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What role does personal experience play in the formation of knowing something

What role does personal experience play in the formation of knowing something

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What role does personal experience play in the formation of knowing something? Personal experience is the moment-to-moment experience and sensory awareness of internal and external events. Some of philosophers of the Ancient Greece believed that the mind was like a recording device and simply kept records of what our senses experienced. This was believed by the Western world till 20th century’s cognitive psychology experiments proved that it was not true. Many events were simply filled in by our mind, based on what we think "should be". A good example is that eyewitness accounts of events often were so widely varied. So, what role does personal experience play in the formation of knowing something? I think that personal experience acts as the medium between our mind and our knowing & awareness of internal and external events. When we are knowing something, the knowledge passes through our personal experience before getting to our mind and memory. Imagine two people are observing a black cloud. The vision of the black cloud gets into their mind through their personal experience.
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Unformatted text preview: Eventually, one of them thinks that it’s going to rain, while the other considers it as the result of air pollution. Their interpretations towards the black cloud differ because they are personally experiencing it differently, by different meaning, from different perspective. That’s how personal experience acts in the formation of knowing things. In conclusion, personal experience varies the process and result of our formation of knowing something, by the mean of bias, stereotyping, etc. However, the role our personal experience plays is essential to us as an individual in a society, because it’s what makes our thinking different. Without it, our thought and point of view will be all the same, which makes the world and our lives meaningless. "Personal experience -." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia . Web. 26 Sept. 2009. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_experience>....
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