Theoretical vs Practical Knowledge
Knowledge is something that can be gained on a day to day basis, sometimes even without realising. You might have heard the phrase, “Knowledge is power”, which to be fair is true in most cases, is not necessarily the what of this article. Knowledge can be classified into various types based on different classifiers, the most commonly known are theoretical and practical knowledge. Everybody has a passionate opinion about these 2 terms, especially if they happen to be in the field of sciences.
Theoretical knowledge is something that is generally gained by reading a book, an article, viewing a presentation, and so on. It involves a person to understand why a certain method is followed, why other methods failed, what went into developing these methods, what is the significance or impact of this method, etc. While theoretical knowledge may be considered somewhat important, it is practical knowledge that always gets the limelight. Practical knowledge is when a person gets some sort of hands-on experience with the concept under discussion. He/she gets to work on the concept, and understand by experience more than reading, why some method is used, what problems arise while following the method, and how to rectify it. Practical knowledge always gets the limelight since people generally learn something faster when they work on it on their own. Whether it be reading a lesson for an exam, learning a new language, or learning to ride a bike.
“Where theory is often taught in the ideal of a vacuum, the practical is learned through the reality of life.”
I often find the prospect of playing for and against in a debate satisfying and endearing. It allows me to challenge myself into thinking of all possible ways I can make an argument to defeat the argument I just made from the other side. But can we make a case for Theoretical knowledge? I can only draw from my experiences, and I find theory and its practice to be interesting, but in different ways. The theory can make the reader doze off if it is not engaging or interesting, just like this article. But it also manages to spark the imagination of the reader. It gives them a world of their own, which they can populate with their subconscious. If I had the option of reading a book on, “The Space beyond and the Mystery of the Universe”, by let’s say the late Stephen Hawking, or watching a documentary in High Definition of the same, I’ll probably end reading the book. Why watch someone else’s imagination, when you can create your own, eh? Just ask the Harry Potter fans, they’ll adhere to the same.
But why am I giving an example of fiction, when talking about knowledge?
You may argue that reading a novel may be better than watching its video counterpart, but reading a book on Maxwell’s equations, or the Number theory is always going to be a sleep-fest. Yes, that is true, but if the book is written in such a manner, that it engages with the reader, makes the reader think, then reading it would be time well spent.
Practical knowledge is just pure, isn’t it? A few years back, in my college, we were given something called, “E-lab”. In this “E-lab”, we had to write about 10 programs of easy to intermediate level, using a programming language (JAVA) for each section, and there were 10 sections. This was going to replace the traditional lab, where there were 1-2 programs we had to do in every lab, and they were generally of beginner level. When this was announced in class, I was taken aback and was quite worried about the prospect of completing all programs by the end of the semester. Considering, I had never learnt or used JAVA, my concerns were quite honest. When I started doing them, I had to look-up the internet every 5 minutes for searching the syntax, the logic of the program or to debug some error. But once the first few got completed, the flow I got, and the high it gave when I completed a program, I thought I was unstoppable. I completed the 100 programs within 3 weeks. Apart from the humblebrag, the point of this story was that practising some theory, the hands-on experience of doing something, always keeps a person active, engaged, and of course, helps them remember the concepts.
This is why I gave the example of fiction earlier. If books and theory could be presented interestingly and engagingly, just like fictions and novels do, then people will read them more, and it’ll help in information retention better. One has to at the end of the day remember that, both theoretical and practical knowledge is important if you want to be an expert in the field. Skipping one for the other is like having the index finger without the thumb, or vice versa.