The main reason knowledge is
produced is to solve problems.
there is a lot of knowledge that has absolutely no use, its purely due to
personal motivations
science
Ig Nobel prize
knowledge could be produced to highlight problems instead of solving problems, but highlighting a
problem might be seen as an important step to solving a problem.
art examples
conflict journalist
Guernica (overused)
science examples
knowledge can be produced through
serendipity, which solves problem that it was
not intended for
post-it example
Silver was working at 3M trying to create super strong adhesives for use
in the aerospace industry in building planes. Instead of a super strong
adhesive, though, he accidentally managed to create an incredibly weak,
pressure sensitive adhesive agent called Acrylate Copolymer
Microspheres. This adhesive did not interest 3M management as it was
seen as too weak to be useful. It did have two interesting features,
though. The first is that, when stuck to a surface, it can be peeled away
without leaving any residue. Specifically, the acrylic spheres only stick
well to surfaces where they are tangent to the surface, thus allowing
weak enough adhesion to be able to be peeled easily. The second big
feature is that the adhesive is re-usable, thanks to the fact that the
spheres are incredibly strong and resist breaking, dissolving, or melting.
Despite these two notable features, no one, not even Silver himself, could
think up a good marketable use for it. Thus, even with Silver promoting
Ever wonder why the standard color for Post-It notes is yellow? It turns
out this was kind of an accident as well. The official story from some at
3M is that it was because it created a “good emotional connection with
users” and that it would “contrast well stuck to white paper”. However,
according to Geoff Nicholson there was no such thought given to the
color. The real reason Post-It notes were yellow was simply because the
lab next door to where they were working on the Post-It note “had some
scrap yellow paper – that’s why they were yellow; and when we went
back and said ‘hey guys, you got any more scrap yellow paper?’ they said
‘you want any more go buy it yourself’, and that’s what we did, and that’s
why they were yellow. To me it was another one of those incredible
accidents. It was not thought out; nobody said they’d better be yellow
rather than white because they would blend in – it was a pure accident.”
Now enter the second accident by chemical engineer Art Fry. Besides
working at 3M as a Product Development Engineer and being familiar
with Silver’s adhesive thanks to attending one of Silver’s seminars on the
low-tack adhesive, he also sung in a church choir in St. Paul, Minnesota.
One little problem he continually had to deal with was accidentally losing
his song page markers in his hymn book while singing, with them falling
out of the hymnal. From this, he eventually had the stroke of genius to
use some of Silver’s adhesive to help keep the slips of paper in the
hymnal. Fry then suggested to Nicholson and Silver that they were using
the adhesive backwards. Instead of sticking the adhesive to the bulletin
board, they should “put it on a piece of paper and then we can stick it to
anything.”
why the view that
knowledge solves
problems
art
can fulfil human emotional needs
artistic expression
music is an innate part of humans
evokes emotions in audience members, happy, sad,
provides entertainment, which can be seen as a problem that is
worth of ‘solving’ whats life without entertainment
science
The natural sciences as a whole aims to produce explanations
about how the natural world works and how it came to be this way.
The first step of the scientific process is to make observations in
nature. Then a scientist would ask questions and formulate
hypotheses about why things are the way they are.
based on a problem
maths
is there a clear reason
why knowledge is
produced to solve
problems
cast doubt on this view
The aims of virtually all the human sciences are the same: to
explain human behaviour, formulate theories to predict it, and
then develop remedies for the problems identified by those
predictions.
definitions
produce knowledge means coming up with new undiscovered knowledge
a matter or situation regarded as unwelcome or harmful and needing
to be dealt with and overcome
The reason we like puzzles is it helps us bring order to life. You are
faced with problems every day in life. Most of them don’t have
clear-cut solutions, and in most of them we’re only involved in a
portion of solving the problem. If you’re trying to figure out what’s the
best way to help your kid with homework, or what’s the fastest way to
run errands downtown, you just muddle through the best you can and
move on to the next thing. With a puzzle, you find the perfect
solution, and you’ve achieved perfection. That’s something we don’t
often get in life. It’s very tidy. You feel in control.
not all problems are straighforward, easy to
solve. some problems require lots of time,
involves many aspects
solving one part of the problem not equals to solving the problem
even though certain
knowledge might have been
able to solve problems, when it
was initially produced, it was
not to solve the problem