The Context of Knowledge

The following was a response I posted on a blog which, whether due to the holidays, or it not being seen as conducive to where the conversation was meant to head, or some other issue, was not approved. I sort of liked it, so when I stumbled across a copy of it in my writing 'to do' list, I thought I would share it.

Knowledge and understanding come from "growth." Each new datum is added to the whole of our knowledge and understanding. People prefer to think of it as a museum where the data is laid out on nice little pedestals where they can be appreciated in isolation from the other data present. Instead, it is a mosaic, where each datum is taken and placed within the whole. Each piece is modulated and understood in context of those pieces around it, and if there is no place where the datum can fit without destroying the pre-existing mosaic, people tend to throw that datum out rather than create a new mosaic.