MULLING OVER KNOWLEDGE

Things being mulled over:

There are numerous quiz programs on radio, television and on line.  The amount of surplus knowledge or trivia people have stored in their brain is quite phenomenal. On examining the word -

 

Knowledge:

 

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

1. The state or fact of knowing:

2. Familiarity, awareness, or understanding gained through experience or study:

3. The sum or range of what has been perceived, discovered, or learned:

4. Archaic Carnal knowledge.

 

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers

1. the facts, feelings, or experiences known by a person or group of people

2. the state of knowing

3. awareness, consciousness, or familiarity gained by experience or learning

4. erudition or informed learning

5. specific information about a subject

6. (Law) sexual intercourse (obsolete except in the legal phrase carnal knowledge)

7. come to one's knowledge to become known to one

8. to my knowledge

a. as I understand it

b. as I know

9. grow out of one's knowledge Irish to behave in a presumptuous or conceited manner

 

Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd.

1. acquaintance with facts, truths, or principles.

2. familiarity or conversance, as by study or experience:

3. the fact or state of knowing; clear and certain mental apprehension.

4. awareness, as of a fact or circumstance.

5. something that is or may be known; information.

6. the body of truths or facts accumulated in the course of time.

7. the sum of what is known:

8. Archaic. sexual intercourse.

Idioms:

to one's knowledge, according to the information available to one:

 

Compact Oxford English Dictionary, 3^rd edition revised 2008

1-Information and skills gained through experience or education

2-The total of what one knows

3-Awareness of or familiarity with a fact or situation

Phrase: to (the best of) my knowledge: 1- so far as I know:  2- as I know for certain -

 

- it would appear that awareness of, or familiarity with, facts is the key, either through education or experience.

 

What is surprising constantly, to me, is the lack of awareness or familiarity with certain facts which seem self-evident. The sort of fact one assumes every person who purports to enter a particular quiz would be aware of or familiar with.

 

I was listening to the last broadcast of Counterpoint, the music quiz on Radio 4, hosted by Paul Gambaccini. One of the questions involved the ‘Au fond du temple saint” duet from the Pearl Fishers by George Bizet. A short excerpt was played. It is perhaps one the most played duet on radio. It is one of the most popular numbers in western opera. It has appeared on seven of the Classic 100 Countdowns of several radio stations round the world. Yet, none of the three contestants knew it. One of the contestants a, Ms Sarah Trevarthan from Manchester, scored a magnificent 31 points, which according to Gambaccini was the most anyone has scored since he has been presenting the program. Her knowledge was indeed extensive, and impressive; however, for someone with her store of surfeit knowledge of music and related questions, not to know the duet from The Pearl Fishers was puzzling to say the least. For all three contestants to be nescient of the piece was striking. At least, so far as I was concerned. It is almost like asking does 2 x 2 = 4? But perhaps not.

I do enjoy a quiz, as it tends to increase one’s store of information, and it is instrumental in retrieving some of those stored bits and pieces hovering round the hippocampi. It’s fun. One is sometimes taken aback when no one is able to answer certain questions, but that usually tends to be about some fairly recent historical or biographical fact, or event, which occurred before the contestants were born. It is only known by one’s self, because one lived through the event at the time. Age is very often a factor in matters of general knowledge. That is the ‘through experience’ part of the definition.

Indeed as one gets older, one is non plussed frequently by the fact that one can be talking to someone who has no idea what you might be referring to, because they have no frame of reference to the subject.  It is completely pointless asking someone “Where were you when Kennedy was shot?” if they are only 60 years old. One tends to forget how old one actually is. You see grey hair and you assume a certain synchronicity of experience that just isn’t there.

 

By contrast, particularly when watching University Challenge (College Bowl in US), one is astonished at the stuff some of these young people have knowledge of.  This is a good thing, as on the one hand we are comforted by the fact that we know stuff they do not, and are able to swiftly recall the knowledge (swift recall being the key) and we are able to learn things along the way. The brain still sparks and functions, if only kept alive by this surplus knowledge or trivia.

 

Keeping the brain alive and functioning with swift recall is very much of consequence. It can sometimes be a trifle challenging, but I believe it is important to pursue.  Albert Einstein commented that "The pursuit of knowledge is more valuable than its possession"

 

“Such is always the pursuit of knowledge. The celestial fruits, the golden apples of the Hesperides, are ever guarded by a hundred-headed dragon which never sleeps, so that it is an Herculean labour to pluck them.”— Henry David Thoreau

 

A bit florid and perhaps too much time spent on the pond. 

 

Thomas Jefferson stated:

These are but three quotes involving that endeavour, it is clearly not something to let go. In particular following truth and reason, which the United States could well do with ramming down Trump’s throat. He could use a bit of bearding, as could Boris Johnson, Vladimir Putin, Alexander Lukashenko, Victor Orban and countless other demagogs.