Religions > Atheism > Another philosophical - how will we know it if we ever know everything?
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Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Uncle Clover" |
| Date: |
22 Oct 2006 02:40:55 PM |
| Object: |
Another philosophical - how will we know it if we ever know everything? |
I'm on a roll today, I guess, though i haven't decided if it's kaiser or
cinnamon. Maybe later I'll figure that out... ANYways...
Suppose that the amount of knowledge to be learned is finite, and that
we as human beings can actually learn all of it. How would we know when we've
reached the end of knowledge?
It's not as simple a question as you may think - and if you're really
smart, that's probably really saying something! ;-) I don't have the answer,
of course, but that's okay. It's just a question to raise more questions with,
get the intellectual juices flowing.
Before one asks how they might know when they've finally learned
everything, one must ask if it's -possible- to know when there is no more
knowledge to be found.
On the face of it, it seems a simple thing - at least in some ways. If
we learn everything, then the knowledge of how much knowledge exists would be
-part- of that everything, right?
Not necessarily. Such knowledge -might- be part of that everything, but
then it might not be, too. It may in the end wind up being the final mystery to
end all mysteries. The mystery that will finally make us put down our
microscopes and spectrometers and whatever other manner of measuring instrunment
we might employ. On that day, mankind - or possibly its descendants - will look
to the heavens with a questioning eye and ask, "Is that _it_?"
--
L8r,
Uncle Clover
************************************************
The true mark of a civilized society is that its
citizens know how to hate each other peacefully.
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| User: "Denis Loubet" |
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| Title: Re: Another philosophical - how will we know it if we ever know everything? |
22 Oct 2006 03:41:56 PM |
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"Uncle Clover" <UncleClover@SpamMeNot.com> wrote in message
news:mrhnj29s2d79jguavfncb6tue24e9g49ov@4ax.com...
I'm on a roll today, I guess, though i haven't decided if it's kaiser or
cinnamon. Maybe later I'll figure that out... ANYways...
Suppose that the amount of knowledge to be learned is finite, and that
we as human beings can actually learn all of it. How would we know when
we've
reached the end of knowledge?
There is no current method to determine such a thing. If we do ever
determine that we know everything, it won't be through faith, science,
logic, or reason. It'll have to be some epistemology that we have not
discovered or invented yet.
--
Denis Loubet
dloubet@io.com
http://www.io.com/~dloubet
http://www.ashenempires.com
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| User: "Uncle Clover" |
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| Title: Re: Another philosophical - how will we know it if we ever know everything? |
22 Oct 2006 03:46:12 PM |
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On Sun, 22 Oct 2006 15:41:56 -0500, "Denis Loubet" <dloubet@io.com> wrote:
"Uncle Clover" <UncleClover@SpamMeNot.com> wrote in message
news:mrhnj29s2d79jguavfncb6tue24e9g49ov@4ax.com...
I'm on a roll today, I guess, though i haven't decided if it's kaiser or
cinnamon. Maybe later I'll figure that out... ANYways...
Suppose that the amount of knowledge to be learned is finite, and that
we as human beings can actually learn all of it. How would we know when
we've
reached the end of knowledge?
There is no current method to determine such a thing. If we do ever
determine that we know everything, it won't be through faith, science,
logic, or reason. It'll have to be some epistemology that we have not
discovered or invented yet.
That's a perfect answer. Thank you! :-)
--
L8r,
Uncle Clover
************************************************
The true mark of a civilized society is that its
citizens know how to hate each other peacefully.
************************************************
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| User: "Denis Loubet" |
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| Title: Re: Another philosophical - how will we know it if we ever know everything? |
22 Oct 2006 05:51:48 PM |
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"Uncle Clover" <UncleClover@SpamMeNot.com> wrote in message
news:24mnj2pf7jqc383fb7e55nk7bege7qsp8d@4ax.com...
On Sun, 22 Oct 2006 15:41:56 -0500, "Denis Loubet" <dloubet@io.com> wrote:
"Uncle Clover" <UncleClover@SpamMeNot.com> wrote in message
news:mrhnj29s2d79jguavfncb6tue24e9g49ov@4ax.com...
I'm on a roll today, I guess, though i haven't decided if it's kaiser or
cinnamon. Maybe later I'll figure that out... ANYways...
Suppose that the amount of knowledge to be learned is finite, and that
we as human beings can actually learn all of it. How would we know when
we've
reached the end of knowledge?
