Knowledge today is confused with information. We have mountains of information and scarcely any knowledge. What we desperately need is knowledge.
The printing press and the internet allow us to store what we have learned and pass information down to future generations easily. Information has built the world as it is today. Information allows us to create things in form (information). Information allows us to build things: roads, bridges, buildings, cars, computers. It gives us know-how: knowing how to build or create something (in form.)
Much information comes from science. There is no certainty in science, only (probable) theories. These can be argued about, and they can be disproved, and in time many of them are disproved. The history of science, after all, is the story of us learning new things that eventually make previous humans and theories look dumb. (Yet we foolishly cling to our current theories like preachers clinging to the Bible. I know – the irony!)
A different aspect of information is the information that comes from reporting, say news, or from the internet more generally, or from a friend(-of-a-friend), or your brother-in-law's ex-wife's hairdresser's sister: from people reporting what they saw or think or heard, or sharing what they (think they) know. This too can be argued about, rejected, disputed and disproved.
Knowledge is different, and is primary. Knowledge comes from experience. If you’ve felt a flame on your skin, you will avoid it at all costs in the future. This type of learning is utterly different to learning information. If someone tries to deny the fact that flames hurt, you won't debate with them. There is no discussion to be had, no argument, no theory, no second-hand reporting of events, no dispute, no proving or disproving. Nor is it a matter of opinion.
Perhaps for a while you may engage in conversation with this person; maybe out of curiosity. But after a while you will stop. Because there is no point arguing about something that you have knowledge of. You don’t argue about things you know. You only argue about information and its children: your opinions, your interpretations, and your points of view. Knowledge, unlike information, is incontrovertible.
The glut of information we’ve collected over the past 500 years has made our lives much more convenient and has brought many blessings, but it’s not made our lives obviously better. All this information, after all, has led to ‘The Age of Anxiety.’ Our outer world is better in many respects; but our inner world is filled with more fear, confusion, anxiety, and loneliness.
The chart below shows the occurence of these words in our literary output (our literary output being an indicator of the contents of human consciousness.) They have exploded in frequency since the introduction of computers to the mainstream in the mid-to-late 1990s, along with the unprecedented deluge of information they brought with them.
Information is helpful for many things but it's inadequate on its own. A civilization that glorifies information leaves us lost and empty, because information can only tell us how to do things in the world - it doesn't fulfil us. What fulfils us are things like harmony, connection, meaning, generosity, inspiration, and beauty. There is no degree for those things.
Information needs to be balanced by knowledge. The question of 'what knowledge' will require another post. But given knowledge comes from experience, a question as good or better is: 'what experience(s) do people need to have?' Experiences that bring us things like 'connection, meaning, generosity, inspiration, and beauty' will certainly help. Experiences that bring the opposite of these will help too, because the experience of suffering pushes us inevitably towards looking more deeply for answers.