Once, while I was in college, a professor said, "The more you learn about a subject, the less defined it becomes."
"Whaaaat?" I thought. "That can't be true. The more you know about something the more you should be an expert on it. The more you should be able to pin it down. Expert knowledge leads to a point, a finite amount of information and precise definition," my mind screamed.
Well, now I think he was right.
The end result of study and search into any field, the more fuzzy it becomes. It doesn't result in a point; it results in a fan. The more variations you discover and the more interlocking happens with other areas of study.
So, it's almost like the more you know, the less you really know. Like going from a tunnel to a hall, then a small room, larger rooms to an dense jungle to a forest to a plain to a beach to an ocean to the air.
I hope when I die, I will finally know everything.
If you're interested in the many different ways thinking happens, http://www.thinking.net/ might be a good jumping off place. I know I plan to mine this site for a while.
4 comments:
love the post, love the sentiment as well... maybe the more we know, the more we realize how much we don't know. it seems that many people that don't know much seem to believe they know everything
Well I know I don't know much about clay the further I go along and I know I'll never know everthing, but I still love learning all I can about all kinds of things.
Sometimes it's a process of selecting what you will become expert in. Glaze, for instance, is an entire world I've only gotten my toes wet (aha) in.
I know some potters who get off on glaze and it absolutely consumes them. They begin making pots for the glaze.
I think I'm a technique junkie.
Yup, Jim,
There seems to be more of the latter than the former.....the problem is, they then go about telling you how you should think or do something. Yehk.
Sensible people know there's a world out there to learn and experience. I think artists are very sensitive to their world.
I, myself, am a collector of random, useless facts, trivia and clap-trap. : )
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