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Knowledge vs. experience. 

Throughout life, you've heard the terms book smart or street smart. These are equivalent to knowledge vs experience, and I believe experience is the greater of the two.

Don't get me wrong, knowledge is important and I'll go back to that in a bit, but experience pays dividends in ways knowledge can not. An example I read recently illustrates this perfectly: Who would be the better musician? A man who knows all there is to know about music, composing, theory etc, but has never played an instrument, or the man who has no formal education in music, but has been playing the instrument of his choice for years. 

The man who has been playing will have learned from experience how to match pitch,tempo and rhythm, and more importantly, he will have developed ability to feel the music and the stamina and muscle memory required to play, where the man with only knowledge will not.

Now, imagine being able to combine these two men into a single, well trained musician. Knowledge PLUS experience is the key to mastery. 

I believe the same can be said for any profession, especially leatherwork. I have purchased and read many of the books available about leatherwork. One in particular, Making Cases Vol. 1, was one of the first books I read. With my newfound knowledge, I set straight to work and much to my surprise, I failed to apply that knowledge to actual leather successfully. My project had so many flaws, it could only be considered a failure.

However, I now knew how NOT to do it, and I had gained experience. As time passed, my failures became less common and my successes increased specifically because of experience. The knowledge from the book was exactly the same. The words hadn't changed one bit.

But then a strange thing happened. Because memory is fleeting, I happened to re-read one of those books and very much to my surprise, I had a substantially deeper understanding of what was written. The words were the same, but my experience allowed me to see more of what I believe the original intent of the author was.

The practical application of both knowledge and experience resulted in MORE experience, and thus, a greater understanding of the knowledge. It sounds like a chicken or egg scenario, but its actually more akin to a symbiotic relationship, in which each element needs the other to reach its greatest potential.

The point, if there is one, is that I encourage you to try something even if it's outside your comfort zone. I was reminded of this on a recent order, and much to my surprise, I found that I enjoyed the project despite my early misgivings, which were based on a lack of experience.

Maybe I'll read that book again...

 
 

 

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All good points, but sometimes I prefer knowledge.  Consider living vicariously through other's experiences.  Example:  One can see others getting STD's and pregnancies and addictions, and avoid having to gain that experience directly simply by knowledge.  I for one would not like to have to learn how to avoid such things only by experience, knowledge is sufficient for me, thank you.  Single experiences can be detrimental or have long term consequences.

When it comes to leather, it helps me to have knowledge before trying to gain experience.  If I just picked up some tools and some leather and tried to do Sheridan work, I'd fail miserably and probably never pick it up again.  Reading, watching others, gaining knowledge on how it is done (wait... you wet the leather?  all this time I thought you were trying to keep water away from leather!) prior to gaining any experience was vital to any chance at a successful outcome.  Improvement however required experience.  And feedback, with more experience.  Add to that additional knowledge watching others share good and bad experiences (gaining knowledge vicariously again) allows even more improvements.

At a certain point, gaining additional knowledge provides little incremental gains.  It's time to go into production!  Just $0.02, thanks for letting me philosophize for a bit on a Friday afternoon!

YinTx

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All true. I think that experience can be related to wisdom. As related to knowledge. (Knowledge is is being aware that a tomato is a fruit, wisdom is knowing to not use it in a fruit salad). You can see where experience could be substituted for wisdom there. My older sibling was all over book smarts.  My knowledgeable brother has actually DONE basically...zilch. He did read all about it, though. You wouldn't want to turn him loose on a project he had read all about. After a lifetime in aviation, he was incredulous that I didn't play around with Microsoft Flight Simulator. Really. I tried to explain that if I wanted to have a flight experience, I would go to my hangar and roll the plane out. I'm not sure he ever got it. I have to say, my experience has paralleled Mike's experience. I can only read so much before I need to do it wrong a few times, to learn what doesn't work. "I have not failed, I've just found 10,000 ways that don't work", - Thomas Edison. 

Now, having said all that, this forum is a real shortcut to better leatherwork. It's like book learning and experience all wrapped into one resource. But, I'm still learning a lot by messing up on a regular basis. I don't expect that to change soon!

Jeff

So much leather...so little time.

 

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I used to have this as my sig when I was moderating on the Allnurses site: 

Good judgement and the ability to make right choices comes with experience.  Experience comes from making wrong choices....

