What is Junk?
Labels, judgments, attachments: "It is more important to see the simplicity, to realize one's true nature, to cast off selfishness, and temper desire" (Dyer, 2007)
What is Knowledge?
One of the main questions asked by philosophers
for ages has been: What is knowledge? (Stewart, Blocker, & Petrik, 2013).
I
raise the question if it is even possible to actually know anything at all. Not
only because all things change over time, but because the truth is knowable
only to the supreme source of creation.
Is this chase of knowledge a futile
journey and a waste of one’s energy and pleasures as there is no human who can
understand all there is to know? Or, in contrast, is it imperative for human
understanding to evolve for the purposes of adaptation?
The
Journey to Knowledge
Regardless of how it is that we
derive at knowledge, inevitably, it is this enduring quest for knowledge that
people expand their horizons and keep from becoming stagnated in their lives.
In this regard, awareness is imperative for the evolution and collective
knowledge for humankind. Yet, the question which remains is: Do we actually
have any knowledge at all? (Truncellito, 2007). Can a jury of peers decide
guilt or innocence when the DNA suggests the defendant could be the culprit,
but the witness declares on stand that it was not the defendant he or she saw
committing the crime?
Being
a skeptic, I question if we do or do not know anything at all. And if we do know some things, are they true
and do we really know as much as we think we know?
My reasoning is that, just as we
cannot definitively conclude how it is that we obtain knowledge, it also cannot
be sufficiently proven that the human consciousnesses can or cannot KNOW all
there is to know. Consequently, we must ask if the unknown is really knowable,
or if what we know is a manifestation from human imagination. I do not deny
that each generation grows in knowledge, both empirically, rationally, and
intuitively, and, that this is necessary for human evolution. But, is this
chase of knowledge a futile journey and a waste of one’s energy and pleasures
as there is no human who can understand all there is to know? In the Tao Te Ching, Lao-Tzu wrote:
All can see beauty as beauty only because there is ugliness. All can know good as good because there is evil. The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name. Ever desireless, one can see the mystery. Ever desiring, one sees only the manifestation, and the mystery itself is the doorway to all understanding (Dyer, 2012, verse 1 & 2, pp. 2, 8)As suggested by Lao-Tzu, whether or not this pursuit of knowledge is wasted energy which devours human pleasure, I can only ponder. "I can say, however, with great certainty that the pursuit is necessary for the greater good and for human evolution" Lao-Tzu, Verse 19
Cristi A
6/19/2012
References:
Andrews,
L. (2012). Regis University: Introduction
to Philosophy. Retrieved from forum discussion
week 4 and 5.
McCormick,
M. (2007). Kant. In Internet Encyclopedia
of Philosophy. Retrieved from http://www.iep.utm.edu/kantmeta/#SH1b
Millican,
Peter. (2010). Oxford University: General
Philosophy, Section 2: [Power Point
Slides] retrieved from: http://www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/podcasts/general_philosophy
Rationalism.
(n.d.) In Oxford Dictionary.
Retrieved from: http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/rationalism)
Stewart,
D., Blocker, H., and Petrick, J. (2013). Fundamentals
of Philosopy.
Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education,
Inc
Truncellito,
D. (2007). Epistemology. In Internet
Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved from http://www.iep.utm.edu/epistemo/#H4
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