WHAT EXACTLY IS KNOWLEDGE? Knowledge is an internal affection, experienced only by human beings. It is not a natural phenomenon. We did not find it growing on trees or falling out of the sky. If we had access to one of those marvelous starships, we could search the universe forever and never find so much as a speck of it. In a very real sense, we made it up, in much the same way we made up time, love and God (or any other abstraction you might care to name). One objection to this might insist that since human beings are natural creatures what they do is also natural, like toy with knowledge and build starships. However true that may be, the fact remains that, without human beings, there would be no such thing as knowledge or starships, unless we’re going to assume that sentient aliens exist somewhere who also are capable of such feats. Such might indeed be the case, but until we actually find such beings (i.e., acquire knowledge of them), we are going to have to assume that we are the only creatures who traffic in knowledge. There is a difference between what is going on inside of our minds and what is going on outside. Whatever is going on outside or our minds is exactly that, whatever is going on outside our minds. But we are not content to let it go at that. As talking animals, we feel compelled to talk about the stuff going on outside. We are affected by it. It is our environment, the very source of our being and sustenance. And because we are such communal animals, we get together and mess with the stuff outside. One of the things we talk about is the very fact that we talk about the stuff outside. We’ve created a whole bunch of words to do this, quite possibly too many, and too many words, like too much of anything, easily becomes unwieldy. So being the clever animals that we are we came up with more manageable words. One of those words is the one we call “knowledge”. Upon final analysis, we discover that knowledge is itself little more than a word, one that we have invented. The word "know" is actually a term of convenience, a form of shorthand. When we say that we know something we are implying that we can physically sense it, either directly or with the help of instruments, or that we can sense its effect, as when we sense (and actually measure) the influence of gravity. This word “know” (as well as its variant “knowledge”) is a handy little word, which we use all the time without even thinking about it. And it is easy to get the impression that we all pretty much know what we mean when we say it. To be technically precise, we do not know so much as we feel. We do not know, for example, that there is a moon in the sky, or an earth beneath our feet; we merely sense that there is. We feel the sensation (inside, hence the phrase "internal affection"), and we call that feeling (with an air of egregious convenience) knowledge, which brings us to the crux of the matter, a rather knotty problem connected with the way we use the words “know” and “feel”. We have all heard someone say, “I had a feeling about that.” What exactly do people mean when they talk like this? This is a good example of the ease with which the quality of vagueness (non-distinctness) may be attached to the word feeling, a quality that is not so easily attached to the word knowledge. When someone says that they had a feeling about something, they are expressing yet another feeling, one of uncertainty. To admit that you had a feeling is to admit that you did not know. But this is a negative answer; it only identifies what they did not say. What is the positive answer? What does a person mean when they say they had a feeling about something? Quite simply, that they were playing with images in their mind in much the same way that children play with blocks. They were uncertain as to how to precisely place the blocks, so they toyed with various arrangements. If one of those arrangements matched, or was close to a match, with something that actually happened (outside of them), something certain, about which there is no such feeling, they are prone to respond with the popular, “I had a feeling about that,” which is really saying, “I was playing with some images in my head (i.e., I was imagining stuff), and one of the arrangements I came up with was pretty close to what actually transpired.” But who wants to say all that? “I had a feeling about that” is so much easier. We love convenient speech. It’s what idioms are all about. And I am not in any way suggesting that we dispense with such conveniences. I much prefer to talk about sunrises and sunsets than to go into the mechanics of what’s really happening whenever the sun rises or sets. But when you’re talking about talking itself, you can’t avoid getting a little technical. The very nature of the subject mandates the difficulty. The point I am trying to make, however, is that all feelings, whether real or abstract, are always somehow connected to the physical world. The images that we play with inside our heads are the impressions (or afterglow) of real images that we have previously experienced. It is because we have the ability to think in abstract terms that a mere word has the power to induce the images inside our minds. But it only has this power because of the physical world in which it takes place. If someone describes a fictitious scene to you, like that in a novel for example, your mind creates images (inspired by mere words, remember) that it compiles from previously observed images. When an author describes a character as having a nose with a certain shape or size, you call up previously viewed images of noses that you have seen. If you had never seen a nose, or heard the word, you would not be able to call up the image the writer was describing. In reality, then, the mind is not actually creating images (while reading or listening to fiction) as it is suggesting to itself the re-working of previously experienced ones. We are abstracting, in