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Position:Home>Philosophy> Can we know everything?Question: Can we know everything!? Give society trillions of years hypothetically to explore the universe, dimensions, and everything in between!. If it was all categorized and collected in a database available to all like the internet!.!.!. will we ever reach a point in which we have learned everything there is to know about existence!? Although a task like this seems infinite, does it ultimately have a finite solution!.
Then what!? What would we do if we knew everything!?!?!? Www@QuestionHome@Com Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Hey, since you asked this in philosophy, perhaps you might want an answer from this field!. It is pretty hard to say that we know everything even when we feel we do!. Even in science, that is!. Imagine, if you were a chicken in a farm, and every morning at 10am the farmer comes with a handful of grains!. Can you then conclude that this will happen forever until you die of old age!? In practice, you can't, because one day you will have to be put on the dinner table!. In similar sense, we cannot say that the sun will rise tomorrow and the day after tomorrow just because it has risen for trillions of years, or that a natural phenomena will repeat itself in experiments simply because it never failed you in the past, because there is simply no logical compulsion for it to do so!. That's the problem of inductive reasoning!. And that's how definite knowledge is taken to be in philosophy, established by debate!. There's much more to the story than just this, like the problem of parsimony, that science always employs the simplest and most direct explanation for an observation, which might not be the most reliable explanation!. Just take the science of archaelogy for instance!. The extent of a story scientists can tell of a piece of history is heavily limited by the artefacts discovered, their beliefs, and technology of the present!. By linking them up, you have a story of what happened then!. But if I say a particular undated point in history God altered matter in the world, including its chemical constitution, such that carbon-dating was no longer applicable, who could say with absolute certainty that I'm wrong!? While you can question God's intention, refer to documented evidence and conclude that my story is one of an infinitesimal probability, I may still be right!. And the problem is, if I really am right, we all know the foundations of archaelogy or even science will be reduced to dust!. What use is there for science (at least in archaeology where application is minimal), if everything COULD BE false!? Hope this helped=)Www@QuestionHome@Com No!. As Kant taught in his exploration of the limits of pure reason, what we know is limited by the ways we know!. Humans' ways of knowing would have to expand infinitely in order to "know" everything!. We are finite creatures, and our methods of perception and knowing are limited!. Therefore, our ability to know is limited!. We could, of course, ultimately know everything we are capable of knowing, but that is far short of everything!.Www@QuestionHome@Com So your question is this: Is everything there is to know finite!? No one can really answer that because to begin with, we have not explored 95% of the ocean on earth, and that occupies a finite volume, what more of the space that we are almost certain is infinite!. We will never know everything!Www@QuestionHome@Com as we (humans, the scientific community) progress through the sciences, we learn about things we didn't understand, but find things that are new and still unfamiliar!. there is always something new to learn, it is not possible to "know everything"!. saying "god knows everything" is a pathetic way to make the question a piece of useless drivel and is an offense to the thinking community!.Www@QuestionHome@Com "There is something, knowing what, everything else is known"!. Thus spakeLord Krishna!. We are referred to 'para' and 'apara' as two aspects of 'vidya' or education in our 'vedic' scriptures!. One is learning about the matters or transition and other one is spiritual or eternal state of things, which is the root cause of the creation!. Www@QuestionHome@Com We can't know everything even after all those explorations and formulas whatsoever!. Our memory isn't enough to carry all data that the computer can!. And if ever we already know everything, so what!? It's not like it can change your boss' mind to turn you from maintenance to managing!.!. =)Www@QuestionHome@Com if we could that would mean that the world is no longer changing and since it is changing everyday its impossible and i dont think it would be an adventurous world if we already know everything!.Www@QuestionHome@Com The more we find out the more questions we have to answer!. In trillions of years human kind will be trying to answer questions that we today cannot even dream about!.Www@QuestionHome@Com Only God knows everything, from beginning to end!. Www@QuestionHome@Com I don't think anyone can know every little detail, fact, etc!.!.!. otherwise, our brain would explode =PWww@QuestionHome@Com No if we did there would be no purpose to be here Love & Blessings MillyWww@QuestionHome@Com We can try!.Www@QuestionHome@Com why would you want to!? 'drive me nuts!.Www@QuestionHome@Com We do but, we have just forgotten most of it !.Www@QuestionHome@Com |