Everything about Experience totally explained
Experience as a general concept comprises
knowledge of or skill in or
observation of some thing or some event gained through involvement in or
exposure to that thing or event. The history of the word
experience aligns it closely with the concept of
experiment.
The concept of experience generally refers to
know-how or
procedural knowledge, rather than
propositional knowledge. Philosophers dub knowledge based on experience "
empirical knowledge" or "
a posteriori knowledge". The interrogation of experience also has a long tradition in continental philosophy. The German term
Erfahrung, which is translated as 'experience' into English has, however, a slightly different implication, given that it's associated with the coherency of life's experiences.
A person with considerable experience in a certain field can gain a reputation as an
expert.
Certain
religious traditions, such as in certain types of
Buddhism,
Surat Shabd Yoga and
mysticism) and educational
paradigms with, for example, the
conditioning of
boot camps, stress the experimental nature of human
epistemology. This stands in
contrast to traditions of
dogma,
logic or
reasoning. Activities such as
tourism,
extreme sports and
recreational drug use also tend to stress the importance of experience.
Types of experience
The word "experience" may refer, somewhat ambiguously, both to
mentally unprocessed immediately-perceived events as well as to the purported
wisdom gained in subsequent
reflection on those events or interpretation of them.
Most wisdom-experience accumulates over a period of
time, though one can also experience (and gain general wisdom-experience from) a single specific momentary event.
One may also
differentiate between
physical,
mental,
emotional and
spiritual experience(s).
Immediacy of experience
Someone able to recount an event they witnessed or took part in has "
firsthand experience". Firsthand experience of the "you had to be there" variety can seem especially valuable and privileged, but it often remains potentially subject to errors in
sense-
perception and in personal
interpretation.
Second-hand experience can offer richer resources: recorded and/or summarised from firsthand observers or experiencers or from instruments and potentially expressing multiple
points of view..
Third-hand experience, based on indirect and possibly unreliable
rumour or
hearsay, can potentially stray perilously close to blind honouring of
authority.
The Subjective Experience
A state of individual subjectivity,
perception on which one
creates their own state of
reality; a reality that's based on one’s
interaction with their environment. The
subjective experience is based on one’s
individual ability to process
data, store and
internalize it, for example: our senses collect data, which is then processed according to
biological programming (genetics),
neurological network relationships and other variables such as
relativity etc, all of which affect our individual experience of any given situation in such a way as to render it subjective.
Games
Role-playing games treat experience (and its acquisition) as an important and valuable commodity. See
experience point.
Writing
The American author
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote an essay entitled "Experience" (published in 1844), in which he asks readers to disregard
emotions that could alienate them from the divine; it provides a somewhat
pessimistic representation of the
Transcendentalism associated with Emerson.
Art
The art group
Monochrom organized a series of
happenings that ironically take up the implications of this term:
Experience the Experience
Further Information
Get more info on 'Experience'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://experience.totallyexplained.com">Experience Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
