anyway i was just chatting with topbrains yak xinyang about popular science, and it suddenly dawned upon me the essence of knowledge.

firstly, no amount of knowledge is enough knowledge. Like if some dude come along and say that the universe is made up a z- dimentional space where z is some complex number, how can you show otherwise? or even more simply, if another person says that if you mix acetone with pear juice and get a super solvent, how do you tell if it's bullshit?
we can't get enough knowledge in our whole life. there's breadth problem- how can we know everything under the sun? there's depth problem- do we really know enough in what we think we know? and of course there's practical problems, like forgetting what you know and not knowing how to put into practice what you know... *okie, i'm starting to sound like bullshit myself*
and then i realise, KI is actually a very important topic. it's precisely because we will never know enough, and knowledge is like an endless expanse of ocean that we can never consume, so we must know how to deal with knowledge. How to discern knowledge that we need, knowledge that we trust, knowledge on different levels....

secondly, knowledge is everywhere, taking on a myriad of forms and permeating every corner of our lives. We are fortunate that we often take what we know for granted. And we are even more fortunate that we as humans, highly intelligent beings, can process knowledge in such an incredible way.
There's many facets of learning that only humans can do, far beyond the potential of most animals. Why fixed action patterns in animals, cos it makes life much simpler for their limited intelligence. Cos it is an apt replacement for their lack of knowledge, or lack of ability to process knowledge. When we wake up, brush our teeth, eat a meal, play some sports, we take all these for granted. It seems too brainless to implore the significance of such routine events, because we are too brainy.

Ultimately, learn from others, make yourself permeable to the wealth of knowledge that everyone around you possesses. knowledge does not just come from the textbooks, for that is just regurgitation. knowledge cannot be tested by exams, because knowledge emcompasses so much more.