 

And, from a famous SF author:

Nitwit ideas are for emergencies. You use them when you've got nothing else to try. If they work, they go in the Book. Otherwise you follow the Book, which is largely a collection of nitwit ideas that worked.

-- Larry Niven / The Mote in God's Eye (1974)

 

Posted

Wow! Sheila, that totally works for me!

Jeff

So much leather...so little time.

 

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  On 7/6/2018 at 10:22 PM, YinTx said:

All good points, but sometimes I prefer knowledge.  Consider living vicariously through other's experiences.  Example:  One can see others getting STD's and pregnancies and addictions, and avoid having to gain that experience directly simply by knowledge.  I for one would not like to have to learn how to avoid such things only by experience, knowledge is sufficient for me, thank you.  Single experiences can be detrimental or have long term consequences.

When it comes to leather, it helps me to have knowledge before trying to gain experience.  If I just picked up some tools and some leather and tried to do Sheridan work, I'd fail miserably and probably never pick it up again.  Reading, watching others, gaining knowledge on how it is done (wait... you wet the leather?  all this time I thought you were trying to keep water away from leather!) prior to gaining any experience was vital to any chance at a successful outcome.  Improvement however required experience.  And feedback, with more experience.  Add to that additional knowledge watching others share good and bad experiences (gaining knowledge vicariously again) allows even more improvements.

At a certain point, gaining additional knowledge provides little incremental gains.  It's time to go into production!  Just $0.02, thanks for letting me philosophize for a bit on a Friday afternoon!

YinTx

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What you're talking about is common sense.  I don't need experience to know I don't want to be shot, however, If I am shot and survive, I'll have experience in dealing with it should it happen again :P

  On 7/6/2018 at 10:54 PM, alpha2 said:

All true. I think that experience can be related to wisdom. As related to knowledge. (Knowledge is is being aware that a tomato is a fruit, wisdom is knowing to not use it in a fruit salad). You can see where experience could be substituted for wisdom there. My older sibling was all over book smarts.  My knowledgeable brother has actually DONE basically...zilch. He did read all about it, though. You wouldn't want to turn him loose on a project he had read all about. After a lifetime in aviation, he was incredulous that I didn't play around with Microsoft Flight Simulator. Really. I tried to explain that if I wanted to have a flight experience, I would go to my hangar and roll the plane out. I'm not sure he ever got it. I have to say, my experience has paralleled Mike's experience. I can only read so much before I need to do it wrong a few times, to learn what doesn't work. "I have not failed, I've just found 10,000 ways that don't work", - Thomas Edison. 

Now, having said all that, this forum is a real shortcut to better leatherwork. It's like book learning and experience all wrapped into one resource. But, I'm still learning a lot by messing up on a regular basis. I don't expect that to change soon!

Jeff

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Yeah, I can see how real flight is better than video flight :)

  On 7/6/2018 at 11:36 PM, Sheilajeanne said:

I used to have this as my sig when I was moderating on the Allnurses site: 

Good judgement and the ability to make right choices comes with experience.  Experience comes from making wrong choices....

 

And, from a famous SF author:

Nitwit ideas are for emergencies. You use them when you've got nothing else to try. If they work, they go in the Book. Otherwise you follow the Book, which is largely a collection of nitwit ideas that worked.

-- Larry Niven / The Mote in God's Eye (1974)

 

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I love it.

 

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The surprising thing is that so much knowledge is thrown away as past history and technology has moved on

Take for instance the ships Captains of three or four hundred years ago, who went on maybe two year missions outside what we call civilisation, who had the skills and knowledge to fight everything thrown against them, those skills are now lost to mankind, just like building Stonehenge or  even further back the ability of the Bronze age to make tools

Today my tiny knowledge of Leatherwork has come from two main sources Leatherworker and Youtube and I must thank the various authors who contributed especially Nigel Armitage

 

Mi omputer is ot ood at speeling , it's not me

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Posted

While technology has advanced, I am not convinced that society has evolved.  In fact, one could argue we have devolved, and you'd only have to look at the writings of Plato, or Aristotle, Benjamin Franklin or any of the great minds throughout history to support your argument.  Most people now days have very specialized knowledge but lack experience.  For example, I know someone who has earned her doctorate, and calls herself a genius, but she can't figure out how to remove the monthly train pass from the plastic backing it came on.  Or whose sole conflict resolution skill is crying and slamming the door behind her.  Genius.

