Investivation, Objective Observation And Active Experiment?

To define what is and what is not included in the extent of how knowledge is produced, the different kinds of abilities used to manufacture knowledge must be known. One stance on the issue states that producing what we know can only be done in two ways: passive observation and active experiment. The two supposed ways humankind creates all knowledge it possesses are, in my judgement, correct. I believe that the broad expanse of what humans know can indeed be filed under the two given categories due to how wide the subjects are. In order to defend the stance taken, the definition of passive observation, active experiment, the relation of the prior two, the possible flaws with the argument, and if anything is not within the two subjects must …show more content…
The first of the two listed, passive observation, is a two word phrase worth more than million words. Performing anything passively means to do so with an inactive manor. To display an example of pasive observation, I was recently walking to the street curb with the garbage when I happened to acknowledge a new occurrence in the neighborhood. The house across from ours, neglected by the bank who had forgotten to refurbish it, had been fixed, bought, and occupied. Acknowledging the new people residing across from us was not done by scourring the phone book or going door to door to keep up on the local population. Gaining the knowledge was completely incidental, as I did not intentionally or originally seek the knowledge. Knowing that the street is slightly more occupied was completely dependent on me deciding to move the garbage. Nothing was done by intention in relation to gaining the new knowledge. Passive experiment has no kicker, no catalyst, and no consequences outside of learning something new which was never planned to be …show more content…
When looking at the definitions of active experiment and passive observation on a visual level, the answer to whether any gained knowledge can be found elsewhere becomes more obvious. If active experimentation and passive observation are two seperate cones of ideas that expand down upon the thoughts within their territory, and one of the two cannot exist inside the other, then thoughts can be visualized as existing in either one of the two ever-expanding influential cones, impossible to exist in both. Considering that 'passive ' and 'active ' can describe the two phases humans can exist in, the spheres of influence give a simple view of two options gaining knowledge can go into. The categories are horrifyingly massive and endlessly deep, but still originate from two points. No matter how deep or abstract the example seems, it will eventually relate back to an origin. In terms of a visual graph, the situation can perhaps be efficiently described by saying that passive observation is on the x axis, and active experiment can by on the y axis. Which axis which idea is on is irrelevant, but what matters is that no knowledge is without one of two origins. Just as a number set can be drawn on a graph, maybe a straight line or maybe a parabola, all knowledge gained can be