And what about forgetting?

We spend all our lives striving to learn: learning at school, learning on the job, learning to better relate to people, traveling to accrue an understanding of the world. All kinds of learning going on.

But forgetting is more in character with our condition.

For those of us with a few years under our belts, ask yourselves this: how much have you forgotten?

It's hard to know: one because a big part of forgetting is ... forgetting.

And two: the amount of knowledge we've forgotten must be enormous.

The other day I re-read my PhD dissertation. I couldn't understand big chunks of it; I don't even remember writing those sentences.

Plato once said that our store of knowledge is like an aviary, with each bird in it representing a piece of knowledge. This explains why sometimes you can't recall facts that you know you know: you can't catch that particular bird in your aviary at the time you need it.

Nice try, Plato. What he didn't account for is that most of the birds have flown the coop.

Why do humans forget? How do we forget?

And because we forget, what is the nature of knowing? What exactly does it mean to know something? When we say we know something, how much do we know it? In what way do we know it?

What is "it" that we know?

We were sitting on the couch this morning, and our black cat KoKo jumped onto our laps and nuzzled up against us.

"Do you think she is friendlier than Balak?" I asked Valerie. (Balak was the other black "tuxedo" cat we had years ago).

"I just don't remember," she said.

Logos2Go

Ecclesiastes 1.11 There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after.

Ephesians 1.16-17 I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him ...

Ephesians 3.19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Plato, Thaeatetus 197(e)-199(b)