"I think, therefore, I am."

"No man's knowledge can go beyond his experience."The first quote, by the French philosopher Rene Descartes, presents the idea that knowledge comes from rational thinking.Not true, says English philosopher John Locke in the second quote. The only way we can comprehend anything is by experiencing it through our senses.What do you think?Descartes would say you are capable of understanding what soldiers in the Vietnam War experienced by interpreting history books and soldiers' diaries and journals. According to Locke, to know the atrocities that occurred in that jungle fighting, you would have had to actually been in Vietnam during the war.There are logical points on both sides of the argument. Not having been a soldier in Vietnam, I have tried to empathize with our veterans who had firsthand experience with death in a war so far away.When I was in my 20s, I witnessed a man die in a car crash. I was the first one to get to him, but I froze when I saw his body sprawled across the front seat with his eyes rolling back and blood trickling from he corner of his mouth. I was afraid to go near him. He was later pronounced dead at the scene.I did not know this man. He was older, probably in his 60s. He didn't share a foxhole with me, so I can't relate to the soldiers who often saw their comrades die in battle, men who were just beginning the prime years of their lives.If only experience delivers knowledge, how limiting that is to what you can know. And wherever you live is extremely restricting, too. If you lived in California or Jamaica or Alaska and surrounded yourself with different people from those you know now, you could not be the same person you are today.No one can live everywhere, and most of us have traveled to only a few faraway destinations. So to expand our knowledge of people and places, we have books to read and other people to tell us what we don't know.Take a university science professor who is an academic expert in space and moon exploration. He's read countless studies and researched hundreds of space travel events. He's never been an astronaut and obviously never put his foot on the moon. Is his knowledge relevant compared with that of someone who has actually traveled through space or walked on the moon?School is all about thinking and not experiencing. We ask kids with very limited personal experiences due to their ages to understand concepts that go far beyond their personal sense of the world. I used to wonder if the high school students I taught were able to grasp the idea of living in Puritan New England in the 1600s as well as I could.Does experience always matter?Angelo Dundee was the trainer for Muhammad Ali, arguably the greatest boxer of all time. Dundee never once stepped into a ring to box.Current Pittsburgh Steeler offensive coordinator and former head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs Todd Haley never played a down of organized football anywhere.Joe McCarthy and Earl Weaver are Hall of Fame managers who never played one inning in a major league baseball game.On a personal level, and stated with humility, I never played high school football due to an injury, yet I later became a head coach of freshman teams that won 95 games over 17 years. Three of my teams had undefeated seasons.Experience in doing anything must begin with a first time.And yet, would you sign up to have an operation by a doctor who's performing his first surgery or to be a passenger on an airplane pilot's first flight?If I had to take a side as to whether knowledge comes from rational thinking or from personal experience, I'd reverse Descartes' words."I am. Therefore, I think."Another philosopher might ask, "But how do you know that your life hasn't been nothing but a dream?Hmmm. Am I dreaming that I'm writing this column or am I actually doing it?I love philosophy. It leaves me wondering about questions without answers.Rich Strack can be reached at

katehep11@gmail.com.