Measuring Knowledge. Notations, Words, Drawings, Projections, and Numbers

Abstract

Humans have communicated with each other since they became such. Undoubtedly, the fact that we have developed symbolic systems to communicate should account for such a difference. Moreover, our own evolution in terms of knowledge is inextricably connected to such use. Different symbolic systems contribute to our knowledge acquisition in different ways. A fundamental divide can be established between verbal languages and graphic ones. Words are easily connected to abstract thinking and a generic approach to reality; we use them to reason and to think. Figurative drawings, on the contrary, appeal to our senses and to visual appearance; they are focused on the material world and try to define relations based on resemblance between tangible reality and modes of its representation, however this controversial term may be. Yet, drawings can also be used to achieve knowledge aided by graphic thinking both through ideation and through representation, depending on the directionality of projections. Most remarkably, architectural drawings based on geometric projections establish an unrivalled and privileged relation with material objects that words or even numbers cannot match. Instead of appealing to the generic –as words– or to the numerically quantifiable –as numbers–, they describe and define a point to point relation with the material existence depicting proportions.