Recalling the circumstances of getting knowledge

Post Reply New Topic

Do you remember in what circumstances you absorbed some shreds of the knowledge you possess? I in many cases am able to vividly recall the situations in which I got to know this or that, including how old I was at this moment and from where I got this knowledge. For example, to show what I mean by this, I remember the moment I was in the common room of my elementary school, at the age of 10, maybe 11, reading "Flame" - a teen magazine, the issues of which were laying on the shelves in there. Old issues, already at least 10 years old, at the time when I was thumbing them; my peers. On the first page they had a section entitled: "For the curious - curious matters", containing, as the title promised, many curious details on stuff, trivia. I remember it was from where I found out back then that the tip of the nose is the coldest point of human body (just 36 degrees Celcius) or that most inhabitants of Łapy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%81apy have their last name Łapiński. Do you remember such cases?

Yes, I usually remember where I've read something, and often I remember the author's name and where the info was located on the page. It used to drive my ex crazy when we would argue and I would ask him to cite his sources and he couldn't--losing by default even when he was correct. But that's how I realized that other seemingly intelligent people didn't take note of where they learned things but just absorbed them by gestalt or something.

Circumstances differ and kind of knowledge differ. I seriously doubt if there is a general statement (other than trivial remarks) that are germane to knowledge.

ruveyn

I almost always remember where information was on a page in a book (really handy on open-book tests back in high school ).

I can remember things that I've read years ago, and where I was when I was reading that information, like it was only yesterday.

My first obsession with knowledge/books was the "Encyclopedia Brown" series in public school. I read all of them.

Not many. My papa lecturing me on regular correspondence in IndoEuropean reconstruction, realizing Luyi lives, that sort of thing.

Yeah I can remember lots of learning moments. I remember being about 4 or 5 and my mother talking about the weather. I did not speak but I remember thinking that the "weather" was a TV ariel on the roof of a house across the road that was rocking from side to side in the wind (she was looking at it at the time). And for a while after that I thought the weather was that tv ariel.

So thats a memory of mis-learning!