Is there an end to knowledge?

The ET discussion with all its aspects I find interesting and it strikes me that most of their illusiveness can be explained away due to their advanced technology. You know, stuff like being able to travel between dimensions and going faster than light, curving space and that kind of things.

Dr Kaku talks about type 1,2 and 3 civilisations and he assumes that the most advanced civilisation can well be a million years old. And that these civilisations consider us not worthy to give any of their attention whatsoever. Like we look at an ant collony and consider it useless and stupid to offer the ant collony our technology.

Well that is something I can understand....and everybody with me will agree that if we try communicate with ants about this subject we will most likely not receive more than a bite in return.

I find this analogy hard to grasp....Okay I understand what he is trying to say but I think we as humans are able to learn a million year more advanced science if we have a good (alien) teacher. We are able to comprehend new insights so it will not be a waste of time for a more advanced alien if he wants to bring us up to speed......so to say.

But my question is.....is there an end about all there is to know of the laws of nature? What is it?.......100.000 years from the moment we started to make tools to where we are today? And has this learning curve began to be very steep the last 150 because it changed into a something exponetial?

Just taking in consideration how much we will understand over 100.000 years in the rate we are going now. Will those million years old alien civilisation not have reached the end of what there is to understand? And what will be the side-effect on society if this is the case?

Where does it end. if there is one.....Will there not become a moment, after we have found the theory of everything and applied it onto everything thinkable and able to understand that happens in all the sciences, that there is nothing left to figure out?

Anyways, A lot of questions but I hope you understand what I try to ask.....

reply to post by zatara


If you believe in the existence of God, a Creator of the cosmos and all that is real then the end of knowledge would come with our absolute knowledge of him. The thing is however that an eternity of time will be needed for the complete revelation of infinity and his infinite reality. I believe that we have all embarked on an endless journey of discovery...

There was a time when they believed we would learn all there is to know, by now.

reply to post by zatara


You bring up a good topic.

Have you ever heard of the Markovianrace. It comes from the book series the Well of Souls by Jack L Chalker.

Before I continue-Sci Fi people, it opens the mind to possibilities, read and absorb as much as you can. Forget standard fiction, their are only a possible 300 types of plots. These can be broken down to only a few sub-types. Once you understand all of the possibilities of these types of stories, you will know the endings of most film and book stories-EXCEPT for Sci Fi.

A quick synapses of the Well of Souls

An ancient race that existed for many Milleniums had created an empire that spanned the cosmos. They had created computer systems that were miles thick and surrounded the very planets they lived on. These systems allowed the Markohvians to change the very mathematics of the universe. Anything they wanted or desired or that they wanted to be, just happened through the power of the mathematics. They lived for millions of years in this way and never died. After an undetermined length of time they asked themselves, what else is there? Is this all there is?

So they started a project, the largest project ever known. They had decided to create themselves into other beings. Millions of other type beings. With differing life spans and different realities. They than spread themselves out from their worlds, amongst the stars, to all of the universe.

If you liked The Dune, or the Robot Series(plus subsequent series) or the Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. You will also like this series. I would say it is on par with all that I mentioned here. Absolutely Brilliant.

Their may be an end of knowledge. It would take millions of millions of years to reach it though.

With each discovery 100's of other questions arise. With each subsequent discovery, advances keep multiplying. There will come a time when the knowledge itself will become so expansive that it will be hard for us to keep track of it all. This I believe is one of the very first BOUNDARIES we will have to face. Space travel is not even a very hard one. The knowledge boundary will be our first major boundary.

Excellent topic zatari, I will favorite this thread and stop in to see how it blossoms.

edit to fix the Markovian Name and add Jack L Chalker author

[edit on 1/2/2010 by endisnighe]

Originally posted by zatara
Is there an end to knowledge?

The quest for knowledge ends were transcendental truth begins....

Good luck in finding it.

Peace

reply to post by endisnighe


Thanks for finding it a excellent topic Endisnighe. No, I never heared of this Markohvians but I will look into them.

I also realised that this curve of technological advancement will have a turning point. The moment that there is not much left to figure out.

What you said about each question will raise a hundered other ones has probably to do with how fast science evolves. The faster you can answer these new questions the faster new ones will appear....and so on.

The more I think about what is going on when thinking about my question the more complicated it becomes.....Anyways, it will be hard for a people that has built their lasting society on discovering answers and now to continue for a next million years with everything solved.

Maybe they will do what you said about creating a project that has much resemblance with who we are.....and how we will develop.

reply to post by zatara


I got blasted when I put up a thread titled 'Help I've run out of questions'

Basically yes there is an end to human knowledge especially so when we do not pursue certain paths that are open to us.

Those's paths are:

Spirituality
Freedom
and Exploration

Because for the most part all three have been neglected throughout human history we find ourselves where we are today, ie coming to the end of the available knowledge pool.

Of course people will deny this but I see it as fact. And we will not evolve into a new knowledge pool until we get our act togather and encourage freedom.

I think that there may come a time when knowledge, as we know it today, comes to an end. However when this point comes, our purpose in life, and life itself, will take on a whole new, unimaginable drive that we can't even come close to understanding as of now.

Think of how our advances through the years have opened up different realms of thought and knowledge. Then think of how new discoveries in the future will do the same.

As we advance with knowledge and technology, so will our way of life.

I like to imagine our scope in knowledge as a a pea, and the scope of all the knowledge and nature of reality is equal to something the size of the earth... or even bigger.

reply to post by LususNaturae


that would be a feat, but we arent that advance.

Originally posted by zatara
Will there not become a moment, after we have found the theory of everything and applied it onto everything thinkable and able to understand that happens in all the sciences, that there is nothing left to figure out?

i certainly hope NOT
i love to learn!
what else would there be to do?

i also think that it is a self-feeding cycle, like you say, maybe something exponential in nature.

because the more we figure out, the more we question...
...and the more we question, the more we imagine...
...and the more we imagine, the more we create...
...and the more we create, the more we have to learn about.

perhaps somewhere out there is an advance race thats is aware of itself is as the most advanced race there is in the universe and I doubt thats us.

When it comes to technology, we can only get as advanced as our resources allow us, so yes there definitely is an end to technological advancement just based on Earthly resources.

There could be an alien race that lives on a planet that is 1000 times bigger with 1000 times more resources and they will have infinitely more ways to use those resources than we have ways to use ours.

But when you get to a certain point in technological advancement, you get so advanced that any more advancement is pointless.

But there are other ways to learn. We can learn ourselves. There is more power within ourselves than one can possibly discover in one lifetime. Ever heard of ninjas? They can channel their inner energy to make a bird play dead, they can run up a wall and take two steps on the ceiling, they can lift up a heavy rock with only a thin piece of paper.

I think there certainly is a limit to what our body can do, but it is way beyond what we can discover in one lifetime.

On the other hand, the Earth's resources will be exhausted one day if we continue to look for advancement in technology.

The only way i could understand knowledge as ending would be if everything ended as there is always new information in every new moment.

Knowledge itself can be endless, However our ability to comprehend it could be limited. At least this is how i see it in this World.