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GRE issue: As we acquire more knowledge, things do not become more comprehensible? [4]
As we acquire more knowledge, things do not become more comprehensible, but more complex and mysterious.Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should consider ways in which the statement might or might not hold true and explain how these considerations shape your position.
My response:With increasing knowledge, our comprehension of things certainly becomes profounder and more detailed. But, yes, we also have a more intense sense of confusion about things because more knowledge leads us to encounter other aspects of things that we were never aware of before.
In expanding our knowledge base, we collect more information about certain things in more dimensions. For example, when we were children we see an iron ball as a simple round heavy thing. But after we acquire knowledge in chemistry, we know its chemical composition. We know more about its micro structure at molecular or atomic or more sophisticated levels. We learn the chemical properties of iron and what will happen when it react with other chemicals. In study physics, we know how it will behave if acted upon by forces. We know the principles behind it in relation to gravity. We are continually integrating all sorts of information pieces, like its density and geometrical characteristics and so on. All this knowledge help us to develop a more complete and complicated comprehension about the iron ball.
Likewise, equipped by knowledge of history we would have a clearer sight of the past, and hence get better perspectives of the modern world. If one study the history of UK, for example, we will get information about the earliest indigenous inhabitants on the island, the many times of invasions and immigrations from out of this island, how culture and religion from the outer world was transmitted here, and how evolutions and developments took place here. In many aspects, ethnical, cultural, religious, this kind of knowledge tell us what the country was used to be and what it is now. Knowing more just give us a more well-rounded view of this country and its history.
But although we continue to expand knowledge and get better understanding of our world, we are also opening a lot of new windows to the outer world. We find that there are more and more unexplored fields. More unsolved problems emerge. For that iron ball mentioned above, although we know more physical and chemical properties of it, we also meet new difficult problems. What its structure and composition is in quantum level? Will it disappear when colliding with a negative matter? You solve a question then the answer raises another question. In the field of genetics, we learn Mendelism which explains the principle of heredity. But as we study more deeply in the field, we will discover that the operation of gene is far more complicated that Mendelism alone is not sufficient to explain how it works. In that example of history study, although we are gathering more details of British history, we constantly face many unsolved historical mysteries. Was the earliest inhabitants of England-the Celts-also immigrants? How the language of English interacted with later invading Norse people? The deepness and broadness of the world pose more mysterious questions to us.
As we are acquiring more knowledge, we are definitely forming a more comprehensive understanding of things in the world. On the other hand, the expanding of knowledge indeed shows us a deeper and broader awful world that we have never imagined. But driving by our curiosity and craving for more knowledge, we will solve every conundrum we encounter and get an increasingly profound comprehension of things in the world.