Up: [[Thinking]] Created: 2023-04-29 Updated: 2025-02-18 > [!Orbit] Umberto Eco in *Foucault’s Pendulum* > Any fact becomes important when it’s connected to another. I only recently stumbled across this quote and my university days are long over, but it’s one of those meaty statements that has me imagining it as an exam question followed by the word ‘Discuss.’ I’d actually like to discuss it because I think it’s true but incomplete. There’s more than one way of knowing, more than one way of making sense of ourselves and our world. Facts are far from the only things we connect, and importance pales in comparison to meaning, which is the real human motivation for knowledge building. I’m not ready to get into the sticky distinctions between knowledge and wisdom. Maybe that’s what I’m talking about here, but I don’t think so. I’m suggesting that the word ‘knowledge’ needs to be reserved for a knowing that is deep in your bones. There’s superficial knowing, sufficient to pass an exam or hold up your end in a dinner party conversation. And then there’s the knowing that is borne of deep experience, passion, or expertise. A really simple example is the knowing I have of [[Kris Kristofferson]]. It far exceeds what can be known about the man by reading magazine articles and watching interviews. And I think that while it’s just a small example, it illustrates that [[No Knowledge Can Be Produced by a Single Way of Knowing]].