Each of us begins any quest for knowledge with some sense of a personal goal. A goal may simply be to understand something not known, or we may have the intent to harness gained knowledge for a very specific purpose. We might even begin the process from an unfocused state of boredom, in which case the initial goal is simply to eliminate boredom. We may be pursued by a nest of angry hornets and have to make far-reaching immediate decisions. Once we begin the quest, however, new goals have a tendency to supplement or replace the original goal, for the act of learning may enlarge our sense of what we want or need to know.

In general, superficial goals can be met quickly, with no further thought. There is a continuum from superficial to overwhelming that speaks both to the effort we will apply to gaining knowledge and to the likelihood of our success. We start any quest from a personal knowledge base and that defines, in conjunction with the goal, the overall environmental requirement or success potential of our effort. The essential ingredients are, of course, the starting environment in which we attempt to learn that which we want to know and our inherited abilities to understand, conceptually, what we need to encounter and what we do encounter.

Thus, a fit between our goal, our prior knowledge, our environment and our inherited abilities speaks to success. If any of those considerations are out of line with the others we first must perform alignment, whatever form that takes. This may mean reducing the complexity of the original goal. It may also mean we must gain supplemental knowledge or change our environment before directly pursuing the original goal. Finally, if our inherited abilities are less than required, we will be forced to simplify the goal or we will fail.

One last refinement must be considered before moving forward in this discussion. We are the products of our environment and our inherited abilities. Thus, our state of readiness to learn something new is dependent on our overall thinking method or style, which is either supported or weakened by our earlier life experiences. We see excellent examples of that point by observing and comparing young children in groups, some of whom will have been strengthened by a supportive home environment, and others who will not have been the beneficiaries of parental interest.

We now proceed to a critical review of human efforts to gain knowledge, to communicate knowledge and to use it. Our first consideration is that our presumption of knowledge may be faulty, for we may lack essential experience. We may also discover that we mistake well-intentioned conjecture with knowledge, and the product of our efforts is only conjecture. We may also discover that we sometimes abort the pursuit of specific knowledge for efficiency. Thus, we will gain enough information to approach the expectation of the original goal and we will decide that the knowledge gained is sufficient to justify curtailing any further effort. That is the pragmatic approach to the acquisition of knowledge.

Finally, there is the consideration that we may gain complete knowledge of a subject relative to our original goal, and it may be valid yet incomplete, for our goal lacked the attribute of completeness relative to what might be important about a subject. A positive aspect of such knowledge is that it is at least true to the extent of the learning experience.

Looking at the acquisition of knowledge from an overview perspective, we see that our efforts to gain substantive knowledge are akin to crossing a swamp on foot in the middle of the night. We do not know what we might encounter along the way, we do not know what is on the other side, or for that matter whether the swamp ends at an ocean. We cannot see very far in front of us, or to either side.

We carry with us our experience, the tools of logic, deduction and induction, and sometimes a map provided by others, which we may or may not be able to read or understand. The map may also be faulty in part or in whole. If we think in an organized way, we collect, analyze and store our experiences along the way, and thus they add to our overall experience, though not necessarily in a useful way relative to our original goal. We may be forced to detour obstacles of any type or kind, and that lengthens the overall journey and tests our patience. In the end, at the end of our journey, we may arrive at a place wholly different from where we expected, and that may be either good or bad, relative to the original goal.

Oddly, some people would advise us against the trip across the swamp. They believe that the knowledge we seek does not exist or is dangerous to attempt to acquire or to use. For them, pragmatism is an ultimate, limiting factor. Other people can be so wrapped up in conjecture and hypothesis about the unknown that they do not perceive the legitimate need to gain the experience of crossing the swamp. They, most of all, can be dangerous to progress in gaining new knowledge, for they reduce most all considerations of learning about the unknown to limited mental constructs. These constructs reflect their imagination and their skill at dialectic but are in no way a worthy substitute for true knowledge.

