Is knowledge worth anything if it's not applied in the real world?

Question

Wouldn't ignorance accomplish the very same task?

That's my point...

How is knowledge worth ANYTHING if it's only posessed but not used?

It doesn't take a lot to educate yourself. But it does take something to apply your knowledge to reality.

Answer 1

I think snowflake has the key here. You dont know whats going to apply.

You are also being vague on what applied means, and what knowlege means. Those are both very complex philosophical ideas with a variety of very different interpretations.

The mathematics of affine transformations were the happy hunting ground of mathematicians for a long time before anyone in fluids realized how important they were. The ideas were well developed by bright people long before they were ever applied to the real world.

If it wasn't developed, then it could never have been applied. If the paradigm saying ignorance was better was applied there, then that area of math would never have been developed.

Justice is important. In a human world it needs to be enforced; there need to be watchers. Who watches the watchers ... who watch the watchers .. who watch the people. In the real world there are and must be watchers. There are and must be watchers who watch the watchers. Is justice perfectly achieved, and injustice perfectly punished by the current human system? I dont think so.

Some people say that enforcement of justice should not be necessary, that people should be better than that. When katrina hit, and that town went feral for a few months, the people, people just like you and me, started tribes and lived feral. The idea about how the reality should be radically broke down, and left hundreds or thousands of people without a functional system, without a plan b. The worth of the valid principle was unattainable.

How do you know that something is knowlege, or that it is applied or not? Just like justice, there must be a real paradigm that you operate by. Just like justice, the real-world is messy, inefficient, and the excellent valid principle is unattainable.

Solomon, who is rumored to be wise, said "cast your bread on many waters". In other words, spread a wide net, or diversify.

My real-world suggestion is you have to invest on things that dont return, because some of them will return in ways you do not expect. You have to act in ways that look like ignorance, of course not as the centroid or norm, in order to get the true maximum of what the wise can get.

Answer 2

Some knowledge is too advanced to be applied. Many major discoveries in Physics were applied 50 years after the discovery. This is an example of knowledge that is not applied at the moment but worth a lot for the future.

Answer 3

Is your question about the understanding that maybe derived from the known and the direct action.

An educated person is what? Someone who has read a great deal of what someone else has to say? Capacity to argue with reason and logic? Capacity to remember? I agree if all this is education then its not difficult to most people.

Question is, is that education? To educe? 'Bring forth' as much as 'fill up'.

Knowledge needn't be factual or true. Wouldn't it be ignorant to directly apply knowledge without first being clear on whether it is true or false.

Are you speaking of knowledge as in information about the outside world? Or are you speaking of knowledge as in psychological, knowledge about me?

If we see something as false or dangerous is it foolish to continue? i guess yes would be the answer?

So why is it that our history reads like it does?

Seems that ignorance does accomplish something, more of the same old.

Knowledge is 21st century tool of the caveman, is he yet intelligent enough to apply it in goodness?

Answer 4

Some knowledge is better not implemented. Or would you then call nuclear proliferation a source of non-knowledge?

Although I share the view that asceticism is a foul virtue, there are no value-judgments inherent in systems of reasoning. A knowledge can have worth if used merely theoretically, it can contain worth simply sitting on a shelf in potentiality, as a diamond necklace in a vault. Because it has the promise of utilization even in antimony to its meaning.

Surely worth isn't fixed by knowledge-itself. Knowledge is for-the-sake-of something. That is, the worth may be as yet unknown while the promise remains. Or all accounts aiming at explanation reveal nature in an aspect, and in their aim hold the purpose fast.

"What is the worth if not for us, now?"

This is why philosophy is not a subject for humanities...

Answer 5

If you hold the knowledge about something worthwhile within yourself and not apply it for the good of the majority or even a few, then that knowledge is worthless. What if scientists or teachers did not pass on what they have accomplished to benefit the rest of us, what would have been our outcome? No cars, no understanding of life, etc. The list is infinite, really.

I cannot see ignorance accomplishing anything of value.

There is no parallel between ignorance and accomplishment.

Answer 6

I suppose it's not.
Trouble is that it's sometimes harder to find a way to apply knowledge in real life. Some knowledge isn't usefull in real life - unfortunately - more trivial...
But if only few people can find a way to apply their knowledge, it's maybe a good thing that many try to get the knowledge. The more the knowledge is known, the more chance someone will use it in real life... And that can only be good for the rest of us.

Answer 7

Interesting question. When you say "worth anything" you have to define your currency. If you study a topic because you find it personally enlightening and interesting to think about, would it be worth something to you? Or would you need to be able to apply that knowledge to others and the outside world for it to be worth something? Your question seems to suggest that you value knowledge by social usefulness, in which case the answer is no.

Answer 8

I find it would be impossible to possess knowledge that could not be applied in the "real world". If it's not something that has or could be applied in some situation, it simply cannot exist. If it's nothing to apply or be applied, I feel we would be incapable of noticing or agreeing with its existence. So, every bit of knowledge we have is worth something, even if very little.

Answer 9

Knowledge is just knowledge. There are a lot of people who know information and think that they are intelligent. True intelligence only shows when something is done with the knowledge.

Answer 10

Some knowledge awaits application. Some knowledge has no apllication, but leads to further knowledge which has an application. If you are ignorant, you will never know if one of these cases applies. Ignorance leads nowhere.