[Opinion] Useless Knowledge

Anyone who knows me personally knows that I have a profound interest in philosophy, the same goes to this friend of mine who thinks that philosophy is useless. So, there is a day sometime in the past when he argues that philosophy is all about studying useless stuff and it does not help us with anything.

After hearing that, I try to convince him about why despite philosophy might seems useless, philosophy is actually useful. I give out various argument such as how philosophy can be used as a hypothesis generator, how philosophy is the origin of logic which drives science, how philosophy can help us live a more enlightened life since we can only live once and you definitely do not want to ruin it, how philosophy can act as complementary tools together with psychology to build a better relationship, how political philosophy can be used to contribute to advancing our political institution, how philosophy can be used to identify logical fallacy given out by politician to win your votes, etc. After some discussion, we realize that our definition of philosophy is slightly different, and we begin to clarify it. It turns out that the part of philosophy that had been exposed to him are mostly related to social studies, and he thinks that social studies are absolutely useless which do not help you with anything.

Since I am not familiar with social studies, I’m declined to give my opinion on social studies. However, as I am a keen believer of no knowledge is useless, our discussion turns from “is philosophy useless” to “are there useless knowledge”.

Knowledge as bullet metaphor

A metaphor I like to put it is the bullet metaphor I created. There are guns, and there are bullets. A particular type of bullet can be used in a range of guns, some have a wider range, while others have a narrower range. If bullets are knowledge we possess, a gun will be the practical implication of the knowledge we possess. What this essentially means is that obtaining a wide range of knowledge is like collecting a wide range of bullets. During the time of collection, the bullet might seem useless, but when there is one day where a gun appear which the bullet can be used, it is going to be more useful than ever.

Naturally, some bullet has a more narrow range of gun which can be used and some guns are rarer than the others. The same goes for knowledge, where some knowledge is more useful than others. However, that does not dictate a knowledge being useless, but it simply means that the knowledge has a lower probability of being useful in one life.

All guns shoot, why bother?

Yes, all gun shoot, but we can say without a doubt that some guns perform better under certain circumstances than the others. Take a sniper, for example, it will without a doubt outperform a shotgun when it comes to long-range accuracy while shotgun will outperform a sniper in short-range damage.

Imagine a person who is a shotgun specialist, collect nothing but shotgun’s bullets. Any shotgun that reaches his hand, most likely he will have the appropriate bullet for it. Translate to knowledge, this person is like someone who is a specialist in a particular narrow field. He will be able to nail it for any short-range target like how he able to answer any question from the specialize narrow field of his, anything more than a short-range will be most likely be in vain.

Now, imagine a person who collects any type of bullet. Contrast it to the person we imagined earlier, he might not be able to nail it like how the former does, however, he will have a higher chance of doing the job when being put under most circumstances. This person, who collects any type of bullet, will most likely be a more successful hunter than the former as hunting involve not only short-range, long-range, but everything in between as well.

However, the person we imagined earlier is favored when it comes to a short-range shooting competition. The reason is simple. A person who collects nothing but shotgun’s bullets has a much higher probability when it comes to possessing the best bullet for a particular gun. An equivalent example would be like using a full metal jacket bullet instead of half metal jacket bullet in a penetration competition. In that competition, the guns are provided by the organizer, and a specialist will more likely to possess a full metal jacket bullet for the gun provided than a half/non-specialist.

That is the main reason when it comes to job or research, a specialist is favored compared to a non-specialist as a specialist is more likely to do a better job than otherwise. When I use the word specialist, I do not mean by someone who pursues a formal education in a particular field, but someone who has tremendous knowledge of a particular field, can either obtain either from formal education or non-formal education such as self-learning. Of course, being a specialist does not mean you can only possess knowledge from the field you specialize in, but also can learn anything from other fields as interest, or perhaps interest went too far (someone who from hobby become a specialist).

Physics as an example

Let us take physics as an example. We all know that everything around our life is surround with physics. Our water supply, electric supply, electronic device, air-conditioner, car, and a lot more is the product of our physics understanding. It is the understanding of classical mechanics that allows water coming out from our water tap. It is the understanding of the electrical magnetism that allows the existence of our electric supply and not to mentions, any device that drives by electricity. It is the understanding of thermodynamics that allows air-conditioner to cool down our room. It is a piece of extremely useful knowledge, but we can get by with our life without a problem without any physics knowledge, especially in the world of specialization. It is the specialization that allows us to be able to get by our life without any understanding of physics theory. Someone else, can be as close as someone under the same rooftop, or as far as someone on the other side of the world, specializing in physics and helping us to improve our lives while we specialize on something else and improve their life in those aspects. It makes me does nothing but to wonder if does possessing physics knowledge for us as an individual who does not specialize in any field related to it does us good.

