Common Misconceptions about Knowledge: Knowledge isn’t just about facts and figures. It’s about how you use those things, and knowing how to use them is a complex process involving learning new things, making sense of what you know, and understanding how it relates to other concepts.
So while this post won’t tell you everything there is to know about knowledge, I mean, c’mon, it will help disabuse you of some common misconceptions. There are many hard quiz questions with answers that are not easy to find, but there are also many that are easy to answer if you know where and how to look.
There is no such thing as “common sense.”
Most people think that common sense is something that can be learned. This isn’t true, however. You either have it or you don’t; if you don’t, there isn’t anything anyone can do about it. Why? Because common sense is a term that refers to an understanding of concepts and ideas that are considered commonplace for most people. English writer Samuel Johnson used the phrase “common sense” as far back as 1710 in his publication A Dictionary of the English Language (1755).
In other words: If you lack any knowledge about the world around us (e.g., how many states exist in the United States), then this is not due to a lack of effort on your part; instead, it’s simply because no one taught or told you what they knew, and this applies whether they’re talking about how long humans live on average or why certain animals behave in specific ways.
Knowledge is not facts or information but the interpretation of those things.
Knowledge is not facts or information but the interpretation of those things. This means there are no knowledge facts in and of themselves, only knowledge interpretations. Knowledge itself is a process involving both interpreting and applying facts to solve problems. So while there are plenty of facts out there (and more coming at us all the time), we can’t just look up some random fact on Wikipedia and call ourselves knowledgeable about it until we understand how it fits into a larger picture or why it matters to us personally (or our organization).
You can’t know something without being able to explain it to someone else.
You might think that if you were to explain something to someone else, then you would know of it. In reality, the explanation isn’t necessary for knowledge; there are many ways to know things without being able to explain them, you can feel them in your bones or see what they look like out of the corner of your eye.
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The second misconception is that knowledge is a product: if you learn something new, you now have more information than before. But this isn’t true either; learning does not happen by adding information or facts into our brains like pieces of data into a computer program, they come from within us already (and often from other people).
For example: when someone asks me, “What time do we have?” I don’t just take out my smartphone and show them my calendar app; instead, I look at my wristwatch and tell them what time it says there because it’s easier for me than using any device over another right now under these circumstances. So even though both options contain the same amount of information per se (time), one may prove more useful depending on the context. At the same time, another wouldn’t work under similar conditions…
Know that knowledge is a complex process.
A misconception about knowledge is that it is a thing to be acquired. This idea has become almost second nature to us, especially when we think of our process of acquiring knowledge. We usually use “know” as a noun: I know X, I do not know Y, etc. While this is useful and correct in some cases (in mathematics, for example), it can also lead to error if applied too broadly or literally.
For example, let’s look at two ways you could use the words “I know.” You might say:
- “I am learning how to play tennis” (that would mean that right now you don’t know how).
- “I have learned how to play tennis” (now you do know).
Knowledge is a complex concept, and it’s important not to underestimate how complex the process of knowing can be. It requires more than just a set of facts or information; it requires understanding how those pieces fit together in ways that make sense for each individual.
It also means explaining what you know so that others can understand it too, and this isn’t always easy. But if we continue thinking about what knowledge means and how we might use this understanding in our daily lives, we could all get along better as human beings.