Difference between Noise & Knowledge
It gives me solace, ironically, that there are an overwhelming amount of content that gets blasted on to our faces every second of the day and night.
Doesn’t matter if they are Facebook status updates, instagram photos, youtube videos, tweets, or any of the old world media — like TV, radio and the likes.
Because I know that human beings do not evolve as quickly as the immense availability and access to information. We may think we do, but the speed of technological evolution is so much faster than our own human evolution.
With regards to absorbing information — humans still absorb as fast as their minds would let them.
We try to hack the way we ‘absorb’ information. There are loads of speed reading and learning tools that claim to improve the ability to absorb and learn, and to do it at blazing fast speeds.
The truth is that moving from one piece of information to another piece too fast means you won’t be able retain as much. It takes focus and time.
The primary misconception I feel is the misunderstanding of the purpose of this absorption of information.
People often term it as knowledge.
A wise teacher I once learnt from explained to us the difference between information and knowledge.
This statement is a poor re-explanation from me, a lousy student: The difference between information and knowledge is… Information are things you know whereas knowledge is the arrival of meaning of that information into your hearts. Knowledge benefits you whereas information simply exists.
Does that make sense? I might have butchered the explanation in my attempt to share this critical piece of … information.
Here’s the question I find myself unable to answer still:
We know that there’s an abundance of information that are more accessible than ever these days. Most of what you’d like to know are not actually in your heads. You leave them in the wikipedia pages and in the indexed pages within google’s search reach. You know the information is still there when you need it. So there’s no need to store it in your head.
However, even if you do remember them — even if you remember every piece of information you googled, youtubed, and researched… what does that make you?
What does it mean to have true knowledge?
Knowledge has both depth and breadth to it. And the notion of ‘the more you know, the more you don’t know’ holds true. My teacher envisioned us with the concept of drawing circles to signify your attainment of knowledge.
When you know little — like a small minuscule circle, the circumference signifies the areas of knowledge to be explored and mastered. It’s small, hence there isn’t much — you would have felt that you know a lot, compared to whatever is out there.
Then you start learning more, and internalising the knowledge — and you realise… there is so much more. Your circle increases in size and so does your circumference, meaning you realise that there are lots more that you know that you don’t know.
It is no wonder that true scholars and knowledgable people are humbled by the immensity and this weird nature of attaining knowledge.
It is with this notion that I feel hesitant to share my so called knowledge in whatever domain i seem to claim expertise in.
I mean… if that’s what knowledge is… how do one define an expert?