Let us consider one more factor in the effort to gain knowledge. Individually, we are a composite of conjecture, experience and pragmatism, of which any of the three may or may not dominate our approach to life. As we pass from infancy to adulthood, we tend to establish that three-way relationship in our thinking, and along the way we will form our beliefs and later, consistent behaviors, which we might call our fundamental style of thinking. We can, by candid self-examination, or with the help of others, determine whether we use each approach appropriately or whether we are stuck in an endless, repeating and narrow or non-productive process.

How can the experience approach be wrong? In short, if you live only in the domain of what you prove, you will waste time repeating the work of others. You may also endanger yourself or others in doing it your way to the exclusion of examining the less pleasant experiences of other people. You will lack the easygoing calm of the pragmatist, for you will constantly be moving to new things that are, for you, unproven. You will spend too little time in hypothesis or conjecture and will not demonstrate a multi-dimensional imagination. You will experience, analyze and prove for the sake of proving. You may discover much about things of little to no value.

If you favor conjecture to the exclusion of actual experience, you will accomplish little in the real world, for you will spend your time thinking exclusively about how things might be instead of discovering by experience how they actually are. Conjecture and hypothesis are welcome companions in any knowledge journey, provided you do not let them impede progress or dilute progress by creating multiple, fruitless journeys. They might point out useful directions to explore, but do not mistake those directions for the destination.

If you are purely a pragmatist, you are frequently boring, not insightful, and you provide for no growth for yourself or any other person. You are at your best when you are able to repeat endlessly the mundane tasks that comprise your life. When called upon for important decisions external to your experience you will leap to conclusions or simply give up, for you are not effective or goal directed in any area that is not already known to you. You retired your mind when you were young.

It would thus appear necessary to categorize the kinds of knowledge we seek in life or the specific situations that call for a given strength, to understand when to favor one or the other of the above approaches. Again by analogy, let us consider a true emergency. When all appears to be lost and there is literally no time to think, give me the pragmatist every time, for that person will apply everything they do know until they either succeed or perish. They, of all the thinking styles, do understand when action is superior to thought.

If a situation has medium time limits and aspects of complexity but lends itself to analysis, give me the experience person, every time. The pragmatist will not be insightful and the conjecturer will not produce a viable solution in a reasonable timeframe, if at all, for they have too much time, and their version of goal directed thinking is to explore everything and nothing.

Let the realm of the problem vastly exceed the known, however, whether the available time is short or extended, then give me the conjecturer every time. The conjecturer will tend to see what others do not in problem subtleties, and if they do, they can identify a line of thinking or approach to a situation that an experience person can translate into a sensible action plan. A plan from the experience person can then be explained to the pragmatist, who will execute it to the best of their ability.

Thus, it becomes clear that all three thinking styles are relevant and applicable to the acquisition and use of knowledge to achieve a goal. One is immediately effective or utterly ineffective. The second is very effective in getting results when time is not critical. The third is effective in situations where time is very short and a unique analysis is mandatory, or when available time is long and the complex problem can be mulled and digested to the point of knowing if it can be solved in the current time frame.

The confounding curse of these realities is seen when we have misfits between the need and the available talents or thinking styles. Yes, it is possible to have a mentally dull conjecturer. Yes, it is possible to have a rational and worthless plan based on experience. Yes, it is possible to waste a lifetime of brilliance on the absurd.

Belief in the ultimate greatness of pure intellect is a terrible misunderstanding. Our long history of philosophical endeavors is a perfect example. When we have lacked sufficient data upon which to develop our highest concepts, we have produced mountains of pure bunk.

Belief in the ultimate weakness of our abilities to overcome our ignorance is also a terrible misunderstanding. Our religions are a perfect example. When we have thrown in the towel and given up our right and responsibility to seek knowledge we have committed Humanity to a lower, pragmatic animal state.

Belief in the ultimate value of experience, without advanced intellect, is just as foolhardy as the first two examples. We simply optimize the current reality, never solving anything of long term consequence. Our political and economic systems are a perfect example of that weakness.

The goal, then, is to develop us as individuals with a useful mixture of the pragmatic and experience thinking styles and superbly advanced intellect to support the conjecture style for our overall growth in knowledge. This is the challenge of Destiny.