Simplified knowledge?

This week (12-18.09) I started my ToK classes. We've studied problems of knowlege and the example of the maps and how our culture influence our perception of the world. Europeans see Europe in the center of Earth when at the same time an American can be use to maps that show America in the centre. The Earth is a spheare so we cannot really say what is truerly ''in the center''. This idea really hit me. I started thinking how much our culture influence on our knowledge? Is a culture sometimes a part o knowledge?

Map used before discovering America.

Another thing that intriceted me was an idea or maybe a statement, that knowledge is simplified. Bringing back the maps example: of course it is not possible for us to create real 1:1 map of the world- firstly, that kind of map it is simply not possible to make and secondly, it would be completly useless for us. So for the usefulness of the maps they are simplified. And the same is with many other areas of knowledge. When I started to think about that idea, I was on my physics classes. While doing many exercises about forces I saw that many exercices contained a statement (Air resistance is neiglable.). So do we use now simplified knowlege? We do not analyze thing as they really are but we avoid some parts that are real and existes to make it easier for us, students to canculate. Then, more and more questions created in my mind: Can we call simplified knowledge-knowledge? Is there sense of analyzing thing as they aren't? Is simplifing a part of knowlege?

I think it's liable that simplifing is a part of knowlege. Maybe it;s important to simplify some thing in order to gain more complicated knowlege in future.