Golden Email #31: The 4 types of knowledge

Hey gang. Here are the 4 types of knowledge:

Material knowledge
Material knowledge is objective knowledge about the physical world. Physics, chemistry, biology, etc (which all come down to physics eventually).

You get material knowledge from studying the world objectively and try to remove your personal biases. This is what science tries to do, and even if it's probably impossible to remove all personal biases, it sometimes succeed with removing some of them. The purpose of material knowledge is to find the absolute truth about how the material world works, which science is often very good at coming closer to.

Human knowledge
Human knowledge is knowledge about everything humans have done and created. History, geography, social studies, psychology (but neuroscience is still material knowledge), etc.

You get human knowledge in the best way by experiencing the world, going to places, talking to people, and if that's not possible, by reading about the world and its history. Humans have free will, so there can be no definitive core of this knowledge, things happen everywhere all the time, people do lots of different unrelated things, and it depends on culture and time period and lots of other factors. So trying to get to the core truth of human society, of human behavior, of history or of development of technology by using science, is a bad approach. It will find answers that look like answers but aren't answers, because it's all pretty random and individual and from time to time. The purpose of this type of knowledge isn't to find the true answer, but rather to experience and see the world and its many shapes and forms.

Practical knowledge
Practical knowledge is knowledge about how you do things and create things. This could be a book with business advice, or ideas about how you build a good house (how wood works physically is material knowledge, but how to best put pieces of woods together to make a stable house is practical knowledge). Or your intuition about how to do something you do all the time, like a hobby.

You get practical knowledge mostly from doing things and learning from it. Every person does things in their own way and different things work for different people, so there is no true general answer in any book, even if you still can get ideas from others. Trying to find the true answer of practical knowledge, the one true business advice, or the one true method of creativity, won't work. That's why science papers about these topics are very bad, because the purpose of practical knowledge isn't to find the one truth, it's to find what works in practice, regardless of if it's true or not.

Spiritual knowledge
Spiritual knowledge is knowledge about why things exist, what came before the material world, what comes after, and what's outside of it. Knowledge about what to do and what not to do, and why. For example, all things lots of people agree on are true and right, like the fact that you shouldn't kill people.

You get spiritual knowledge from religion, philosophy and by thinking. This is something science can't, and isn't supposed, to find. You're not meant to prove or disprove this type of knowledge, because it isn't scientific. The purpose of this type of knowledge isn't to find the truth either, it's to find inner peace.

// This post is probably most influenced by Bhagavad-gītā As It Is and its division of the material and spiritual world, and by Aristotle's three types of knowledge (theoretical knowledge, practical/ethical knowledge and productive/creative knowledge? I'm not really sure).

/kbrecordzz, 2026-03-13