Why the benefit of hindsight and not of the benefit of knowledge?

Answer 1

I think knowledge is limited in that it is not always experienced firsthand (impersonal) but hindsight implies personal involvement (been there done that) and provides a personal view. I believe this is the reason we do not pay attention to people (especially parents) warning us about falling into the same harmful practices as they once did/ still do. They speak through hindsight but to us it simply implies knowledge that has everything to do with them - not us. The logical response is, I hear what you are saying but I am not you. We always think we can do better until we experience and have the benefit of hindsight - our hindsight. I learn through experience and knowledge only aids choice at best. Does that make any sense?

Answer 2

I'm not sure what you are trying to ask here, but I'l give it a try...


The benefit og hindsight is that you can learn from what you didn't do in a situation. You may be smarter the next time, remembering what went wrong, or should have been done otherwise

the benefit of knowledge is that you might not even need to do something wrong to learn from it. But if you were in a situation where you saw what you could have done better, then that will be your knowledge - so these two are more or less the same thing, exept that the first needs one fail try first

Of course all in all the benefit of knowledge is better than the benefit of hindsight, because you don't have to fail the first time to learn from it.
But then again, having knowledge about something does not always guarantee you that you will make the best decision or action. Some times you need to experience something first to have a fulll knowledge (practice, not just theoretically), and if you do not achieve hindisght afterwards, you might not learn from it.

So in this way, it might be better to learn from both hindsight and knowledge, instead of just knowledge, because then you have a full knowledge - both theory and pracitce - and it is powerful to learn from ones mistakes (if you are smart enough to learn from your mistakes)

Answer 3

But the hindsight of today is the knowledge for tomorrow. We live, we learn, and if we're smart, we benefit from the hindsight and don't make the same mistake more than once! We can't know everything beforehand, it'd take the adventure out of life! We wouldn't have "Funniest Home Videos" if we knew in advance! Nobody would voluntarily stand in front of the video camera if he knew the camel was going to spit in his mouth and his wife was going to send it to tv for the nation to watch! Pinata's would be extinct! Bikes and horses would have been banned before they were ridden if we had had prior warning of how many times we'd be chucked off them. And marriage would never have happened if we knew in advance that our hearts were going to end up being kicked through cow turds for years!
Life is meant to be a lesson and an adventure, and though it's hard sometimes, it's all for a reason!

Have fun!

Answer 4

Knowledge is just facts and figures.
Many over educated people are worthless in the job market or even in daily life They have no experience or common sense and never developed wisdom.
Wisdom is the ability to use knowledge effectively.

The Chinese have a saying,

"For knowledge, learn something every day.
For wisdom, forget something every day."

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Answer 5

because knowledge can only give you a certain amount of information whereas hindsight would give you a view of how a specific situation is going to work out therefore with it you could modify you're actions to counter any eventuality, i.e. the ability to see into the future

Answer 6

Just an off-the-cuff guess, but I believe that lessons people learn the hard way make a much more lasting impression. It's one thing to read about something or to have someone tell you about it, but actually experiencing it for yourself makes a world of difference.

Answer 7

Surely its the same thing really, ie if youd had the knowledge in the past to deal with certain things, you could deal with them differently.

Answer 8

better to learn and gain knowledge from making your own mistakes.

Answer 9

Personally I prefer foresight.

Answer 10

~Because we aren't God.~