Looking for knowledge in all the wrong places

[coberst]

Looking for knowledge in all the wrong places

“Looking for Love in all the Wrong Places” is the name of a movie that came out long ago. It was the story of a woman who thought she could find love in the bars and night clubs of the city. It turned out to be a disaster for her.

Looking for knowledge in all the wrong places is equally problematic.

Internet discussion forums are great places to encounter new ideas that can arouse our curiosity and caring. These forums can raise our consciousness and from that consciousness we can be motivated to discover knowledge and perhaps understanding.

Internet discussion forums are the wrong places for acquiring knowledge. The best approach for acquiring knowledge is from books or perhaps from Google when our search is more superficial. When we wish to acquire knowledge we need to search for the best thinkers available to us; these best thinkers fill the shelves of our libraries and we can access them at little or no monetary cost. Our only investment need be time, energy, curiosity, and caring.

I have a “Friends of the Library” card from a local college library. For a yearly fee of $25 I have access to a great lending library.

Social osmosis will provide us little beyond infotainment.

Acquiring knowledge and understanding is like constructing a papier-mâché statue. It is an incremental process of slowly adding and subtracting small bits to a structure that takes form slowly as we piece together what is truth for us.

When we were in school our teacher guided our every move but when our schooling is over we must seek out the great minds of history as our guide.

Are you looking for knowledge in all the wrong places? What are some other places where we are deluded into thinking that we can find meaningful knowledge?

[richardjarritt]

I think this is an important point to raise.

After starting to have a thirst for what later on turned out to
be a need for a higher level of awareness among many things,
I would aimlessly search for new information
or knowledge,
this site was once stop of many,
random attempts such as this are unlikely to yeild much result,
its probably best to regard a forum as this as mind entertainment,
but its nice to read what people have written when there is a more honest
attempt at communication.

note:
( when reading this i get worried that i sound a bit overly sure of myself
but dont mean too.)

[Thomas Knierim]

coberst: Internet discussion forums are the wrong places for acquiring knowledge.

I think hardly anyone would claim that Internet forums are a suitable medium for acquiring knowledge. On the other hand, I think they are a bit more than mere "entertainment" for reasons which I'll explain below.

You can think of it as a meme replicator if you want.

For knowledge building, I am still drawn to the old fashioned hinged paper collections called "books". Very few media deliver the same depths as books, few media offer the same comprehension and retention rates, and even reading speed is evidentially faster compared to online/on-screen text reading. Thus books have much that speaks in their favour.

coberst: These forums can raise our consciousness and from that consciousness we can be motivated to discover knowledge and perhaps understanding.

Exactly. But this is only one of the two main functions of Internet forums. I would call it the memeplex function with reference to Susan Blackmore's elaboration of memetics. Probably most of the memes just pass you by effecting no change, but occasionally there is a meme that "fits your lock", alters your understanding and sends your inquiry to new directions.

The other main function is the exercise of debate, which is mainly about testing and consolidating (and sometimes expanding) ideas. This is an educational process which should not be underestimated. I am convinced that people learn a lot about consolidating ideas through discussion, not to mention about the debating techniques themselves and informal logic.

Cheers, Thomas

[coberst]

Thomas

I think hardly anyone would claim that Internet forums are a suitable medium for acquiring knowledge. On the other hand, I think they are a bit more than mere "entertainment" for reasons which I'll explain below.

We evidently have experiences that are totally divergent. Why this is so I cannot explain. My four years of constantly posting on Internet discussion forums leads me to conclude that almost everyone on these Internet forums considers their activity on these forums is a sufficient means for gaining knowledge. My experience, even beyond forums, leads me to conclude that almost everyone considers the tid-bits they acquire from TV, the Internet, and chats with friends are adequate sources for knowledge.

[Thomas Knierim]

coberst: My four years of constantly posting on Internet discussion forums leads me to conclude that almost everyone on these Internet forums considers their activity on these forums is a sufficient means for gaining knowledge.

I doubt we can take these accounts seriously.

Of course, you do learn something by reading and posting to Internet forums, and you even learn something by watching commercials. These are just not very efficient ways of acquiring knowledge. An Internet forum functions great in conjunction with another method of knowledge acquisition, because it benefits corroboration and retention, but it's pretty lousy as a primary method.

I suppose everybody who has actually studied learning methods and e-learning is aware of that.

Cheers, Thomas

[coberst]

coberst: My four years of constantly posting on Internet discussion forums leads me to conclude that almost everyone on these Internet forums considers their activity on these forums is a sufficient means for gaining knowledge.

I doubt we can take these accounts seriously.

Of course, you do learn something by reading and posting to Internet forums, and you even learn something by watching commercials. These are just not very efficient ways of acquiring knowledge. An Internet forum functions great in conjunction with another method of knowledge acquisition, because it benefits corroboration and retention, but it's pretty lousy as a primary method.

