Have you ever wondered about the notion that people having more experience know better? Doesn’t this statement sound vague to you? Because to me, it does.
If you have ever argued with an old man about something, you probably already know what I’m talking about. He won’t hesitate to falsely reject any of your arguments with statements like “I’ve spent a lifetime in this world” or maybe “My experience in this world is more than your age”. These statements suggest that just because they’ve spent more time on this planet than you have, they are somehow always right.
In reality, there are a lot of things wrong with this notion. Experience is something much more complex than we perceive it to be. Every person experiences the world subjectively. So by definition, the subjective experience of one individual cannot in most cases be used as a standard for the subjective experience of another. No two people have ever gone through the same experience nor will they ever do. Even when we perceive the experiences of two individuals to be the same, in reality they are not. The situation might be somewhat similar but the events leading to the situation are different, the consequences and the events following the situation are different. Most importantly, the way the individual is perceiving the situation is different. In short, there are way more differences in experience than there are similarities. However, human beings appear to focus only on the similarities in this regard ignoring all the more significant differences.
With this being said, it will in no way be acceptable to make judgments about a situation of one individual based on the experience of another completely separate individual. Thus, an individual might have more generalized experience in this world but it doesn’t guarantee that he knows better about a particular situation. For ease of understanding, I’d refer to this type of experience as Indefinite Experience. In other words, an individual having indefinite experience of the world cannot in most cases help in solving definite problems.
On the other hand, it is still possible for an individual to be experienced and know better as a result of that experience. Here I am not talking about general indefinite experience but a more specific Definite Experience. For instance, I being a 22 year old might be less experienced indefinitely than many other individuals who are older than me (or have more indefinite experience). At the same time, I might very well be more experienced definitely (e.g. at writing blogs) than many older individuals.
The problem with this notion that I’m trying to precisely point out is that it seems to mix the definite and indefinite experience when they are two separate things. Although they can sometimes be semi-dependent on each other, it’s still a rare case.
Thus this distinction between definite and indefinite experience is necessary if we are to visualize the truth – not the absolute truth but simply a truer version of this notion because absolute truth can only be measured on an objective level and no human or his opinions are ever objective (certainly not mine).
This simple idea of differences in experiences has a significant practical value in a sense that no single individual can solve a problem as effectively as a group of individuals regardless of how indefinitely experienced that single individual is. When it comes to definite experience, however, it’s obviously another story. I was only concerned about the more general indefinite life experience that many people seem to use as a medal of honor even when they don’t have any intellectual property that deserves that medal.
After all, there are 7 billion kinds of indefinite experiences for 7 billion people. This makes it an illogical thing to look at the experiences of individuals with different pasts and futures while putting the experience of a single individual as a background. As long as we continue to do so, not only will we be unable to solve our problems effectively, but we will also fall into the pit of making wrong decisions again and again – and in the end, believing this notion to be truth may prove to be Lex Luther to our Superman of a life.