Our Knowledge

How do we know what we know?

It's a tough and age old question- where does out knowledge come from? Do we learn everything from scratch, or are we born with some instincts that help characterize out intelligence? Do we learn more from teachers and stories or our own experiences?

Last week, the folks at my lunch table had a very heated discussion about weather intelligence is totally earned by experience or weather there's a genetic component as well. For me, while I believe that everyone thinks differently, most of our factual knowledge is given to us by our experience- though some learn faster and more than others. And most of our instinctive knowledge  how to sleep, how to blink, who my mommy is- is given to us by mother nature.

For me, a parallel piece of knowledge I have is my steadfast belief of some divine supernatural entity. I believe in God. At the same time, I have many friends who are atheist or agnostic. How could we, all born the same way, have such different religious beliefs? I suppose it has to do with how we're raised and what we're taught- but at a certain age people can start deciding for themselves. That's when my personal experiences with religion kicked in- not only was I taught that God exists, but I truly believe in it.

Religion is a tough, controversial issue. The whole nation is like this- some have a strong belief in God, and others question the existence of any supernatural power at all. People around the world have fought, killed, and died over it. In a larger context, this means that what we know can be violent. If we weren't friends and united by similarities, the heated discussion my friends had last week could have gotten much worse. Our differences can be great and extensive. And this can only come from people's own experiences, not what they're taught- for if people were all critical thinkers and questioned what they did, I doubt there would be war in society.

Indeed, while some of what we know we learn, others are reinforced by our own experiences. And that's where I think the differences start, since it's a lot easier to teach people the same thing than to simulate the world in the same way for everyone. For me, I was raised in faith, and I still cling to my faith; at the same time, I do not hesitate to question my world and think of more questions to answer and add to my store of knowledge.