307. Thirst For Knowledge

Our desire for knowledge is insatiable. We are endlessly curious about the world and we want to understand it. The strength of our desire comes from seeing the practical value of knowledge — using knowledge, we can do things we wouldn’t otherwise be able to do.

But just like any other desire, the desire for knowledge can be dangerous. It becomes dangerous when we become attached to it and we begin to see knowledge as an end in itself. Our attachment causes us to restrict our attention and manipulate our actions towards knowing more and more. We start to value knowledge above other things, including care and compassion for ourselves and others.

We might think that by knowing more we also become more aware. But knowledge is not awareness. Knowledge is a tool that awareness can employ, but it is always only a tool. Awareness is not practical in the way knowledge is, and it cannot be communicated directly in the way knowledge can be shared. Awareness is the intuitive result of attention to experience, whereas knowledge is the logical result of practice and reason.

Attachment to our desire for knowledge also means that we often see our knowledge as being more certain and conclusive than it actually is. When we learn something about the natural world through the methods of science, we generally expect that result to be repeatable and reliable. But much of the knowledge we obtain is not actually about the natural world but about the human-constructed world of norms and systems. Our obsession with knowledge causes us to conflate the two, to see the world of norms to be just as fixed and final as the world of science.

Everything we know about norms and systems is always only a feature of our current construction and thus it could be otherwise. In fact, it would be otherwise if we collectively agreed to use different norms or systems. But the natural world cannot be changed in this way — if we decide it is otherwise, our knowledge would simply lose its practical value.

We need to remember that norms and systems are contingent entities, so that we do not fall into the trap of thinking they are fixed and therefore unchangeable. But seeing this requires us to create space from our desire for knowledge. We must recognize the dangers attachment to it can bring, and in doing so allow ourselves the chance to be free of it.