I was having a discussion with my Dad today about what DNA is. He asked for a specific definition and I said, “D-Something Nucleic Acid.” But as I thought about it, that definition is almost meaningless to me. I don’t even know the D word, I don’t know what nucleic means (something about the nucleus of cells?) and I don’t really know what acid means since I think of it as something that burns up things (as in “flesh eating acid.”)

This got me thinking about what it means to really know information. Say someone wants to know what a flute is. You can say it’s a “metal cylindrical musical instrument played by blowing air into it.” That’s technically correct from a dictionary definitional viewpoint but do you really “know” what a flute is at that point? I think you probably need some understanding of the different sounds a flute can make, some understanding of the kind of music (Western Classical) it’s historically part of, perhaps knowledge that it plays a prominent role in the beginning parts of the children’s classical piece “Peter and the Wolf” and the fact that it’s a feminine instrument and that male flute players can be presumed to be homosexuals. (Of course, at that point I’m hinting at the phallic nature of flutes which gets into needing additional knowledge about penises, blowjobs, semen etc…)

At what point in this cornucopia of facts can we say we “know” what a flute is? Never, it’s an ever changing definition, ever fleeing our grasp.