

    In history we can see society swing from one extreme to another in its search for truth, happiness, and meaning.

    In the Enlightenment period, it was all about knowledge and reason; the backlash came with the Romantic period where intuition and feelings were "king".

    I think that history can teach us to value all aspects of our humanity and, as the Greeks say, to find balance!

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  7. Yun YiOctober 1, 2011 at 4:55 PM

    Psachno, you are right, we need to appreciate all human efforts made to different knowledge.
    Yes, the quote is my own.

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  8. PSACHNOOctober 2, 2011 at 11:02 AM

    Well, that is a very good quote! Very well put and thought-provoking.

    I was thinking today about people who turn away from reason... I think that some people are just born more intuitive, feeling people and others more mentally oriented. So, can we say that we are better than they? I don't think so, although those kinds of people are more difficult for me to understand.

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  9. Yun YiOctober 3, 2011 at 6:19 PM

    Psachno,
    I actually believe reason and intuition are not mutually exclusive, they are complementary.

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  10. PSACHNOOctober 5, 2011 at 2:07 PM

    Neither do I; however, in my experience, I've noticed some people who are more intuitive than intellectual and vice versa.

    For example, I have a tendency to over think things, my ex did things because he felt it was right. He had a kind of insight, but could not explain it.

    If we cultivated both aspects to some kind of balance--that would be the ideal.

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  11. Yun YiOctober 5, 2011 at 11:34 PM

    I totally agree that we are not equally blessed on both side of brain. Human intelligence is very fascinating (gee, how many time I have been using this "fascinating" word?)

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