K v K

Knowledge is highly useful. It's our catalog of what things are, how they work, how they're related to us and each other, what's most important, which to avoid, and all other accumulated details that make up our world concepts. Many consider this our only truthful and reliable faculty.

We also have a capacity to know things without first learning them and then retrieving them from our file cabinet. I'll refer to these, respectively, as “knowledge” and “knowing”.

Knowing may sound like gobbledygook to many who utilize it all the time. They may know that the car that just pulled onto the street in front of them is going to drive like a 10 year old on a joy drive. That the shorter register line is going to move more slowly than the long one. They may know the root needs behind someone's camouflaging phrasing. Or inexplicably and unexpectedly glean a better way to accomplish a familiar task.

Knowing manifests in a myriad of different ways. Everyday problem solving - summoning a new understanding from a pile of collected tidbits, wouldn't be possible without knowing. Invention and scientific discovery are typically a combination of acquired knowledge coupled with inspirational knowing. Those “Eureka!” moments are knowing incarnate.

It's not magical or super natural. It's just another basic function of any mind. And I'd stress here: not just the human mind. You might call it common sense or intuitive comprehension. It's just as valid as knowledge – perhaps, even more so, as knowledge grows out of knowing. But, no surprise, they work best in tandem. You could consider them the yin and yang of our understanding.