There is no current method to determine such a thing. If we do ever
determine that we know everything, it won't be through faith, science,
logic, or reason. It'll have to be some epistemology that we have not
discovered or invented yet.
That's a perfect answer. Thank you! :-)
I know it's not very satisfying, but it's honest. ;-)
Basically, we're stuck with the principle that nothing is 100% certain. That
may wipe out the idea of a black and white world, but that doesn't mean that
things can't be really, really light, and really, really dark.
--
Denis Loubet
dloubet@io.com
http://www.io.com/~dloubet
http://www.ashenempires.com
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| User: "Uncle Clover" |
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| Title: Re: Another philosophical - how will we know it if we ever know everything? |
22 Oct 2006 07:03:31 PM |
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On Sun, 22 Oct 2006 17:51:48 -0500, "Denis Loubet" <dloubet@io.com> wrote:
"Uncle Clover" <UncleClover@SpamMeNot.com> wrote in message
news:24mnj2pf7jqc383fb7e55nk7bege7qsp8d@4ax.com...
<snip>
That's a perfect answer. Thank you! :-)
I know it's not very satisfying, but it's honest. ;-)
It always surprises me when I see someone stating that the honest truth isn't
very satisfying. Of -course- it's satisfying. Honesty and truth are the -only-
satisfying things to me (though I admittedly fail to maintain them as
consistently as I'd like - but I try). I'll take an honest "I don't know!" over
"Wait! Let me check my book of fairy tales!" _ANY_ day - very satisfying,
indeed. :-)
Basically, we're stuck with the principle that nothing is 100% certain. That
may wipe out the idea of a black and white world, but that doesn't mean that
things can't be really, really light, and really, really dark.
Yah, I guess so. We live in a universe of probability, and that seems to be on
all levels.
--
L8r,
Uncle Clover
************************************************
The true mark of a civilized society is that its
citizens know how to hate each other peacefully.
************************************************
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| User: "Al Klein" |
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| Title: Re: Another philosophical - how will we know it if we ever know everything? |
22 Oct 2006 09:26:55 PM |
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On Sun, 22 Oct 2006 15:40:55 -0400, Uncle Clover
<UncleClover@SpamMeNot.com> wrote:
we might employ. On that day, mankind - or possibly its descendants - will look
to the heavens with a questioning eye and ask, "Is that _it_?"
Proving that there's at least one thing we don't know. When we can
say, with absolute certainty, "That's it", we'll know everything.
Let's hope we create a better universe than the last god did.
--
rukbat at optonline dot net
"He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my
contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him, the
spinal cord would fully suffice."
- Albert Einstein
(random sig, produced by SigChanger)
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| User: "Ian Braidwood" |
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| Title: Re: Another philosophical - how will we know it if we ever know everything? |
23 Oct 2006 04:45:35 AM |
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Uncle Clover wrote:
I'm on a roll today, I guess, though i haven't decided if it's kaiser or
cinnamon. Maybe later I'll figure that out... ANYways...
Suppose that the amount of knowledge to be learned is finite, and that
we as human beings can actually learn all of it. How would we know when we've
reached the end of knowledge?
An interesting question.
The first thing which occured to me was the Halting Problem.
Assuming that knowing something means having it available to recall,
then you would have to review your knowledge in order to assess it.
Given that there are an awful, awful, awful lot of things to know, it
seems to me that you couldn't start your review knowing that you'd ever
finish; you wouldn't even know you were half way through when you were
half way through.
Then it occured to me that you would have to have some criterion to
assertain that you'd completed your task. You couldn't use the lack of
new things coming to mind for review, because that would assume that
i.) You were being systematic and ii.) your system would be complete.
This made me think of Godel's theorum and hang up my hat on that idea.
Set Theory is probably the least hopeless approach which comes to mind:
by taking all known things and grouping them hierarchically until we
have just one set. The problem here of course is that you'd have to be
certain that you had all knowledge at the start of the process, which
is what we're trying to prove. Oh dear...another one bites the dust.
The only thing I can think of which would prove total knowledge would
be completeness and that would reveal itself by your knowing the answer
to any question you could either find or generate. Eventually, the
questions would just run out, becoming less frequent over time. Of
course, you could never know when the final question would ever appear
and that brings us back to the Halting Problem.
In short, I suspect that this question is unanswerable in principle,
even if all knowable things were a finite set...
....Though there might be some fact I don't know which proves me wrong
on this. ;-)
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