…A little explanation on how we work along with knowledge.
Imagine all the knowledge the human race has collected until now, and picture it as a little seed that started growing, millions of years ago, branching out and creating a thousand of different matters of study. That little seed, we’re going to suppose, is on an infinite plane, in which we would see the seed ramify itself to form the knowledge, as a whole.
Now, as it is constantly branching out, we could see it as a circle, right? if you form a circle with “n” quantity of marbles, and then you start to move the marbles away from the center, opening the circle, you’ll eventually see that there’s enough space for another group of “n” quantity of marbles. If that’s seen as if the center were the seed, and the marble were the branches, it’s clear that each marble there’ll be a division, forming two marbles: each branch will, at some point, divide itself to form two branches.
So, making the plane infinite is done because we need to establish that knowledge may be… well, infinite, as we are, actually, who created “knowledge” as a thing, or as a mysterious concept. In any case, knowledge should be seen as branches dividing their way out of a seed, which we don’t actually know much about, as it’s a metaphoric seed, center, origin.
Seeing the knowledge as a mass of matter, as a circle as I said before will make this explanation simpler, as you’ll see clearly the point, not being confused by all the “branches” thing. So, seeing it as a stain on the plain could be helpful…
Now, think about what was just said. Today’s knowledge is a circle; a perfect circle, as you can see on the left. Thinking it’s a circle is simpler than seeing it as an irregular stain, isn’t it? Well, as a circle, where everything points to a center, from which everything “pops” out. So where you are born, you are covering that seed: that’s the only thing you know; then, with your parents teaching you and then elementary school you start learning different things, on different areas: elementary stuff.
While you learn, you cover more of the circle’s area. When you’re on elementary school and even on middle/high-school, you learn basic knowledge. Obviously, out of the classroom you learn other things, but it depends actually on what do you like to do. Anyway, the thing is, that after that, you have actual control on what you learn. Yeah, you go to college, or no, but either way, you’re supposed to do what you want. And in matter of studying learning new stuff, you decide what you want to know about. So then I figured out there are certain types of people, based on their choices:
Peak Knowledge
Diametral Knowledge
Bubble Knowledge
-
Peak Knowledge
Based on a “peak” form, this kind of learning way is the one people with a single more or less specific interest have. That way, they learn about (not to say, study) the basics the think they need to accomplish the goal of reaching some imaginary point in which they will know everything they want to know (about that interest). So the real goal is going that way, creating that “peak” in the drawing.
Not saying they reach that point, they tend to, they try.
-
Diametral Knowledge
People with two or more non-related interests are always trying to learn things on both. Meaning they create two peaks or more on the circle. That way, they learn about both interests without being one over the other, so the learning is somehow symmetrical, being a diametral thing; knowledge.
But, there’re people with two interests, but one overpass the other, so they like that one above the other. In that case the peak of the liked is bigger than the other. Either way, this kind of people tend to know more things than the Peak learners, as they, liking more things, learn more. You may say Diametral learners learn more in quantity, less while being specific; that’s perhaps true… Yet it depends on what you prefer, if being a super expert on a single matter, or a well-know teacher on two or more.
Not saying it’s easy to become a super expert, there are a lot of factor that will work along to decide if you will; yet it’s possible, depending on your learning way, on your own knowledge circle.
-
Bubble Knowledge
Even when people tend to have one, two or three preferred interests, many people don’t. A great quantity of people is lost in that aspect, so they don’t know actually what they should learn. In some way, they’re insecure; on the other hand, they probably don’t care about learning…
In those cases, people present a “bubbled” knowledge circle, as they don’t have a organized way of learning. They just learn naturally, or perhaps try to be interested in some matter… In any case, the know the basics of many areas, yet they don’t delve into any subject.
Anyway, people learn, even not wanting to. We learnt to walk because we needed to, we learnt to talk because we needed to, and we’ll learn a lot of things along the way as we need to. Obviously not in the same way we should, but even a not-schooled person learn, as we don’t need to learn about learning. We, genetically, know how to learn.
