Levente Kutvolgyi

The definition of knowledge is facts, information or skills acquired through experience or education. Therefore for something to be unknowable one must have a lack of education, facts or experience in this, and it has to be impossible to acquire.

As of today, less than 10% of the ocean is explored using modern sonar technology. This means that the other 90% is unknown. In the future we might be able to explore all of it but as on now using todays technology that’s all the information we can get our hands on. I enjoy participating in a sport called wakeboarding which involves getting pulled by a boat/zip park and using a board to surf on the water. However, when I fall in the only thought in my head is: What could be under me? And the correct answer is no one knows. There could be a creature any size and deadly and I wouldn’t see it coming. I find the unknown scary. because it is unpredictable and can be dangerous.

Another thing that is unpredictable/unknowable is how sea animals will behave. Even if we are aware of the animals normal behaviours we can never know exactly that they won’t harm us. For example, dolphins are usually known to be friendly animals, however sometimes they can act aggressively and harm you. That’s why the unknown can be dangerous.

This is an image of Bilbao, Basque Country in Spain. I was given the opportunity to visit in 2022. The region is distinctly Basque, and not Spanish and they even have their own language. The relationship between knowledge and culture is demonstrated here as we can see how knowledge allows this culture to thrive, despite the hundreds of years of oppression of the Basque people.

The Basque language is believed to be the oldest in Europe, if not, the world, and the fact it has survived Gothic, Latin, Arabic and modern lingual invasions for over 1000 years. We can see that its survival, and the knowledge of it today among Basque people allows the culture to stand and survive as it does today.