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Originally Posted by Penforhire
While there is certainly trash-fiction that falls into your no-knowledge category I would argue that an author who performs research and integrates that into a story is imparting some knowledge to me, say law enforcement procedures in the "courtroom drama" genre.
You are welcome to argue the inefficiency of such education but I would counter argue that much (not all) of our formal education is worthless because the real world does not operate as it was presented in academic circles.
Besides, if there are only twenty-odd themes in literature then each story is somewhat mimetic, giving us a new epic.
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Excellent points. But I do not know what education you speak of, since I never said that formal education was the most efficient method of conveying knowledge.
You make a great point about well researched works. They are very valuable to historians, especially cultural historians, who often find these works more relevant in understanding and reconstructing cultures than works that are considered classics.
Nevertheless, I don't know if what these books convey is considered knowledge. It really depends on your definition of knowledge. I tend to think that knowledge is universal, like a law of nature or a moral or philosophical system (meaning, you may change what system you follow or create your own, but a specific philosophical system never changes). However, I may be confusing knowledge with truth or wisdom. Still, I think there is a difference between knowledge and information.
Your last point is interesting. I took a literature class whose theme was the recurrence of epic themes throughout history. First we read the Epic of Gilgamesh, then we watched that episode of Star Trek where Jean Luc Picard discusses Gilgamesh with an alien, and then we read Dracula, Snow Crash, My Year of Meats, the Calcutta Chromosome, and a graphic novel called Pride of Baghdad, showing how all of these works were in some ways recreations or reincarnations of the Epic of Gilgamesh.