other words, whenever we are playing with previously viewed images. And if dreams are an indication of anything, it is surely the utter plasticity that those images are capable of. We use a single word (feeling) to refer to two different kinds of internal affections. One of those affections arises within us as the result of contact with sensory data, the other from simply hearing (or reading) words (but we must never forget that even those images are ultimately traceable to a purely physical base). The feelings that stem from physical sensations we refer to as knowledge. We say that we know that the moon is in the sky, or that the earth is the solid foundation upon which live. Distilled to its finest essence, what we know is the sensation we casually refer to as feeling. Much confusion arises due to such casual word usage. Concrete feeling is based upon physical sensation; abstract feeling on mere words. There are no feelings that are not in some way based upon the input of sensory data. But however abstract the words may be, the hearing of (or reading of) them is itself a physical activity. The unquestionably physical phenomena of sound and light are required elements in the experience of language. Abstract feelings, therefore, can never be pure in the same way that concrete ones can. A concrete feeling is pure because it is connected to a concrete source. An abstract feeling is impure because it is not ultimately connected to an abstract base, but is instead every bit as connected to the concrete world as are the concrete words. The word that an abstract feeling is based on is physically real, either as a sound or as a sight. The most famous abstract word is unquestionably the word “God.” By virtue of the fact that you read it on the page before you its physical basis (as a word) is proven. The same may be said of hearing the word spoken. But there is no other physical reality attached to the word. It is therefore only a word. Compare this to the word “rock”. We cannot say that the word rock is only a word. There is an actual physical object (a multitude of them in fact) that we can easily locate and present as evidence for its existence as more than just a word. When asked to present evidence for the actual existence of the abstract idea that the word God suggests, we are invariably given nothing but more words, entire books filled with them. Nothing concrete is ever offered, nor (based on the most commonly held definitions of the word) could there be. We most certainly know that we feel. But we would all agree (I am sure) that the content of what we feel is not itself necessarily real. It is not real, in other words, simply because we feel it. Only those feelings that are undeniably associated with sensory data may be considered as being a reflection of the real. In contrast, the feelings that arise within us at the prompting of words only are not necessarily associated with the real or actual. They may be so associated, but they are not necessarily so. It is entirely possible to hear of something certifiably real that we have never had personal sensory experience of. But it is absolutely necessary that the subject in question is at least capable of being subjected to sensory experience. The feelings that are generated as the result of the stimulus provided by sensory data are necessarily connected to the actual, or the real. We should never forget that there is a difference between a connection and a necessary connection. We could feel, for example (to get right to the crux of the matter), that there is a God. What do we know about this feeling? Two things: 1. We know THAT we have the feeling. 2. We know WHAT the feeling is about, its content (that there is a God). WHAT WE DO NOT KNOW We do not know whether the content of this feeling (God) is real; we only know that we have the feeling about the content. That is all that we know. Also, with respect to the particular case of God, we know that we have heard (a physical sensation) much talk on the subject; about this we know further (on the basis of observation) that we have heard this talk from the lips of human beings (entities that we most certainly do not consider to be God). We know as well (from real-life experience) that the very subject is a sensitive one, that many human beings fervently cling to (and act upon) their unsubstantiated feelings (because of a complete lack of association with sensory data) about God. There is yet another, much more subtle, element in all of this (perhaps the most important element of all): in addition to being aware (knowing) THAT we have the feeling (as well as knowing WHAT the feeling is about, its content), we also know (though we do not consciously refer to it) the place from whence the feeling springs (what we might call the WHERE of it). We know the origin of the feeling as surely as we know the origin of ourselves. And just as we do not make a habit of reminding ourselves of our origins (our parents), the reality of it being so certain for us that the need to engage in such reminders seems superfluous, we also pay scant attention to the source of feelings. What is this source? In a word, desire, a form of the primal urge. The primal urge is instinctual; it is the primal driving mechanism behind all of our actions, the ultimate reason that we work to make money with which to buy food, or find a mate with whom we may procreate and thus ensure the survival of our DNA. It is the foundation for our personal tastes (for this or that or whatever). The ultimate motivation behind our behavior, and very subtly engendering our feelings, is something that is non-rational. But somehow or other (and no doubt for "reasons" that are also connected to surviving) this non-rational force has driven us to forge a path that is adorned (if you will) with the trappings of something we call "rationality". Purpose-Driven Life? Fuck Off!
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