Necessary to all of mankind is the ability to gain knowledge and truth from the surrounding world. This knowledge that man uncovers comes from core ideas and concepts that he observes through his unique sense of insight and perception. All this knowledge, however, cannot be considered absolute. Whether proven through scientific experimentation or not, all knowledge exists as imperfect knowledge.

Upon hearing this, one may ask what is meant by imperfect knowledge. This means that concepts about the world do not just exist, they are created. Examples include scientific formulas and equations. These represent metaphors in the world that actually help mankind to convey and understand presented material. It would be incorrect to say that this information formed from man’s perceptions must be exactly the way things are because all people perceive things in different ways. The great minds that came up with all the different equations about the world perceived the information presented to them in much more detail and have shared their perceptions with the rest of the world. People accept these equations and formulas because the material is presented in an understandable manner; however, this does not mean these detailed perceptions, fashioned into formulas and equations, are absolute.

Bronowski points out that nothing is truly concrete and that because everyone experiences the world differently, it is completely incorrect to describe knowledge as being perfect. Some people, however, may question that there exists no absolute knowledge. An analogy that seems to support that there exists no absolute knowledge is Plato’s allegory of the cave. In Plato’s cave, several prisoners live chained up facing a wall. Behind them burns a large fire that people use to project shadows of the objects onto the wall in front of the prisoners. The wall with the moving shadows represents the prisoners’ reality and everything they have ever known comes from the wall in front of them. In this analogy, one of the prisoners is released and forced outside into the open world. As he becomes adjusted, the beauty of the world unleashes itself on him and he immediately feels sorry for his old prison mates because they are still living in a false world. He goes back to the cave and tells the prisoners of his experience, but they think that his stories are outrageous. They believe that leaving the cave has corrupted the man. Naturally, they cannot know what exists beyond the shadows out in the true world. After hearing these stories, the prisoners all decide to plot against anyone who should try and remove them from the cave. The prisoners’ false reality represents people in the world who believe they have absolute knowledge. Likewise, their plot to kill anyone who is friendly enough to try and save them from their false reality represents the tragedy that can occur from believing in absolute knowledge.

When looking at the above analogy more in depth, one can draw the conclusion that the prisoners actually represent a large portion of the world in how people think. Most people are reluctant to change their ways when believing in something strongly. The prisoners seemed to be satisfied with their life because they had never known anything other than the shadows on the wall. It would have been extremely unlikely for them to consider changing their entire life off of one man’s experiences. People in the world act in this manner as well. If one forms a unique set of principles in his mind from which he derives his thoughts, then his thoughts must differ from everyone else’s perceptions in some way. This does not mean, however, that people do not basically think alike under circumstances such as presented in the cave.

Bronowski brings up, several times, that tragedies can occur from people believing they have perfect knowledge. Some tragedies in the world today include such problems as racism and supremacy. These occur largely due to people not keeping open minds and thinking what they believe is absolutely correct. The Ku Klux Klan represents a large group of people who believe they have absolute knowledge. They believe that only their beliefs about other cultures are correct because this has what they have always been taught. They fear the acceptance of other cultures because they are not sure what this acceptance would lead to. Their false sense of reality about the human race brings unnecessary hate into the world, which represents the tragic consequences of not keeping an open mind. As for the power issue, it can also be related to absolute knowledge because power hungry people are close-minded in nature. Saddam Hussein, who has been causing trouble for years in Iraq, is a man who lives up to this example. He has been blinded by the power he maintains over people that he cannot see past it. He is similar to people who believe they have absolute knowledge about many things. Hussein has been power-hungry for so many years that he does not even realize that the execution of people is wrong. This demonstrates that the hunger for absolute knowledge and power leads to tragedy.

Once one realizes that perception, including that provided by scientific experimentation, is essentially imperfect, he can open his mind to all sorts of new ideas. In Bronowski’s video, he uses abstract examples, such as an artist attempting to express a man’s spirit and a blind woman exploring a man’s face with her hands, to show how information can be more effectively expressed than with scientific data. Bronowski attempts to explain in his video that there is no such thing as absolute knowledge. He wants people to realize that there exist several approaches to knowledge, all different in ways. He emphasizes that in order to determine what can be known from scientific measures, we must be defined and precise. Other knowledge, such as perception and understanding, comes from core ideas and specific observations. This type of knowledge is what more people need to be open to rather than only accepting the information presented to them.

People naturally fear new things and different people fear things to different extents. Bronowski tries to demonstrate that some people maintain beliefs that are too close-minded and that these people need to be more accepting about new ideas and concepts of the world. When people are blinded with a false sense of reality, whether it is from power, corruption, or from the way they were taught things in life, it causes them to not look for answers to explain things. Also, when a change is suggested to these people that goes against what they adamantly believe, there is likely to be tragedy involved. In order to teach people to understand there is more to the world than scientific material, a person must be extremely open-minded himself. To teach these people, one must actually have the experience of many metaphors of knowledge and maintain a strong sense of how knowledge can be split into numerous ways.