Knowledge is acquired via an unfathomable number of ways and methods. One of these many ways is personal experience. So what is the relationship between the two?

For a mathematician, their first lesson in correlation and scatter graphs could literally describe the relationship between personal experience and knowledge. They experienced the lesson, and gained the knowledge, and could describe it as having a ‘strong positive correlation.’

We have all learnt things and gained knowledge through experiences or mistakes. Like learning to ride your bicycle without stabilizers as a kid. Your dad would push you and tell you to keep pedaling and look straight forward, deceiving you into believing he would keep a hold of you – but by the time you keep pedaling, you’ve cycled away from him. Thus, you learned how to ride your bike. You experienced it, and gained the knowledge: to keep pushing and looking forward (with the hope of not falling off).

So what about mistakes? It has always been said you learn from your mistakes, whether that be breaking up with your ex, or 12 different publishers rejecting an author who went on to write the most successful series of books ever.

I feel as though we’ve all made mistakes, some no one else could ever make, some miniscule, and some massive ones. Not submitting your homework is a mistake we all make, thinking we’ll be fine, until our report comes in the post, a question on the homework you didn’t do pops up in your exam, or the teacher scolds you and gives you a detention.

Having to sit through that detention, opening poor results on results day, or your parents grounding you for effort out of class requiring “significant improvement” will give you the knowledge that, ‘this isn’t fun, I’ll hand my homework in next time.’ And you will know to, and have the incentive to hand your homework in.

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.

The following picture of la Rocco Tower on St Ouen’s Bay provides a stimulus as is one of my most cherished locations in Jersey; I have chosen this photograph to illustrate the empirical view (verifiable by observation), acquired during my childhood as to my passion for the sea/ocean and as such, has fuelled my desire to be near the sea for a means of spiritual contentment.

Firstly, experience is a longitudinal process where there is a need for practical application and exposure to new information so we challenge the knowledge we receive to formulate a thorough understanding. Although experience is unique to a singular person, it cannot apply to all forms of experience; as a group of persons can only claim to have the same experiences on a particular matter. For example, St. Ouen is where many individuals go to, and spontaneously accumulate knowledge but they can only share this experience subjectively. 

Whereas, our knowledge which is accumulated through personal experience and interpretation is what improves our awareness, and challenges our understanding of a given matter thus, improving our confidence as not only repetition of practice, but also applying oneself to a matter. Given this, experiential knowledge is acquired through experience and priori knowledge is necessary to the individual before the experience has taken place. For example, my prior knowledge and perception of Jersey’s coastlines before experiencing St. Ouen was different compared to after a good few years of spending my childhood there. Thus, knowledge is transcended through time, but again, I think this process should be understood respectively as this depends on the inherent distinction between knowers of knowledge.

In conclusion, based on the aforementioned I believe that although experience and knowledge share some similarities respectively, as the Oxford definition for ‘wisdom’ states that it is the ability to execute sensible decisions while it encompasses the understanding and  experience one has acquired, emphasising the mutualistic relationship. However, they couldn’t be any more distinct from each other as we roam in a highly subjective environment where our thoughts and subconscious mind is what influences us to execute actions or pursue matters that permit us to acquire knowledge. So knowledge is highly unique to every being and so this acts as barriers for knowledge to be coherently expressed between us conscious beings because we all accumulate diverse knowledge in comparison to one another.

Most of our knowledge comes from personal experience. Events we go through, weather they are emotional or not are where we acquire most of our knowledge from. To be more exact personal experience helps all of us to understand knowledge better, on a deeper level. Personal experience allows us to store the knowledge and use it for situations that are personally relevant to us, therefore we apply the knowledge to future situations that are unique to us.

To further my point I will use the picture of me and my cousin above as an example. My older cousin and I are extremely close and I honestly consider her as my older sister; she has taught me many valuable lessons through my life and given me some of the best advice I could possibly ask for. I have shared many experiences with her that have provided me with knowledge which is linked to my points from above that knowledge and personal experiences are closely linked. Also as Albert Einstein said “…all knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it”, meaning without experience there is ultimately no knowledge; so in order to makes sense and understand the knowledge we accumulate we must use it and apply it to every day life or the experiences that we have.

