I’m going to draw some practical distinctions among types of knowledge, as an attempt to tap into your intuitions and avoid having to give some convoluted, ivory-tower definition of the word. I request that you try not to get distracted by where I’ve drawn my distinctions—the precise placement of the borders is not the point of the exercise. The point of the exercise is to shine your attention on the richness, depth, and complexity of your capacity to know—that the word “know” means more than one thing.

Let’s begin with a little formative assessment.

— Do you know what comes out of your kitchen faucet?

— Do you know what glaciers are made of?

— Do you know what those big white fluffy things in the sky are?

If so, then you are familiar with water. When someone talks about it, you’re not completely lost.

— Do you know at what temperature water boils?

— Do you know the atomic composition of an ordinary water molecule?

— Do you know what percentage of your body’s volume is water?

If so, then you know some facts about water. Your concept of water contains (at minimum) a few isolated pieces of accurate information.

— Do you know the way water sounds when it pours into a cup?

— Do you know how water feels when it runs over your skin?

— Do you know the look of a stream's surface as it glitters in the sun?

If so, then you are able to identify water when you encounter it in real life. You have direct, experiential data. You are able to predict how various encounters with water will impact your senses, and you probably recognize water when those sensations occur (at least sometimes).

— Do you know what happens if you leave a beer bottle in the freezer overnight?

— Do you know how a water mill grinds grain into flour?

— Do you know why it rains?

If so, then you probably have at least one model^[1] of water.

Whether or not that model is explicit, it includes enough structure that you can predict the behavior of water in various situations, even if those situations are outside of your own direct experience. Your model might be rudimentary, in which case the above questions probably produced hesitation or “sort of?” and you’d maybe only be able to produce a short paragraph in response to each. Or your model might be rich and deep, in which case your “yes” was confident, and you could in principle write multiple essays on the subject.

— Do you know how to swim?

— Do you know wh...

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