Stress Academy Presents:
Web Series – The Story of Stress
Part 1 – Understanding Stress
Episode 7 – How Does Awareness or Knowledge Form?
In this video, we will understand and characterize knowledge. We consider awareness to be one aspect of knowledge, therefore we will use a word knowledge instead of awareness from here onwards.
But, wait a second? Why do we need to understand the process of gaining knowledge to tackle stress? Let’s consider a scenario. You are taking a walk in the park along with your friends and suddenly you see a snake in some distance. You get alarmed and inform your friends of this dangerous situation ahead. After looking at it, your friends respond that it is just a black curved rope and not a snake. You look again carefully and realize that indeed it is not a snake. So your wrong knowledge led you to be fearful in this situation. Could you have done something different about how you perceived this object? or Do you think the misperception was inevitable and solely due to your senses and brain functions? Let’s try to find out.
Can knowledge be simply described as just consisting of inputs gathered by sense organs and their communication to the brain? In order to answer this question, we need to understand the fundamental difference between “information” and “knowledge”. Routinely, these two words are used interchangeably. However, in technical terms, they both have very precise and different meanings.
A book contains information about the subject matter in pictorial and text forms, but does it have knowledge? Two people reading the same book can have very different levels of comprehension even after reading and remembering the same content. In almost all languages, a word may have multiple meanings depending upon the context in which it is used. Let’s take an example in English. The word “stress” in psychology relates to emotional stress while the same word in physics means physical tension experienced by an object subject to force. It is worth noting that despite the letters and sounds remaining the same, the meaning of the word changes completely. Conversely, two different words such as “Hello” (in English) and “Hola” (in Spanish) convey the same meaning even though they are spoken and heard very differently.
When two people view one photograph, their eyes capture the image and the optic nerve carries this information in the form of an electrical signal; however, the individuals still may grasp different details from the same photograph. Computer disks and flash drives store information in magnetic form; however, disks aren’t aware of what is being stored in a way humans would become aware after accessing the stored information. Our DNA contains information about our genetic code in the form of nucleotide molecules; however the DNA isn’t aware in itself and therefore, the dead body displays no knowledge despite containing the DNA. So, it is evidently clear that information about something is distinctly different from the knowledge of that object. Based on the examples above, we can characterize “Information” as a specific pattern of matter particles in visual, sound, electrical, magnetic or chemical form.
In classroom situations, despite eyes seeing the object and ears listening, knowledge of what is being conveyed by the teacher does not occur when our attention shifts towards thinking of something else. Our senses are still communicating with the brain, so any information being received by our senses gets communicated to the brain, but still no knowledge of it occurs. So, it is clear that there must be something more in the process of developing knowledge, besides just the sensory inputs and the communication to the brain.
According to Jain philosophy, information is a characteristic of non-living particles while knowledge is characteristic of consciousness, which is a separate entity from the body. Knowledge (Gyan) is a living being’s state of understanding and awareness.” The difference between information and knowledge was first documented by the great Jain Acharya Kundkund in his treatise Panchastikay Sangrah during the 1st century CE as Arth Samay (which is an actual object), Shabda Samay (which is information of an object) and Gyan Samay (which is the actual knowledge of an object).(1) The knowledge in consciousness occurs because of two types of causes: Internal causes and external causes. The internal cause is an attribute of knowledge that is inherent in consciousness. External causes are the objects, sensory inputs and the processing by the brain. Every person possesses the capability of acquiring sensory knowledge by applying their attention to sensory inputs which is a form of Mati Gyan in the Jain philosophy.(1) The person has free will to decide what he wants to pay attention to. After acquiring this sensory knowledge, each person is capable of acquiring additional knowledge (known as Shrut Gyan) about that object by associating it with his previous learnings, desires or imaginations. After perceiving something through our senses, we rightly or wrongly compare and judge it with our prior impressions. This means all of us have a free will to either be influenced by our own biases or be critical and introspective in our consideration of information received. By applying this conclusion to the previous example of a snake, we could have avoided being fearful had we been more aware. Later on, we will show you how to use this principle in many different situations of life to remain stress free.
We are concluding that non-living beings cannot possess knowledge, so you could argue that advancements in the field of artificial intelligence and machine learning have enabled non living machines to learn. In fact, these machines and algorithms extract information (not knowledge) from the data that is presented to them. So-called artificial intelligence programmed in a computer or robot’s processor is merely a systematic extraction of information through the functioning of algorithms, semiconductors and mechanical devices. Neither computers, nor robots have any awareness and free will in their processes which are two important aspects of knowledge.
In the next video, we will discuss how the beliefs form and what role they play in causing or curing stress.
Feel free to leave your questions in the comments section. Don’t forget to like the video and subscribe to the channel.
References:
- Acharya Kundkund. Panchastikay Sangrah. India. ~100 C.E.
English translation and explanation by Vijay K. Jain, inspired by Acharya Vishuddha Sagar. 2020 C.E.
Available at: https://jainelibrary.org/book-detail/?srno=036508
