Todoo

Technological, scientific and social advancements, have led human societies to be what they are and know what they know. We have based our whole lifestyle on advancements and developments made ever since we started being ‘knowers’ and making our way through the search for truth. Yet, due to the limits our senses and our mind have, our interpretation of reality is merely that, an interpretation.So yes, we have made great advancements in many areas of knowledge -such as science and history- that have contributed to learn and discover new things and the processes through which we do this. We have come so far in many areas and we accept many things as being true in order to advance, but what if it is all wrong? How do we know that our mechanized ways of learning and creating new things areright and if they are really leading us to an absolute truth? We are aware of many things in different fields; therefore, should we find new ways of analyzing and thinking about what we are already aware of, or should we just keep going, not even knowing if we are on the right path? In order for us to decide what is more important, we need to evaluate and discuss this claim in different situationsthat belong to different areas of knowledge; and, hence, analyze the implications of whatever we decide.
Paradigms guide us in our search for truth. But if we think about it, it is very easy and common to get stuck (many times unconsciously) in one paradigm or way of thinking. Once we are stuck we try to progress within its limits and we may appear and feel to be progressing significantly intime. Nevertheless, not frequently do we realize how trapped by a paradigm we are and therefore it is very hard to question it and even harder to break out of it. Progressing within one way of thinking is not necessarily more efficient than breaking out of a paradigm and finding new ones. Perhaps by finding new ways of looking at what we already know we can have a better chance to get it right orat least get closer to rightness.
There have been different situations in which changing the way we think about things or the way we look at them, turned out to be more important than to keep on collecting data or facts or keep on thinking in the same way. We can find one of these examples in physics. Until the mid 1900s development in this field had been based on Newtonian physics until Einsteindecided to focus on gravity and light instead of just going on collecting data in the way other physicists had been doing it for years. Einstein realized that gravity did not affect light following Newton’s principles and therefore he was able to elaborate a whole new theory: the theory of relativity. This theory would become the basis of what we now know as the quantum theory which helps explainphenomena such as how space bends. Now, Einstein was a pioneer and what he did was changing paradigms instead of attempting to progress within the same one. Perhaps, if Einstein had not focused on finding new ways of analyzing what had already been known the quantum theory would not have been elaborated and many phenomena would still remain as a mystery.
In art, another important area ofknowledge, it is very common that different people get different interpretations of any piece of art; whether it belongs to music, sculpture, painting, literature etc. When appreciating a piece of art, we first get an idea of the possible meaning or message behind it, and sometimes we keep on interpreting without really questioning if our interpretation is right or wrong. For example, Michael Angelo,an important Italian painter, writer and architect born in 1475; did a very famous sculpture called The Pieta ( Ocampo, 1990). When we first look at Michael Angelo’s The Pieta, there are many possible interpretations that may come to our mind. A person who is very involved in the Christian religion and who knows about it will most likely think of Jesus dead in Mary’s arms. From that believe,...