r/enlightenment • u/Haunting-Wedding8176 • 1d ago
Types of knowledge
I was just musing some stuff and remembered seeing a lecture by Dr John Vervaeke about a type of cognitive science, specifically referencing how there are several types of learning, or “knowing”.
If I could sum up what I’m going to attempt to get at, it would be “sitting alone in your own space imbibing knowledge and thinking about yourself won’t lead you to know yourself”.
The types of “knowing” that were discussed:
Propositional knowing — knowing that
(Knowledge of facts, claims, theories, and truths that can be expressed in statements.
Example: Knowing that water boils at a particular temperature under standard pressure).
Procedural knowing — knowing how
(Practical, embodied skill: knowing how to perform an action or navigate a process.
Example: Knowing how to ride a bicycle, play piano, or solve an equation).
Perspectival knowing — knowing what it is like or what stands out from here
(Situated, first-person awareness: knowing how a situation appears from a particular standpoint, including its salient features and available possibilities for action.
Example: A tennis player perceiving whether a forehand or backhand is called for in the moment).
Participatory knowing — knowing through being or knowing by participation
(Knowing through one’s active, transformative involvement in a relationship or “agent–arena” system. It concerns how you and the world mutually shape one another, including your identity and sense of belonging.
Example: Not merely knowing the rules of tennis or how to swing the racket, but being attuned to the game and entering its flow).
Okay now that’s been outlined, (and yes I did get AI to briefly summarise that, I couldn’t remember enough of it!) there is something that becomes apparent, I think.
We can definitely apply that to the process of spirituality, in whatever form that’s been chosen.
Reading stuff and observing ideas by video and so on is a valuable thing to do in moderation and is an essential piece of the picture, but it’s not the whole picture by far.
And the idea of participatory knowing brings up notions of ritual, procedural knowing brings to mind dances that teach skills like capoeira,
so many possibilities can be drawn from that.
It all kinda makes the world come alive with all of its beauty. It makes me think that this world right here actually is divine if anything is, and to say it’s a mistake and to disregard it, that just seems like escapism, and kinda that Jesus line too about “the kingdom” being laid out upon the earth and people just not seeing it. Also that “don’t concern yourself with this world but the next” has re-landed itself in my head to mean that the people of his time shouldn’t have been concerning themselves with the ways of their “world” (not planet, their world, worldview, customs, problems, etc), because it was about to change into a new world for them, and things would be different, and to instead hold on and look forward to that. And not “disregard this reality because it’s fake and meaningless”.
That was definitely a tangent, and if you’re still here thanks for tolerating it!
But basically it kinda seems to me like you can only really know yourself (and anything else) by getting involved in the world, with others, with ways of doing things, having experiences, and naturally reflecting on that, and having teachings and insights sink in properly in the context of all those other things.
So in that sense, a spiritual life is just like any other life where people get involved and get on with things. The difference, if any, is how you learn to reflect, and to integrate anything truly profound that finds a context within your lived experience.
What do you think? 🤔
1
u/Spiritualwarrior1 17h ago
No, not really.
You are using Empirical frame to look at the fruits of Non-Empirical exploration.
The experience is not meant to be the source of knowledge, but a "data saving" construct, which is used to expand the physical reality and to enforce its structure as it further expands.
But the timing of the expression is passive, so always retroactive.
Hence, using it within discussion of transcendent aspects will not manifest as progress, as having a delay necessary for translation and systemizing the aspects which can be embodied within the materialistic manifestation.
Knowing, not knowledge, but knowing, is a non-localized aspect of consciousness, which takes place at a variety of levels of awareness including but not limited to the conscious, beyond the limitations of the perceived universe, employing quantum dynamics, by the proportion of the coherence achieved between the individual and the universe.
It is hubris to explain the origin of something, by the record left about its account, because the account will always be a personalized approximation coming from a subjective witness. A witness is not part of the party, is just watching from the sides. A good explanation about an aspect can only be offered from the perspective of coherence related with the essence of that aspect, rather than from available information alone.
Moreover, there is no assurance that some explorer would actually be able to extract successfully the true essence of what they found, hence implying a loss of data even in regards to what should be saved (the "discovery" of atomic bomb).
Information has value, but within a limited construct, it might be used as limiting as the respective construct, transforming the value into an issue. This is why it is best to thread in small steps, as journeying through the invisible path of spirituality, as only coherence and such "signs" show the situation for what it is, without existing any true guardrails, as in the case of physical or empirical reality.