Daughter: Daddy, how much do you know?
Father: Me? Hmm- I have about a pound of knowledge
D: Don't be silly. Is it a pound sterling, or a pound weight? I mean, really,
how much do you know?
F: Well, my brain weighs about two pounds and I suppose I use about a quarter
of it - or use it at about a quarter efficiency. So let's say half a pound.
D: But do you know more than Johnny's daddy? Do you know more than I do?
F: Hmm - I once knew a little boy in England who asked his father, "
Do fathers always know more than sons?" and the father said, "
Yes." The next question was, "Daddy, who invented the steam engine?"
and the father said, "James Watt." And then the son came back
with, " - but why didn't James Watts' father invent it?" ...
[from Gregory Bateson (1972), "Metalogue: How much do you know?"]
Calvin: Dad, why do my eyes shut when I sneeze?
Dad: If your lids weren't closed, the force of the explosion would blow
your eyeballs out and stretch the optic nerve, so your eyes would flop
around and you'd have to point them with your hands to see anything.
Calvin: Gross.
Calvin: How come you know so much?
Dad: It's all in the book you get when you become a father.
from B. Watterson (1996). Calvin and Hobbes: There's Treasure Everywhere.
[(in Danish, Calvin and Hobbes is known as Steen og Stoffer, In Norwegian,
Tommy og Tigeren)]
Guided by curiosity in our youth, or by wanting to excel at work, we seek information from others whose experience affords knowledge that we desire. We "construct" processes of informing by posing questions to ourselves, to our significant others, or to our "natural surrounding." We seek the "book" whose answers fit with (and hence in-form) OUR questions, as well as a person who can recursively provide it.
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