Information available in pockets is largely what I call "trivia".

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Started 5d ago

Just taking in "data points" does not always equate with actual /knowledge/. There are types of actual /knowledge/ that greatly transcend "looking up stuff" and you can't get any of it without loads of practical experimental and experiential /doing/. Someone can have a far greater pool of actual /knowledge/ than someone with a head filled with "factoids" picked up by "looking up stuff". For example, it's possible for someone to learn far more about physics from doing all kinds of work on a farm than someone that "knows a bunch of formulas and concepts".

I'm not anyone ITT until now, btw, but my own generation, X, grew up with Radio Shack in just about every town, and all kinds of electrical and science toys available and promoted:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=+in+1+electronics+kit+toy&iar=images

We had Estes model rockets that weren't just pre molded snap togethers that we built from raw wood and paper, and flew, with the tiniest flaws causing bad flights. And heck, around here we hunted and fished for food in between all of that and learned the INNAWOODS and an endless list of other things.

Don't let your tunnel vision blind you, and don't let a head filled with informational "factoids" swell it with a false sense of superiority. A lot of us were also the first generation of kids to grow up with computers back when you /had/ to really learn them more in depth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10qEOmZaYZg


I should point out a crucial notion. When I said:
>it's possible for someone to learn far more about physics from doing all kinds of work on a farm than someone that "knows a bunch of formulas and concepts"
it's worth contemplating that the hypothetical farm worker with the much greater actual knowledge of physics likely doesn't even think or /know/ that their knowledge of physics is substantial. To them it's just a developed, honed awareness of the countless aspects of the countless tasks they must handle in their everyday life over the long haul, and a corresponding competence for it all. A lot of it might come from handling variously weighted objects, dealing with countless tensions in countless contexts (can't have this one too tight, they'll break, but has to be as tight as you can get it without getting to that point), etc. Being able to /feel/ your tractor on hillsides is crucial, you have to /know/ when you're getting at such an angle that you're going to tip and tumble the whole rig with you on and possibly winding up under it.

These are just some quick, crude examples to attempt pointing to the /types/ of "things" I'm referring to. A lot of similar types of knowledge might be gained by mechanics that have worked on so many vehicles that they've picked up on loads of awarenesses that can never be put into any number of words...they can only be gleaned by direct experimental/experiential experience over time, and accumulated from countless cognitive connections between the countless experiences. Same with plumbers.

I think general competence is dropping rather quickly since a certain point of history though, and there are many reasons for it. I suspect that one of the primary underlying causes is our increasing separation/insulation from the most basic fundamentals of reality, like food production, construction, working with fire, etc.

"knowledge" is a complex concept just like (and as a part of) "cognition", and the intuition gained from practice is generally considered to be its own thing and not just "a type of knowledge"

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy you're looking for.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology

>>3871
whether intuition from practice is considered "a type of knowledge" depends on the context

e.g. in a neuroscience context, there is "implicit memory" and there is "explicit memory"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicit_memory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explicit_memory

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