 

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I like to think that knowledge is the result of experience, either your own or somebody else's.  The main thing that makes experience superior to somebody else's passed on knowledge revolves around this imperfect thing that we call communication.

Imagine if the technology existed that would allow a direct brain link from one person to another.  Knowledge could be passed along wholly intact, including for example what it feels like to hold a swivel knife just right or hit a stamp just the right way with just the right power.  It'd be easy peasy!  But that doesn't exist, so we have to rely on communication to pass along that knowledge through some form of communication, whether one-way or a two-way exchange, and in many possible formats such as verbal, written, pictorial, video - any of which could be one or two way.  So, we're limited in obtaining knowledge outside our own experience by the communication skill of another person.  Furthermore, we need to find somebody that communicates in a way that works for us.   What is perfectly clear communication to one person might be pretty much incomprehensible to another, whether because of the format or the style of the communicator.

Fortunately, we have people with experience and the knowledge gained from it that are willing and able to pass that along as best they can to us, imperfect tho it may be.  Their knowledge is a GREAT shortcut for us!  To pick on @immiketoo for a minute.  Bad as it was, imagine how long it would have taken to make that first case that he mentioned without the benefit of Stohlman's book - and how many bad versions it may have taken to get an acceptable result.   Even then, some techniques and ideas may never have occurred to him!  Also fortunately, @immiketoois a pretty smart guy who got it figured out and probably added some new knowledge through his experience, and that of others .. and is willing and able to communicate it to the rest of us.

- Bill   

 

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  On 7/7/2018 at 4:08 PM, billybopp said:

I like to think that knowledge is the result of experience, either your own or somebody else's.  The main thing that makes experience superior to somebody else's passed on knowledge revolves around this imperfect thing that we call communication.

Imagine if the technology existed that would allow a direct brain link from one person to another.  Knowledge could be passed along wholly intact, including for example what it feels like to hold a swivel knife just right or hit a stamp just the right way with just the right power.  It'd be easy peasy!  But that doesn't exist, so we have to rely on communication to pass along that knowledge through some form of communication, whether one-way or a two-way exchange, and in many possible formats such as verbal, written, pictorial, video - any of which could be one or two way.  So, we're limited in obtaining knowledge outside our own experience by the communication skill of another person.  Furthermore, we need to find somebody that communicates in a way that works for us.   What is perfectly clear communication to one person might be pretty much incomprehensible to another, whether because of the format or the style of the communicator.

Fortunately, we have people with experience and the knowledge gained from it that are willing and able to pass that along as best they can to us, imperfect tho it may be.  Their knowledge is a GREAT shortcut for us!  To pick on @immiketoo for a minute.  Bad as it was, imagine how long it would have taken to make that first case that he mentioned without the benefit of Stohlman's book - and how many bad versions it may have taken to get an acceptable result.   Even then, some techniques and ideas may never have occurred to him!  Also fortunately, @immiketoois a pretty smart guy who got it figured out and probably added some new knowledge through his experience, and that of others .. and is willing and able to communicate it to the rest of us.

- Bill   

 

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Ive often wished for the mind meld, or brain plug in to be real.  Like the Matrix.  Apoch, I'm gonna need a program on pattern making and Mexican braid. Insert digital noises and pictures of code flowing, and boom.  I know braiding as well as Bruce Grant!  Sadly, we all pick up things in one of the three forms of learning.  Auditory, visual or haptic.  Some are better at one or the other, and I believe a person needs all three to full understand a concept.  Like you said, downloading what I feel under my knife or what Peter Main feels under his would probably be drastically different but imagine if you could have that kind of zero loss transfer.  We could build the pyramids or the acropolis in Athens again.  We could discuss philosophy directly from the Greek philosophers.  What a world it would be.  

got it figured out and probably added some new knowledge through his experience, and that of others

^^^ This, is something that I will expound upon more very soon.  It's interesting that you mentioned it, because I have some very strong feelings about this specific point.

Personally, I'd download from Plato, DaVinci and Nikola Tesla.  Add Mozart and I'd be set.

 

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