Student 35

My first object chosen is an MRI scan of my left knee. I was born with Osteo Chondritis Dissecans (OCD) which created pockets of decay in my knee, forever altering my ability to play sports and to run. The MRI was used along with X-Ray to understand my knee, so surgery could be conducted with the hopes I would be able to return to these activities. While the surgery was successful, I still had a limited shot of pursuing my dreams of being a college athlete. The surgery represents one part of the selfish reasons we seek knowledge, in this case, personal vitality.

Personal vitality is not necessarily negative in the common definition of selfish. Personal vitality is the extent in which one tries to prolong or protect their life or health. Within the brief synopsis of the object, I demonstrate this selfish act in the self-preservation of my knee and my livelihood. Individuals demonstrate this in all sorts of aspects, whether they wish to see what illness they possess and how to treat such, or searching for the solution to create a prevention, humans are motivated by selfish reasons, to which seeking knowledge is vital in the extent of fostering.

Knowledge is sought in this sense because self-preservation is a natural human behavior. Many individuals live in fear of the fact they will one day perish. Fear is a natural motivator, and be it as it may, a selfish act is to combat it. Once more it is not a negative behavior, however individuals combating this fear and seeking knowledge of how to prolong life, and increase one’s health, as I did with my knee, is a self-centered and therefore selfish behavior.

The next object is the broken Hudson Boat Works rigger that I’ve kept as a memento, after snapping during my rowing first race in OKC. The rigger, which connects the oars to the boat's shell, was destroyed after a very eventful collision with a concrete pole 100m from the finish line. This brought up multiple dilemmas for me. I never will know the conclusion of that race for me and the rest of my boat. I will never get to know how I compare to the rest of the rowers in that race. This event fosters the second reason for why we seek knowledge, interpersonal competition to fuel the human ego.

It is in human nature to compete amongst others. Primal nature would see this in the form of mating with another or gathering food for consumption. Competition is what denotes the strong from the weak, and the winners from the losers. While some can claim they don’t care whether someone is better than themselves, there will always be competition in life. We use competition to provide evidence for the key concept of truth, which we seek. Like with my race, it’s this competition that motivates us to seek the answer to who is a better competitor. Competition is the means in which the truth is brought forth of who is superior.

Behaviors of this nature are driven by a selfish drive, one of seeking the knowledge of who is better and who is worse. Human competitive spirit exists in a certain quantity within all of us. As one of the very core elements of human nature is to seek the unknown. What would be more alluring than if this unknown had to do with oneself? Like with my race, I chose to pursue knowledge that day, but got no answer. The self-centered curiosity for competition in one, is what fuels this search.

The final object that concludes the list of the reasons humans seek knowledge is the book The Bell Curve by Murray and Herrnstein. A bell curve is a statistical graph that depicts normal distribution, with the ends being special cases, and the middle being average. Bell curves can be seen in many places, from visualizing the weight distribution of a nation, to the constructs of IQ within a population. The bell curve brings answer to the final question of why we seek knowledge, that it is sought for our own personal understanding of how we lie in events.

It can be reasoned that at some point every individual thought they were special and remarkable. While this is a truth in the eyes of one’s parents and loved ones, when compiling data, it is seen that in most cases humans are plain average. On top of that, there is plenty of space below this average to consider oneself as below average. Or one may pleasantly enjoy the title of above average. The usage of these descriptors strain from the selfish human nature of wishing to understand how one compares to the rest, to seek which percentile we reside in.

This curious addiction is what fuels one's Instagram frenzy of comparison to another, to seeing one is taller than the rest, or a child’s enjoyment of being the fastest in elementary school, while the majority finish a little while longer and the last one is a rotten egg. The understanding of the standings allows one to consider success or failure. Like the bell curve with IQ, humanity seeks the selfish knowledge of comparisons to the whole to create senses of drive or satisfaction within oneself. To seek knowledge is the sense of egotistical curiosity each human possesses.