Assessing the Pursuit-Worthiness of Knowledge Part II: The Negative Case

In the immediately preceding post, we considered a select group of closely-related reasons that make practically-useful knowledge potentially worth pursuing. In this post, as promised in the last, we will consider the limitations of, and exceptions to, those reasons. We will do so not to refute the points made earlier but rather to attempt delineating the contours of the parameters within which the merits of the previously stated ideas are maximally valid. This will possibly allow us to temper our judgments regarding pursuing practically-useful knowledge without going unwisely overboard or astray because outside of their parameters those same valid ideas may, to a lesser or greater extent, lose their validity. Such a nuanced approach is indispensable because it allows for the realization of how and when it’s wise to act upon a suggestion in general and how and when to pursue a given body of knowledge in particular.

The previous discussion did not allow for the consideration of the interplay between opportunity cost and the degree of the relevance or usefulness of the knowledge that may or may not be attained. The appropriate starting point for discussing this point is that not all knowledge is equally relevant or useful to any and all users. The information presented may be highly relevant, only marginally relevant, or perhaps even utterly irrelevant to a particular pursuer. For example, while the knowledge regarding the advanced working mechanics of Subpart F of the Internal Revenue Code, considered by many to be one of the most complex areas of U.S. tax law, is highly relevant to a U.S. international tax practitioner, it would be only marginally relevant to a U.S. tax generalist who occasionally dabbles in cross-border taxation, and most likely utterly irrelevant to a practicing medical doctor.

We also established in the previous post that knowledge is never pursued completely free of cost. Even if one does not remit monetary payments for schooling and tuition, one, at a very minimum, incurs the costs of time, energy, and opportunities forgone in the pursuit of knowledge. It is only after the total costs involved in pursuing knowledge are thought of properly can it become apparent how costly of an endeavor the attainment of knowledge is. Since it would be obviously unwise to incur exorbitant costs to pursue only marginally relevant, much less utterly irrelevant, knowledge, one would be wise to perform at least some rudimentary form of a cost/benefit analysis prior to committing to the pursuit of any given strain of knowledge.

In this vein we cannot ignore that not all knowledge is equally costly to attain. Some knowledge can be attained very efficiently whereas other knowledge could require an exorbitant quantum of time, energy, and opportunities forgone. Economic thinking would dictate that knowledge is pursuit-worthy when its potential relevance/utility/value exceeds the costs incurred to attain it. Contrarily, a given strain of knowledge would not be pursuit-worthy if the costs incurred in its attainment would exceed its ultimate utility.

Therefore the decision to pursue knowledge should never be based on the criterion of its potential usefulness alone. That is an unwise and misguided approach that leads to the sort of simplistic thinking that would guide one to pursue even the most negligibly valuable/useful knowledge at the expense of all else. On the other hand, if thought of in a more balanced manner, an edifice of knowledge can ostensibly be judged as highly worth pursuing if its degree of relevance and usefulness is high relative to its cost of attainment. Moreover, the value/usefulness of knowledge has to go up in proportion to its cost in order for it to remain pursuit-worthy. The more costly the knowledge, the more relevant/useful/valuable it needs to be in order to justify its pursuit. This idea can be better depicted graphically as such:

The graph above should lead one to question the reasons for which one is pursuing a given strain of knowledge. Since time and energy are very limited and precious resources it would behoove one to learn how to allocate them wisely in order to effectuate optimal outcomes within the narrow purview of one’s lifespan. One must decide how and where one is to invest their life. One who spends a sizeable portion of one’s lifetime pursuing only marginally relevant, or worse, irrelevant knowledge without having at least enjoyed the learning process is arguably objectively worse off in life. Minimally useful knowledge that requires a tremendous amount of time to navigate that could be better spent elsewhere is arguably even disempowering because it robs one of the opportunity to put one’s finite time and energy to their highest and best uses and to avail of opportunities more impactful and rewarding.