"Subterfuge?" Well, at least I'm not resorting to insults again. I do enjoy debating because I enjoy debating. As I have said a couple of times here today, there are no answers or "winning" when you are talking about personal beliefs and truths. I'm simply telling it like I see it.

Throw however many examples at me which get broader and broader in terms that you may, I do not think a single person's experience equals knowledge. I think a single person's experience is one person's experience. Period. One does not "know" all about sex merely by having had it. All sorts of animals have sex without having the vaguest comprehension of what it's for. Some do fine without sex at all. Experience is merely an aspect of knowledge.

You latest example:

1. From hearing about apples, seeing pictures of them, hearing other people's opinions about them, reading books about them, OR..

2. From picking them, smelling them, tasting them, eating them, and growing apple trees through the whole four seasons?

Is that supposed to only be two choices? I can count hundreds of experiences within those examples. Each one of those contributes ultimately to knowledge. If one grows apples within one's own orchard, one may gain much knowledge about growing apples within one's own orchard, i.e. within only your own experience. That is hardly the tip of the iceberg when it comes to knowing about apples. However, reading books about growing apples will also impart the experiences of others -- fighting diseases and pests you may not have seem, growing in other climates, growing other species of apple trees, understanding the life cycle of the trees even if you haven't experienced one yet, etc.

Neither is superior -- each experience contributes to knowledge in different ways. One's own experience is not necessarily superior to the experiences of others, save in your own mind.

Which brings us back to my original point about "experience" being subjective and biased. If someone has never seen an apple and I give them a crabapple and say it's an apple, does their experience of eating an "apple" equal knowing about apples? If instead I give them a Granny Smith, do they "know" apples are all tart and small and green? What if they go out and pick an "apple," but mistake a pear for an apple? Or get one that is underripe or wormy? Do they then "know" what apples taste like?

Or does knowledge come when one compares one's experiences with others?