In my opinion personal experiences are the main sources that shape our knowledge and ultimately provide most the knowledge we currently have. This is mostly due to the fact that we gain knowledge from other people therefore surrounding ourselves with people that are important to us and that we can learn something from is most likely one of the most important things you can do in life. You gain knowledge from experiences that you have with friends, you gain knowledge from experiences that you have with family and also from negative experiences that you might have had with people. And this knowledge comes in all sorts of forms, it can be educational or it may be emotional knowledge on how to deal with certain things that may happen in your life. Therefore the relationship between knowledge and personal experiences is the one you make and create by experiencing all sorts of different situations that you can learn from.

At first glance, knowledge and experience look very similar to one another. By definition, knowledge is information and skills acquired through experience or education. Similarly, experience is defined as the knowledge or skill acquired by a period of practical experience of something. Although the two words are used in each other’s definitions and are seemingly very similar, a distinction can be made between knowledge and experience. Knowledge emphasizes theory and the obtainment of information and ideas. Experience, on the other hand, stresses practice, or the application of knowledge over a prolonged period of time, in order to reinforce understanding of subject matter or a certain task. While further knowledge on a subject or task can be gained through experience, experience cannot be obtained through instruction. Experience comes with time, exposure, and practice. It is based off of practical application rather than supposition. Knowledge, on the other hand, is founded upon the accumulation of information through either experience or education. It can be taught unlike experience. Therefore, here lies the greatest difference between the two. While knowledge is the sum of impressions based off of sensation, experience is the act of exercising or challenging knowledge in order to obtain sensation. So, you gain knowledge from personal experience. Personal experience enables you to internalize the knowledge, apply the knowledge for actual performance, and customize the knowledge for you. I gained knowledge and a personal experience by watching curious George because he taught me lots of valuable life skills and lessons because he is CURIOUS! As child, I watched curious George for a long time as I had nothing else to do and it was my favourite TV show I have fond memories of watching it and brings me heaps of nostalgia every time see it. Therefore this tv show brought me knowledge about not only myself but the world around from my personal experience.

Knowledge is continually growing and an unthinkable amount of knowledge has existed within an unthinkable length of time. This means some knowledge may never be knowable to particular knowers due to the nature of the knower and their perspective.  

For this exhibition, I have chosen a picture of my CAS journal which contains written reflections of past experiences that I had within the IB. From my perspective, my CAS journal is a good source of posteriori knowledge as it reminds me of how I felt during CAS activities. In addition, I may remember some information about the activities making this knowledge more reliable to me. This means that I could say I know how I felt and what happened due to the evidence in the journal and my memory. However, from someone else’s perspective, they may read the journal and have interpretations on how I felt and an understanding of what happened but this knowledge is unknowable to them. This is because of the limitations the journal has in providing the truth. For example, details may have been missed or hidden and the language may be misunderstood. Their perspective also means that these experiences aren’t personal to them, leaving gaps in their knowledge. The knowledge could also become completely unknowable as it could be lost within time. For example, it’s unlikely that the journal would be intact several years later, meaning the knowledge inside could be unknowable to the knowers of that time period.  

The CAS journal shows how subjectivity is an important factor in determining the acquisition of knowledge as it highlights how one knower may know something while another knower can’t know that same knowledge. However, can knowledge be objectively unknowable? For example, reality could be unknowable to everyone. This has caused immense debate especially in philosophy. It’s argued that senses (empirical knowledge) can be deceiving and therefore nobody can be certain of or know reality as most of the knowledge we gain about reality is affected by our senses. Additionally, we may never know if we’re hidden from one single true reality or if that reality exists in the first place. This can cause panic amongst knowers as they may start questioning their existence/truth. 

Overall, some things are unknowable to individuals but also to communities of knowers. This could be viewed positively and negatively depending on the knower’s perspective and could also cause knowledge issues and limitations. 

When I read this prompt, I immediately think of the Bible, the Holy text of Christianity, because of its myriad versions and interpretations and its relation to me as a Christian.

To know something is to have an understanding of its concepts, often to a standard where it can be understood by others if explained to them. But this transfer of information is precisely where information, and thus knowledge, can be lost.

The Bible is a compilation of texts written over centuries, detailing the Story of Jesus Christ, and God’s teachings, but it wasn’t all written at the same time and by the same author. Each of these authors would’ve interpreted the experiences they viewed differently, due to their application of their own senses. Modern science shows us that our senses can be easily flawed, and illusioned. Donald Hoffman proves this in his TED Talk via the use of optical illusions, of which there are hundreds you can try on YouTube. These views align with Descartes, who came to the realization that his senses couldn’t be trusted, and that the only knowledge he could be sure of was his existence. Take the Gospel (story) of Jesus Christ’s life in the Bible: 4 accounts of the same life, all including their own takes of information, and analysis of the events that occurred. If someone had remembered wrongly along the line, what would that mean for the future of the religion? It would be untruthful, built on misinterpretation – causing severe doubt and loss of faith, ruining trust for billions who follow the religion.

