Experience
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- This article discusses the general concept of experience. For the concept in roleplaying games, see experience point.
Experience as a general concept comprises knowledge of or skill in or observation of some thing or some event gained through involvement in or exposure to that thing or event. The history of the word experience aligns it closely with the concept of experiment.
The concept of experience generally refers to know-how or procedural knowledge, rather than propositional knowledge. Philosophers dub knowledge based on experience "empirical knowledge" or "a posteriori knowledge". The interrogation of experience also has a long tradition in continental philosophy. The German term Erfahrung, which is translated as 'experience' into English has, however, a slightly different implication, given that it is associated with the coherency of life's experiences.
A person with considerable experience in a certain field can gain a reputation as an expert.
Certain religious traditions, such as in certain types of Buddhism, Surat Shabd Yoga and mysticism) and educational paradigms with, for example, the conditioning of boot camps, stress the experimental nature of human epistemology. This stands in contrast to traditions of dogma, logic or reasoning. Activities such as tourism, extreme sports and recreational drug use also tend to stress the importance of experience.
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[edit] Types of experience
The word "experience" may refer (somewhat ambiguously) both to mentally unprocessed immediately-perceived events as well as to the purported wisdom gained in subsequent reflection on those events or interpretation of them.
Most wisdom-experience accumulates over a period of time, though one can also experience (and gain general wisdom-experience from) a single specific momentary event.
One may also differentiate between physical, mental, emotional and spiritual experience(s).
[edit] Immediacy of experience
Someone able to recount an event they witnessed or took part has "firsthand experience". Firsthand experience of the "you had to be there" variety can seem especially valuable and privileged, but it often remains potentially subject to errors in sense-perception and in personal interpretation.
Second-hand experience can offer richer resources: recorded and/or summarised from firsthand observers or experiencers or from instruments and potentially expressing multiple points of view..
Third-hand experience, based on indirect and possibly unreliable rumour or hearsay, can potentially stray perilously close to blind honouring of authority.
[edit] Games
Role-playing games treat experience (and its acquisition) as an important and valuable commodity. See experience point.
[edit] Writing
The American author Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote an essay entitled "Experience" (published in 1844), in which he asks readers to disregard emotions that could alienate them from the divine; it provides a somewhat pessimistic representation of the Transcendentalism associated with Emerson.
[edit] Quote
"Only the foolish learn from experience — the wise learn from the experience of others." — Attributed to Romanian folk wisdom by Rolf Hochhuth
"Experience is just what elders call their mistakes." Nathan Gilkarov
"Experience is what causes a person to make new mistakes instead of old ones." Nathan Gilkarov
[edit] Art
The art group Monochrome organized a series of happenings that ironically take up the implications of this term: Experience the Experience
