July 27
To know what one knows, and to know what one does not know — that is knowledge.
Analects (freely rendered)
Listening mode
To know what one knows, and to know what one does not know — that is knowledge.
Someone asks you how a zipper actually works. You use one every day, and at first the answer seems as close as the jacket you're wearing. After two sentences you notice that you're only describing what happens: the teeth mesh. Why they hold, you couldn't say.
From the inside, familiarity feels almost exactly like knowledge. Both are calm, neither asks questions. Only when you have to explain something to someone else does it become clear which of the two you had all along.
This test, however, also misleads in the other direction. You recognize a person's voice on the phone after a single word, and yet you could hardly find a sentence to describe it. Here explanation fails even though you are certain, and rightly so.
So the line between what you know and what is merely familiar to you does not simply lie where your words run out.
Later you go outside and zip up your jacket, with the same certainty as always.
