Juliet Bennett's Blog

Unknowns

26 Oct ’11 Leave a Comment Written by Juliet Bennett

How do you “know” something? How do you know it is “true”? I have been going through old diaries, intrigued by the development of thoughts and ideas through time. The following is a little rant I had in 2009 about knowledge and truth…

From the origins of humanity, life and our universe, to the possibility of multi-verses, forces or even beings that are invisible to our senses, some things may always be unknown. For all we know we might be bits inside a computer, replicates of another group of humans, who evolved in the way our science tells us, or inside a computer-like creation designed by beings of who-knows-what nature. Smaller than ants to humans, humans are to the infinite universe/s.

Clearly there are some things we KNOW we KNOW – limited to our mind and bodily senses. Our “knowns” come dow to the combination of matter and energy contained in a human allow the majority to think, see, hear, eat, drink, taste, smell, feel, love, hate, laugh and cry.

There are some things we DO NOT KNOW we DO NOT KNOW – seeing that five hundred years ago we didn’t know the world was round, imagine the knowledge we will discover in the future.

There are some things we KNOW will DO NOT KNOW – the incomprehensible possibilities of what is outside our universe, and whether there was always something (God, a cell or otherwise), or if at one stage in the history of everything, there once existed nothing.

It seems to me, the MORE WE KNOW the MORE WE KNOW WE DON’T KNOW.

Given we know we do not know so many things, I conclude:

a) we may as well be content with our lack of knowledge, and admit the limits to what we think we “know”.

b) it can still be interesting to ponder the mysteries – curiosity might kill the cat but before it does so it makes life more fun

c) knowledge is not fixed. “Truth” (and what is attached to all moral objectives) changes with language and culture.

Therefore never, ever, stop questioning. Always strive for better answers. And better answer. And better answers still…

Photo:

On a recent trip to Grandfather Mountain, North Carolina – not a bad sunset hey!

Truth
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