What is knowledge?

            We say that we know something but it can still surprise us. We say that we know something but then someone can prove it wrong. Our knowledge fails us all the time. So how can we say that we have knowledge? How do you prove it?

It is very correct to say that you can’t fully know something or someone. So how can we say that we know things? We can say that we know things because we aren’t saying that we know all the possibilities and functions of those things. We are saying that we are familiar with that thing. That means that we have seen it, had an experience with it, or someone told us about it. We have familiarized ourselves with that thing enough to be able to reasonably predict its function or actions. The way that we familiarize ourselves with something is by testing it. You know that a chocolate chip cookie tastes good because you tested the taste when you ate it. Testing leads to an experience of that thing. This leads to knowledge.

When you know something you are familiar with it. You have some kind of interaction with it either it was direct or indirect. If you look at knowledge this way, we know a great deal of things. We can know things that we’ve heard about or read in a book and still call it knowledge because through that person or book, you experienced that thing. That is knowledge.