I suppose everybody who has actually studied learning methods and e-learning is aware of that.

Cheers, Thomas

I suspecty you may found the reason. Perhaps many members of this forum have studied learning methods and e-learning.

[Thomas Knierim]

coberst: Perhaps many members of this forum have studied learning methods and e-learning.

Since I work for an e-learning company, perhaps I've been engaged with these topics a bit more than other people, but I think it is quite intuitive. It's not hard to understand that forums are not laid out for knowledge presentation.

But they're a great tool for discussing a book, a lecture, or a theory, and that makes them a valuable addition to the e-learning arsenal.

Cheers, Thomas

[coberst]

Thomas

You have a good bit of knowledge about learning methods I would like your input regarding this matter:

I strongly advocate self-actualizing through self-learning and I strongly advocate that disinterested knowledge become the focus of attention and that the desire to understand by seeking knowledge of specific questions be the technique.

I mean the term ‘disinterested knowledge’ as similar to ‘pure research’, as compared to ‘applied research’. Pure research seeks to know truth unconnected to any specific application. I think of the self-learner of disinterested knowledge as driven by curiosity and imagination to understand. Self-learning is one way of interacting with the world. Through the process of reading we apprehend the world and in this interaction a dialectic process develops. As I experience, through reading, I attempt to 'make sense' of the world and thus develop ever-richer and more sophisticated concepts. The object of understanding is determined by questions guiding my journey. These guiding questions originate as a result of the force inherent in my curiosity and imagination.

[Thomas Knierim]

According to my observation, the desire for knowledge, or as you say self-actualisation through learning, is something that is partly a characteristic of the individual and partly a characteristic of the surrounding culture. Most societies do value knowledge and intellectual skills. Not all individuals do.

The culture in which I currently live, the Thai culture, does unfortunately not value knowledge very highly. For example, on the Thai value scale, material wealth, benevolence, beauty, and conformity are all more important than knowledge. Critical and inquisitive thinking is discouraged rather than encouraged in the education system. The negative result of this value system is right before my eyes. To put it bluntly, it has resulted in a society that is more ignorant than it needs to be. The government spendings on education, number of libraries, the average qualification of post-graduates, the academic output of universities, the overall research conducted, the number of published scientific papers, the number of engineers and doctors, all of this is significantly lower than GDP and the overall economic state of development in Thailand would suggest, and all of this is because of culture.

On the other hand, there are individuals who swim against the stream. There are people with an ample amount of curiosity, intelligence, as well as diligence. Sometimes I got lucky enough to hire them. These bright young people often end up -if they can afford it- in overseas universities and jobs, thus increasing "brain drain" and further impoverishing the intellectual landscape in Thailand. But it goes to show that a well developed individual characteristic can override a strong collective (societal) characteristic and therein lies hope. I believe that it's ultimately these high-powered individuals who have the capacity to change society and alter the collective culture. This process is already visible in Thailand. There is a growing better educated middle class that becomes increasingly influential here.

The situation is different in other countries. For example, the German society has been engineered for economic equality which resulted in an inflated middle class. However, this distribution is now changing due to immigration and eroding social security. From a global perspective, the world is moving towards knowledge-driven economies. Countries increasingly compete with intellectual property rather than with bare man power or natural resources. You can pinpoint old-style economies quite easily by looking at how the intellectual property issue is treated. Learning and self-learning will become increasingly important for economic success, even more so in societies that yet have to make the transition to knowledge-driven economies.

For the individuals living in these societies it means that learning becomes more important and is likely to take up more time in their lives. Many professions based on graduate qualifications already require lifelong learning. This trend will expand into professions based on vocational training and tertiary education and therefore it will become quite commonplace. Obviously, this process requires relatively large scale changes in society and this will occasionally be a painful process, especially in countries that are ill-equipped for such a transformation. Yet, it appears to be unavoidable.

Cheers, Thomas

[Brahmanyan]

"Let noble thoughts come to us from every side" proclaims our ancient spiritual scripture "Rig Veda". We in India call our teacher as Acharya or Guru. Acharya or Guru need not be a person. We can learn some thing from every thing around us in creation. Baghwan Ramana Maharishi said "Guru need not be in human form..." In the words of Shri Sai Baba of Shirdi, what we need to acquire knowledge is "Shradhda and Saburi" - faith and patience. In the initial stages we require book knowledge, but after some time we will find knowledge itself will be a "banda" - restriction to expand our thinking process. We should be free to think and observe on our own.

Internet is a wonderful source for expanding our knowledge. People like me who cannot afford to purchase expensive books and do not have resources like good libraries to lend books find the free E-Books a boon. Further internet forums like this give a platform for like minded people from around the world to come together and discuss subjects of mutual interest.

Regards,
Brahmanyan.