One Apple A Day #408
In the last three days, I had at least three conversations about the awareness, knowledge and understanding.
I’m reading this as a sign that I need to dig more on the subject.
The dictionary is always the right place to start.
Knowledge: facts, information, and skills acquired through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject.
Understanding: the ability to perceive the intended meaning of something; comprehension.
Awareness: knowledge or perception of a situation or fact.
The first thing I notice is that knowledge requires understanding. We can’t really say that we know something if we don’t understand it. David Weinberger says that “Knowledge without understanding is like, well, information”.
So, my “understanding” is that knowledge is not objective. Facts and information are objective, but knowledge requires me to perceive the intended meaning of those facts and information.
My knowledge may be different from yours even if we start from the same information.
But what about awareness? Awareness is all about the experience. It is our unique experience of a fact or information.
The real questions here are: do we need to understand something to be aware of it? Do we need to have knowledge of something to be mindful of it?