thinkingmoving

 

 

 

Why is knowing important?

Knowing some fact or metric can enable a change be it training or the performace of a product.

Also knowing a sensation and becoming aware gives you non-verbal esoteric knowledge.

To enable change we need to know where we are.

The more you know the more you realise what you don’t know, and the more you see the interconnectedness of everything.

Taking it as read that everything is linked, thats just data/noise, what is useful is to make connections of past experience/knowledge and applying it to new things in new ways.

Polymaths use this and the partitioning of education into science and arts and giving one more importance over the other is short sighted to say the least. How do people for example impart scientific data? purely through numbers or words or do we use graphics? there is a link with science and art right there, and who says that if science and art were interwined to varying degrees that new methods of displaying information could not further the cause?

One of the best know examples of this was Leonardo Da Vinci, amongst his many undertakings he worked out how the heart valves closed hundreds of years before modern scientists did. Of course he did not specialise as modern man does but that is to the detriment of modern man. Leonardo noticed what was always there but needed to be seen, he looked around him noticed nature and then pondered.

Finally, the image at the top of this post brings us back to the previous “Knowing” post, Richard Feynman a scientist by training started drawing in earnest at the age of 44, he had art lessons from an artist friend and in return he gave science lessons. Feynman displayed some of his scientific ideas through diagrams as shown below:

 

If you are not open and aware then what will you miss?

 

References:

The Art of Ofey

Feynman Diagram

Feynman Diagram Video

Leonardo da Vinci and the Sinuses of Valsalva

Ever been to a musical concert where people film the musicians in front of them? This filming is undertaken in a sub optimal situation be it people in front of them, poor microphone or small lens.

Suboptimal issues aside, they are filming the concert to what end, to say they have been?

They are looking at the concert through a lens and not seeing it.

Seeing is not the same as looking, one has an active component. The same can be said of hearing and listening.

Why not just be and trust your mind to make memories as we would have in the past when we had no choice but to experience and remember.

We now have more pictures, data and I would proffer that we have less memories, as we always think we can rely on this data stored digitally.

Is your life the content you are sharing with the world?

Can ‘life’ be it family moments or achievements be of any use to others outside of your close network?

The answer is maybe, its all to do with context and of thought and not merely self publicising and ‘selfies’. If the life content has a point or is the germ for an observation about said life I can see benefit. Would it not just be better to get on with the task and not bother telling everyone?

The world of social media exposes ourselves to networks we cannot comprehend, I will refer you to the links relating to Dunbars Number in the further reading, but basically it can be described as below:

“Dunbar’s number is a suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships.”

Ask yourselves who are these people you are showing off or showing your life to? If you don’t know them why would you bother.

Writers, artists, filmmakers use their own life as material but its used as a comment or the aforementioned germ to spawn a line of thought.

 

Writers/artists commentators take some raw material and make something of it, there is data and there is information. Data is raw and unprocessed and when processed it becomes information. In the same way that Bauxite is aluminium in its ore/natural state, it needs to be processed to become of use. Just showing the world family shots only is of use to family or when it has a context for others to identify.

• You can’t see everything or know everyone.
• Small is beautiful <150.
• Social media or social commentary.
• Social media is rarely social.

Social media is normally anything but social, it is merely hiding in plain site. The illusion of society but actually a distraction from the place you are and the people you are physically with. Look up from the screen and be social without the media.

Further Reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar’s_number

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/mar/14/my-bright-idea-robin-dunbar

 

Thats what we are, nothing comes from nothing, we all build on the work of others sometimes because of their work and sometimes in spite of it.

The modern world has so much information available but people take very little time to let it percolate and stew, instead they publish quickly and get feedback quickly.

This easy accumulation of information does not allow time for it to become knowledge, for them to ‘know’ it.

Our ancestors had less information available but more time to think.

Don’t flit like a bird, be calm, ruminate and know.

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 Links.

Creativity Link 1

Creativity Link 2

IK Brunel

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