"At what point do I have enough to say that I have
made a significant
addition to understanding whatever it is that I
have chosen to study?"
John makes a quick segue from the type of factual
knowledge held in an understanding of a subway
system to the kind of "knowledge" that Turner may
have held in completing a watercolor. It made me
uneasy so I have to pick at his idea a bit.
The subway knowledge is analytical and process
oriented. We learn the components and extend that
knowledge outward, e.g., subway car
interior--->function of subway car
seating--->ergonomics of subway car
seats--->material design of subway car seats. The
subway car interior arrow ---> could have gone to
car lighting or to hand-rungs or to any other
components of the subway car because the
knowledge is analysis of a process based on
current knowledge of material physics.
The Turner knowledge is synthetic (if it is
knowledge). We learn to see and learn to paint
what we can see, so we can learn to see and again
paint what we see. Painting a sunrise over a
harbor, Turner finishes when he best captures what
he has seen and has been able to paint. If there
were a process arrow ---> here, it would spiral in
and out of the acts of seeing and painting.
The learning never stops, agreed, but it's not the
same kind of learning. Though one innovation in
subway cars might trigger other innovations in
other aspects of the subway cars and influence
changes in the entire subway system, the synthesis
would occur in bits and pieces, the work of many
people, and be governed by material physics
advances rather than a way of seeing.
Put another way, I learn more and more about the
subway. Soon I become knowledgeable about the
subway. Turner, however, was as knowledgeable
about his first painting as he was about his
fiftieth painting. Why? Because the knowledge (if
it is knowledge) of that first painting is not the
same knowledge as the knowledge of the fiftieth
painting.
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