To recognize, acquire, understand, and integrate knowledge humans mostly use a process we call "thinking."
As we have already seen both knowledge and thinking are recursive. How do we "know" we are "thinking"? It seems the only way we can know we are thinking is by thinking about it [1] —philosophers have even associated our very existence with this activity [2].
While thinking must have originally evolved to allow humans to deal more effectively with the outside world, the additional "sapiens" added to the name of the human race alludes to an additional capability and an additional source of knowledge.
"Real" Knowledge
There is no doubt that thinking about (identifying, classifying, processing,...) knowledge is an anthropomorphic activity. We appear to be the only animals who introspect, who categorize, we are the only ones that put things into buckets and label them. But all animals, down to the level of bacteria and amoeba deal with "knowledge" of the real world—they have some internal mapping of external conditions and events that allow them to respond to these conditions and events. This close mapping—however it is stored in the organism—represents what we might call "real" knowledge. It is de facto knowledge of "real" things in the "real" world [3]. When these real world conditions or events change, the organism must learn about the changes if it is to deal with them effectively.
However, simply recognizing the changes may not be sufficient. To deal with the changes "effectively" the organism must modify the internal processing of its reaction to the changes. The knowledge about the outside change and the knowledge of how to respond to it are related, but different.
"Artifact" Knowledge
Since the internal response to the external stimulus is a response to, and artifact of, thinking about the external event, we can call the resulting knowledge "artificial." It is an artifact created within the mind. Being an artifact, such knowledge is more conventional (as in "by convention") and more malleable—as humans, we have more latitude in choosing how to categorize and label what the knowledge is, how it looks, and how it behaves.
"Real" Knowledge is More Real. Really.
The knowledge representations received from the outside world are closely tied to characteristics of the outside world and hence are "more real." If we touch something very hot and burn our hand, we cannot reasonably assert that what we touched was cold [4].
For less dramatic stimuli, there is more latitude for identifying and processing the event and numerous psychological studies have shown that different people can perceive the same thing quite differently. That said, the same thing is the same thing and any perceived difference is an internal or filtered artifact. The Satir model (referenced in the footnotes [4]) is a guide to where this difference originates.
Plus Artificial
Once knowledge is received from the outside world, it is subject to the artificial processing of the human mind. Here, even if there are no unconscious or intentional filters, there is much latitude in defining / choosing / creating additional knowledge based on the initial input. In the world of IT, a user might have very specific business needs that they require a computer to fulfill; these needs would be the analogue of "real" knowledge. However, these core needs might be met in many different ways involving many different systems, designs, programming languages, methodologies, and processes. The knowledge inherent in all of these different development approaches is artificial. A "real world" requirement for a house might be satisfied by any number of building strategies--it may have parts pre-assembled or built on-site or might be a house transported from another locale. Hardware devices might fulfill their "real world" function by mechanical means, by electric circuits, by a computer system or by a combination. In fact the "real world" requirement might be resolved by the manual labor of people.
The innate, "real world" knowledge tends to be relatively immutable. The artificial knowledge less so.
Artificial Knowledge <—> More Knowledge <—> More Ignorance
There is an important point here: the "creation" of artificial knowledge both invents more knowledge and creates more questions about that knowledge and the potential for questions and answers that are required to manifest the knowledge. This means that, as we acquire knowledge, we also acquire at least the possibility of more ignorance. It is likely that the increase in (potential) ignorance is greater than the increase in knowledge.
This is an issue to which we will return.
FOOTNOTES
[1] As already noted, this is captured in the biological name of modern humans: Homo Sapiens Sapiens.
[2] Most famously by René Descartes with his statement: "Cogito Ergo Sum" (I think, therefore I am)
[3] Since any awareness of anything in the "real" world is necessarily acquired by and filtered through the senses, we can (and many have) argue that there is no such thing as an independent external "real" world absent our interaction with it. This is an age-old philosophical argument for which there is apparently no definitive "correct" or "true" answer. The reason being simply that we are (again) thinking about thinking and attempting to determine knowledge about knowledge. Such circular considerations often have no resolution since they result in paradoxes. This lack of definitive answer is not a bad thing or a good thing but to us linear-reasoning humans, it can be an uncomfortable thing.
[4] That said, humans do filter input stimuli, particularly when received from other humans.
In her model of interaction, family therapist Virginia Satir noted several levels of filtering and reaction that occur:
(a) Physically receiving the input (sensory data)
(b) Applying meaning to the input
(c) Experiencing emotional feelings about the input meaning
(d) Experiencing emotional feelings about the triggered emotional feelings
(e) Employing defenses (emotional, intellectual, or physical) as a response to the feelings
(f) Externalizing these defenses.
Given these filters, it is quite possible for different people to identify the same stimulus quite differently and certainly to (internally) respond very differently. Satir was a therapist and mostly dealt with difficult family dynamics and human-human interactions, but this model can also be applied to the identification, and reaction to physical external stimuli.