Some of you who possess anything more than a sensible amount of physics will be able to answer some of the practical implication of physics to an individual without a problem. The main reason, I believe, is due to having the experience of any physics knowledge possessed which comes in handy throughout daily life. Not only that, having the knowledge of physics will likely to provide an understanding of the implication of the knowledge itself too. I will further elaborate on this point in the next part of this blog.

Consider a scenario, where a person is trying to build his/her own desktop. This person bought a computer case, case fan, and several other parts which are essential for a computer to works. Now, during the stage of assembly, this person had to decide how should he/she mount the fan and which one of them is supposed to be intake and exhaust. This person tries to google it but found him/herself to be more lost than before as different sources giving a different answer with a different justification. All of them make sense, which makes this person not being able to come to a final decision where it works best for him/her. If this person has some basic understanding of aerodynamics, this person will most likely not have any problem in deciding the best-suited configuration of the fan from all different sources, if this person needs to even “google” the question in the first place.

Let me give another example, where a person has a faulty ballast in one of the lightings in his house. Now, he comes across with LED tube and finds no reason to replace the ballast, but migrating it to LED tube instead. He bought a LED tube, went home happily, and eventually find himself not knowing how to bypass the faulty ballast which he has. If he has some basic knowledge of electricity, he will most likely be able to understand the flow of electricity with little to no effort and be able to safely modify it to bypass the ballast without any problem.

Basically, while a seemingly useful knowledge to humanity as a whole might not be required for an individual who has no professional relationship with it, it can be tremendously useful when situation arise where the possession of related knowledge can be utilized. Although physics might not be the best example which I can use, I think it is an example which most people can relate or understand.

Correlation between possessing the knowledge and understanding its implication

This is sort of the further elaboration of the previous point. Previously, when I talk about the practical implication of physics to us as an individual whose profession has nothing to do with physics, I had mentioned that people with a reasonable amount of knowledge on it will most likely be able to give out some practical implication. This is my next point, which I realize there is a sort of positive correlation between depths of understanding of a subject with the probability of knowing the practical implication of it. I had not looked up any empirical data that support this, nor do I try to gather empirical proof about it, but there is a sort of logical explanation to it.

When we talk about understanding the implication, there are 2 different types of scenario. The first type of scenario is where the desire for knowledge is generated from the desire of achieving the goal implication. An example of it is one’s desire of living a happier life leads to the pursuit of life philosophy knowledge such as Stoicism, Epicureanism, etc. In this scenario, unless one has a desire to some ends, one will not even realize the implication of certain knowledge as one is not exposed to the implication in the very first place. It appears as a form of “if I know xxx, I will be able to xxx”. A lot of time, people without scientific knowledge and still be able to come up with practical implication of it falls into this category.

The second type of category is where the knowledge is required to understand the implication in the very first place. Again, take political philosophy as an example, one does not even know the practical implication of political philosophy until one is exposed to it, which is to make the best logical decision when it comes to deciding which candidates to vote. Without the knowledge of it, one will most likely think that he can make the best decision without it as he knows what is best for him. This is a part of “Dunning-Kruger effect”, but that is a topic for another day.

Although there is no clear separation on what kind of knowledge belongs to which category, however, if one does not come across a scenario which belongs to the former category, one will not be able to understand the implication of that particular knowledge without understanding it. It is until one tries to look into that knowledge, one will realize there is more implication than one can ever think of. This is also the main reason why I decline to accept my friend’s stance on social studies while refusing to defend it either as I do not understand the implication.

Putting it all together

To sum it all up, knowledge is exactly like a bullet. You might not know what kind of gun you can use a bullet on, but when you have the gun, it will be extremely useful. For knowledge, it is the same. You might not know what is the use of a particular knowledge for a particular time, it can be very useful if circumstances arise when the knowledge is required. However, the main dilemma should be there is so many knowledge, and there are only 24 hours per day, reduce the time we work, travel, eat, shower, and etc, it is only the rest of the time where we can use it to learn some extra knowledge.

But, ultimately, curiosity is a part of human nature, and to have an interest in a certain knowledge should be the goal itself instead of being the means to some end. Otherwise, what is the purpose of life without any interest?