The other day, during the lecture series by Sundar Sarukkai, we were reflecting on the way world-views shape the purpose of knowledge, and the way this could shape the questions and the process of knowing itself.
For example, Natural philosophy or science, as a pursuit to know about Nature, takes two forms in two knowledge systems. As we see in the works of Pickering, modern science, mostly historically emerging from Europe, has a sense of control – developing a grip on the object – to understand the underlying laws and modify it. In contrast, apparently, the Buddhist philosophy of knowledge emphasises compassion with the object of study. This reminds me of @Arunan 's reference to something called ‘feeling for the organism’ (Barbara McClintock). 
@singh, @drishtantmkawale, @Lydia, @Manpreetheersskp, @ravi312 and all others, what do you think of it? What is the purpose behind us knowing about Moina, Solar eclipse or thermal expansion of material? What do we accomplish in the process?
And more fundamental, what is the nature of the relationship between us (humans) as knower and nature (solar eclipse, Moina, strings of tanpura, mango-slayer etc) as known? And how does this fit in connection to what @GN points at here in the Evolutionary scale?