Add to this the effect of language. The Bible was mostly kept fresh in the minds of people by speaking about its stories, before most of it was written in Greek, especially in the time of the New Testament. From there, it was kept in Latin by priests for a long time, until its eventual translation into world languages. But there aren’t always smooth translations, and those who do not speak Greek or Latin can’t fully interpret what was written as solid knowledge, only as a translation into their common tongue. For instance, certain words like: “l’appel du vide” have no direct translation. Yes, the words may be converted to their equivalent – in our case, “the call of the void” – but they don’t translate the meaning of the metaphor. Nor do they convey the same feeling that those who understand the phrase as part of their mother tongue would. You can see here that there is a problem of experience. Every being’s unique upbringing allows for unrepeatable experiences to be felt as our influences from family, culture, education, community, society and many more factors carve particular values into each of us – forming individuals. This changes the way we interpret information, in a way that we can never truly know what another knows in the same way because we will never share all of their values and memories.

To summarize, while there may be certain truths that we can share, such as mathematics, we can’t know the same experiences and interpretations of other as they are unique to their senses and values. In this we find that our knowledge is limited to our experiences, influenced by our specific values and can even by altered by language and faulty memory. Therefore, I am inclined to admit that there are truths and states of being that we can never achieve or replicate, and thus never know.

Ivan Sproats.

Earlier this year, I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to go to Barbados for a holiday. I made a few friends, did quite a few things and got to experience a non-European culture. My point here is, Barbados has a mixed reputation internationally- government corruption, crime, violence and cost of living being highlighted. On the other hand, there’s my experience of Barbados: the people I met, the things I did and the places I went. In short, facts versus personal experience.

Barbados is on the whole a poorer country than many, with 14% of the population living underneath the poverty line. As well as this the crime rate lies also at 14% , and there is a 4x higher likelihood children die at childbirth. The facts show that people generally live a worse standard of living compared to the UK.

However, taking in my own experiences from Barbados I can see the other side of these facts shown. While people generally had less, smaller houses or more basic meals, people were happy to make do with what they had. My friend Green makes the effort every Friday to take his daughters to the beach in Holetown. Also, though the crime rate was high, I never felt unsafe at any point in Barbados, and Andy always told me it was the ‘gangstas’ who you’d get in trouble with, and only if you looked for trouble besides. Overall, from my experience people- despite having less- were happy with what they had, even on the bus people smiled and even sung songs with one another: you wouldn’t see that on the tube?

To conclude, I believe the relationship between knowledge and personal experiences is that they can further the depth of one another, and provide greater insight into the true outlook on knowledge.

Knowledge, belief and opinion may seem similar at first glance, but upon closer inspection, the three are vastly different. Knowledge is something that can be empirically proven is true, while belief and opinion do not necessarily rely upon facts.

For example, believing in a deity. There is no concrete proof that gods exist, and yet 85% of the world’s population are adherents to a religion with a supreme being. This is where belief comes into play. Believers can only have faith that their numen exists. They cannot touch, see or feel them, in spite of their desire to feel a superior presence in their lives.

Having faith in a higher power can bring a sense of security to a person, not just in turbulent times, but also from every day-to-day life. It implies that everything happens for a reason- a comforting thought to some. However, this takes away the accountability of people’s actions, choosing instead to blame a corrupt being (read: Satan). rather than their own reprehensible choices. In short, belief can often times be unfounded.

Opinions are like belief in that they can often be formed with no real logic behind them. A prime exhibit of this is prejudice. The literal meaning of the word -in Latin- is ‘prae’, meaning before or in advance, and ‘judicium’, judgment. Overall, it means to judge something before truly knowing it. Opinions are also hard to dispel or criticise, as people become defensive when they are told they’re wrong. It’s important to remember that challenging the idea is not attacking the person.

Knowledge is an amalgamation of both facts and opinion, but they both have to be true. If they aren’t then it is false knowledge in that you wrongly think you know something through either ignorance or misinformation. As Sir Francis Bacon famously proclaimed; “Knowledge itself is power”. It allows us to understand and advance, which is where it differs from beliefs and opinions. If we were constrained by what we thought was right, we would never get anything done- we would be in perpetual disagreement with one another.