Discuss

"Knowledge is nothing more than the systematic organization of facts." Discuss this statement in relation to two areas of knowledge."

The statement that knowledge is nothing more than the systematic organization of facts is one that I disagree with to a large extent because the phrase in itself holds the implication that those who possess knowledge, or are knowledgeable have a collection of facts merely stored in the back of their minds. The areas of knowledge I will be assessing are the Natural Sciences and the Arts. To my mind, knowledge goes beyond a collection of factual information or mere data. Knowledge is not only a cumulus of numbers, words and formulae. Rather, it belongs to a broad spectrum stretching from knowing the environment around us with the natural sciences, to an attempt at knowing ourselves through the arts. Having said this, both the Natural Sciences and the Arts are a combination of the application of the facts that have been systematically organized, and the imagination behind the incentive to produce the work of art, and to bring about new scientific discoveries. Reading into the author of the quote's intention, I deduce that they were only considering the areas of knowledge that are perceived to be more "rigid" such as math or the natural sciences. Despite the large discrepancy between the natural sciences and the arts, both of these require a sense of imagination, intuition and human emotion to be carried out wholesomely. Despite this, it is undeniable that a series of facts and plain, objective information is necessary to enrich the learner's experience and expand their knowledge in both of these fields. It would be narrow-minded to state otherwise. Therefore, the author's statement is disagreeable, but a systematic organization of facts certainly does increase our knowledge of what surrounds us. As a concise response to the prompt, I would argue that knowledge is not a mere systematic organization of facts because other human factors must be applied for the knowledge to be wholesome and emerge in the first place. The claim that stands for the Natural Sciences to be considered rigid is understandable, but this is simply because the scientific process is one that requires high levels of precision and the ability to detect, calculate and record changes are all innate to a science. Adding to this, knowledge in the natural sciences generally comes in the form of quantitative knowledge, rather than qualitative - seeing as the latter would be deemed too unreliable to be used for the functions that science holds, such as medicine, astronomy etc. The natural sciences are dependent on precise equipment and people to carry out experiments to reach their final goal of gathering information in order to make it applicable in real-life situations. Yet I disagree with the author of the quote because the scientific process requires ulterior thinking methods such as reasoning, intuition and a certain extent of faith in order to idealize theories and come up with what become laws in science. I want to put the example the simple process of creating a "design lab" for biology. When told to do this, we are given a basic scientific theory and our task is to invent an experiment, which should successfully demonstrate the principal. Yes, when I am constructing the lab I do have several factors that I know have to be put in place for the experiment to work. But the knowledge aspect sees eye-to-eye in sense of importance with the aspects of creativity and reasoning. The two latter aspects are also forms of knowledge: imagination and logic. Therefore, the point is proven that even in a rigid atmosphere where variables must be controlled in order to produce correct results; the scientist as an individual is in charge of contributing the other skills and merely applying them to the "systematic organization of facts" which is the prior knowledge acquired from studying. Nevertheless, the factual prior knowledge is undoubtedly the base for the scientist's experiment, and without it, or without the need to corroborate it; the nature of the experiment would be irrelevant to begin with. For example, without knowing that osmosis is the natural movement of water molecules from a high concentration gradient to a low concentration gradient (Allot, Andrew), then an experiment would not be put in place to begin with, and the scientist would be ignorant as to how the theory would be proven, because there is no claim to substantiate.

When speaking of art (visual arts specifically) and the knowledge we are able to gain from it, generally, it has been accepted that the knowledge is more subjective. Personally, I believe the knowledge that shines through in art, is generally knowledge of ourselves, which is being revealed through the piece - this can also be called self awareness. Similarly to this, when an artist is successful and achieves a "good" art piece, their transmission of knowledge onto the canvas, into their music or their performance comes from an intrinsic quality which can also be called talent, and talent does not come from facts. In a documentary based on the life and paintings by Mark Rothco, the artist himself claims: "And the fact that a lot of people break down and cry when confronted with my pictures shows that I can communicate those basic human emotions (.) And if you, as you say, are moved only by their color relationship, then you miss the point." (Power of Art) This statement further substantiates my claim that in art, the relevance of the "facts", which in this case are the color relationships, does not hold the same power than it does in other areas of knowledge, seeing as the artist himself states that the mere sequence of colors, which many consider to be the holistic art piece- is truly not the intended message; but rather, the enriching experience of finding yourself by means of the emotions transmitted through the art piece. Still and all, even though an artist's message can be transmitted to an "ignorant" spectator, the experience may become all the more enriching when fueled with background knowledge that may contextualize the piece, or give insight into the artist's state of mind. One of my favorite places in Paris is Place de la Concorde. The four times that I have been to the city; it was the first stop in my itinerary. I always found the erection of an Egyptian obelisk in the center of Paris to be extremely quirky, and so I was always attracted to it- not to mention the beauty in he combination of black and gold-plated statues adorning the plaza. It was only until two years ago that I came to know that in the very place where I stood looking towards Champs Elysées, was the site of Marie Antoinette and King Louis XVI were executed during the French revolution (Experience Paris). Needless to say, this piece of factual information contextualizes and enriches my artistic experience: terminating with the deduction that facts and art do go together, but the former is not necessary for the later to be successful, and certainly the lack of definite structure or facts in art, to my mind, does not disqualify or undervalue the knowledge attained. Deriving from this, facts in the visual arts are not only present when providing historical context, but rather, there are canons, which clearly determine visual beauty or define talent. An example of this is The Rule of Thirds. This is a theory in design, art and photography about the placement of figures in a specific proportion to take up a third of the canvas. In Krage's words, the rule of thirds "often results in images that have a more pleasing visual balance" (Krages, 9) although this canon is not a law by which to abide, and the absence of it would not create "ugly" or visually displeasing art, it has been proven scientifically that even humans with "golden ratios" are more beautiful, objectively. "Studies have shown that when test subjects view random faces, the ones they deem most attractive are those with solid parallels to the Golden ratio." (Hom, Web.) Procuring from this, we can say that facts in the form of rules can be applicable to the arts. This debate and comparison between knowledge in the natural sciences veruss the arts is essential because the arts are generally looked down upon as being a lesser form of knowledge, rather than the sciences, which require a large capability of memorization, rather than arbitrary and subjective "talent". What I imply through this is that by my statement that both the sciences and arts benefit from knowledge and input that is not merely factual, and that they both do require facts to a certain extent to be successful - places both areas of knowledge on a near to even playing field. I believe the beginning statement is too recalcitrant, but this may be because the author was only considering a limited array of areas of knowledge - but I think that after analyzing science's limitations without imagination or initiative, and the true essence of knowledge attained from art, as well as canons in art, and basic proportions which are innate in making art successful - it becomes apparent that no, knowledge is not a mere systematic organization of facts because other human factors have to be applied for the knowledge to be wholesome, in both areas of knowledge.

Works Cited

? "French Revolution." Experience Paris. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Dec. 2013. ? Power of Art 8 - Rothko. Perf. Simon Schama. BBC, 2006. ? Krages, Bert P. Photography: The Art of Composition. New York: Allworth, 2005. Print. ? Hom, Elaine J. "What Is the Golden Ratio?" LiveScience.com. Live Science, 24 June 2013. Web. 08 Dec. 2013. ? Allott, Andrew. IB Biology. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007. Print.