Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Experientially

​I've noticed...that what I know the most, I know experientially.

I go for a run nearly every day. Because I do, I have come to know certain things about myself - about my mind, my emotions, my body - particularly as it relates to running.  In other words, some of the things I know in this way, I would not know about myself, if I didn't run.

I know some things (not enough) about photography.  But, while I know about them cognitively, I really don't understand how they work together.  I have found that mostly I just have to try things with my own camera before I can figure out how it works. Once I do this and how the concepts inter-relate with each other, then I start to know photography, not simply about it.  But, this doesn't really happen, at least at any deep level, until I spend time doing it.

If this is true, imagine what the implications are for other, perhaps more significant, domains of knowing something; like relationships or God. Some, for example, believe this is the only kind of knowing one can really have with God - an experiential knowing of him.

We most often know, what we know experientially.