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“Education without application is just entertainment.” — Tim Sanders.
Once I saw someone on my Facebook friend list shared this quote without a touch of his/her own interpretation. It got me wonder. Does the quote encourage application of knowledge or encourage the act of learning?
The Quote itself
On the one hand, it implies that obtaining knowledge without putting them to use is merely entertaining — which reads “useless”. On the other, amusement is part of human’s desires and the quote states that learning is one such form of to satisfy this basic need. If we look at it from this angle, the quotes can be understood as “Even when you have no intention to use newly found knowledge, you should learn anyway, because it is fun”. I myself believe that the mere act of learning is beneficial in and of itself, even when you have no idea how to use this knowledge.
You never know for sure how you would use a piece of knowledge in the future. It is reasonable to predict that everything you learnt would be applied. Sometimes the dots are connected backwards, sometimes a creative solution pops up in your head with unique combination of cross field knowledge. That is partly thanks to all the combination of understanding you amusingly accumulated throughout time (This is referred to as association in the book The Innovator’s DNA). Moreover, I believe that the mere fact of learning improves brain condition. I imagine the brain functions very much similar to muscles. The more you engage your brain the more you strengthen it.
Interpretation of Quotes in general
Context is key in any form of interpretation. One must be informed of the author background, identity, knowledge, as well as the original context in which the author used the phrase to more correctly gets what the author implies.
How should you interpret this quote? That is for you to decide.
