Monday, April 13, 2009

"Knowing"


" 
We used to go up to the Catskill Mountains for vacations. In New York, you go the Catskill Mountains for vacations. The poor husbands had to go to work during the week, but they would come rushing out for weekends and stay with their families. On the weekends, my father would take me for walks in the woods. He often took me for walks, and we learned all about nature, and so on, in the process. But the other children, friends of mine also wanted to go, and tried to get my father to take them. He didn't want to, because he said I was more advanced.


So we went alone for our walk in the woods. But mothers were very powerful in those day's as they are now, and they convinced the other fathers that they had to take their own sons out for walks in the woods. So all fathers took all sons out for walks in the woods one Sunday afternoon. The next day, Monday, we were playing in the fields and this boy said to me, "See that bird standing on the stump there? What's the name of it?"
I said, "I haven't got the slightest idea."
He said, "It’s a brown-throated thrush. Your father doesn't teach you a thing!."
That evening I asked my father, why he never told me the name of the bird. He asked me, "What was the first thing you noticed about it?" 
"Well, it flies ... , which is kind of strange.... " , I answered.
Father replied with a wry smile, "It's a brown-throated thrush, but in Germany it's called a halsenflugel, and in Chinese they call it a chung ling and even if you know all those names for it, you still know nothing about the bird--you only know something about people; what they call that bird. Now that thrush sings, and teaches its young to fly, and flies so many miles away during the summer across the country, and nobody knows how it finds its way."
There is a difference between the name of the thing and what goes on."
This an anecdote from Mr. Richard P. Feynman's life. He was a physicist. I am not preaching science. This is just for those people who don't know enough about a certain thing, but consider themselves right in forming illogical opinions about it, coating the partial knowledge they have with figments of their own imaginations. Fine, even if forming opinions about just another thing you know "the name of" satisfies your ego, go ahead smart-asses! But don't try to preach your incomplete knowledge as if you are the ultimate authority.You might be diluting the essence of things.


10 comments:

Photogenic Devil said...

there u go again

nice anecdote - completely agree with most of it infact

one question , my emerging physicist???
what is so wrong about wanting to know about people ??
and why is knowing about people not that important/?

also - do u really believe that some one else's imagination can dilute your thought ?? are'nt u just trying to hide the indiscrepancy of your own belief ?? your own knowledge???

think about it - would like to know the answer.

p.s. who did that to you waise?? who could make u feel that u didnt knw enough about sumthing??

Siddhant said...

You misunderstood me perhaps. I didn't say knowing people is wrong.
There is a difference between "wanting" to know people (yes there is definitely nothing wrong about that) and "claiming" to know people or things or concepts.
The whole point is sometimes people are so fascinated by the imagination of "knowing" something that their "want" to know does not remain anymore, and only the thought that they actually know .... remains ...
I am not sure about how important knowing (people) is ... I like when people believe in me, more than when people claim to "know" me. only my opinion...
Yes ... someone else's thought or imagination can dilute one's own thought .... i've seen it happening to a lot of people...
Speaking about myself, there are people who have affected my thought. But I tend to re-evaluate what I believe in whenever such a thing happens (though seldom), and generally end up re-affirming my own beliefs.
Indiscrepancy in my own belief?
"Belief" does not go in the same sentence as "indescrepancy". I think I gaurd my beliefs well.
Well the trigger to this post was Feynman's interview that I read. It was good to see someone else thinks the same way.
I don't know enough about so many things. But I want to know. And I am trying to know.
Many a times in my school life, I have faced teachers and other people who just didn't answer my questions, didn't help me try to know what I wanted to. It would have been allright had they told me they don't know. Or this was what they believed in. They told me that I don't need to know more than what they told me. I kind of didn't like that. Did not think it was right, because most around me actually tried to believe in just just what they heard.
Nonetheless I have found teachers and people who have helped me try to know. But only a few.

Siddhant said...

and I know I am not any emerging physicist. I like Physics.

Siddhant said...

"next incident" won't happen ... pata naheen kitna mil hi paayein ab ..
zyaada naheen likhoonga ... senti ho jaayega ... :) ..

IIT achha to naheen hua ... but it was not disastrous also ...

elsewhere .. meri T-shirts ka size 'L' se 'XL' ho gaya hai .. :(

tumhaare boards kaise hue waise?

Photogenic Devil said...

boards
were done and over with thats it

watever

nice to see u loose hope that easily

i dont give on ppl siddhant
if i want to meet u - i will be willing to risk another incident
dont talk stupidly ok
not u atleast

i have to meet u
atleast once
to talk - and this time u will talk
i dont give on ppl - least of all who mean sumthing to me , and to whom i mean sumthing
understand

Siddhant said...

Understood!! .. :D

Photogenic Devil said...

better
and stop being a wimp and deleting my comments

u owe that to me -
and nyways - dont think nyone who knows us has time enuf to chek out the space - so relax

Siddhant said...

ok .. if you say so,
But all this goes down as comments on the post "Knowing" ... a little wierd I thought.
wiki says a wimp is cowardly or unadventurous individual....
=_= .. I can't be a wimp ...

Photogenic Devil said...

tumhari marzi
tumhara blog hain after all

Siddhant said...

haan ...