Learning Limits—Part 1 (7/5/21

The limits of human knowledge have ceaselessly been expanding, ever since our species came into existence. A major factor allowing that expansion is the fact that we discovered language and writing along the way. These unique human capabilities have taken us far beyond any other earthly creature, because they allow us to communicate and cooperate, so that our cultural accomplishments have escalated at an astounding rate. Each generation passes on its accumulated knowledge to the next.

Our accrued knowledge has been compared to the size of an island in a vast ocean of unknowing. As our erudition has grown, the island has expanded. What we've come to know today, in fact, is more like a continent than an island; yet the immense ocean of ignorance still surrounds us and still appears unlimited. The more we know—measured by the size of our continent and the length of its shoreline—the more we aware of all that we don't know.

This situation raises an interesting question: Is there a limit to the size of our island of knowledge? Will our shoreline some day bump up against a formidable ocean barrier that brings a halt to what we can know? Are there some fundamental limits to our learning?

Questions like these are often asked in the context of science, rather than theology, philosophy, or history. In theology, for example, many people have wrestled with the question of whether or not God exists. Some (theists) are convinced God is real, others (atheists) “know” there is no God, and yet others (agnostics) stake out a position that we can't know, or will never know; so they clearly feel that there is a limit to our knowledge in this realm of theology.

Some of the more thorny questions of philosophy seem to be beyond our capability to ever answer. We have struggled with them for millennia, without making much headway. There seem—so far—to be no final answers to questions such as, What is the good life? What is beauty? What is truth?

And what about history? Short of time travel, will we ever know why some events happened, but not others? Why did Alexander the Great decide to engage in some battles, but not others? What would have happened, had he made another decision? How would events have turned out differently, had Jack Kennedy chosen not to take the route that his procession took that fateful day in Dallas, November 1963? These kinds of questions can go on indefinitely, and their answers—as is often expressed—are “lost to history.” So there does seem to be a limit to our knowledge, in the context of history. There are some things we'll never know.

The limits to our knowledge in the arenas of theology and philosophy are not necessarily the same for each of us. It's more a case of relative or individual knowing. What one person knows—or believes they know—may be quite different from another person. We often are in the realm of opinion, rather than knowledge. It can be difficult—if not impossible—to characterize what the collective knowledge may be. In fact, when we ask questions about the limits of human knowledge in these fields, we even often find ourselves asking the wrong question. It may be more a matter of exploring ways to ask better questions, than struggling with the limits of the wrong question.

Next time” returning to science…