Daily Archives: August 10, 2011

Humility and Learning

by CreatingReciprocity

The Death of Socrates

The Death of Socrates - 1787 - Jacques Louis David

I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing. Socrates – in Plato’s Apology.

It is important that we constantly try to gain all the knowledge we can about the world. Ironically, though, we can only do this if we are open to the fact that we will never reach a place where we know everything.

Any knowledge we have – no matter how good – is not all the knowledge that exists – even about the obviously ‘real’ objects.

Less than a hundred years ago we had no concept of the behaviour of physical matter at a quantum (i.e. very, very, very microscopic) level and yet we now know about it and realise that even before we discovered it, there was still a quantum level of reality.

The most useful model of the acquisition of knowledge is to see it as a never ending ladder reaching towards truth of all types.  This model acknowledges that each rung on the ladder is a necessary step as we climb and also, that above us there are further rungs waiting to be reached.

So hand in hand with our excitement at whatever it is that we learn or discover, we must train ourselves in a real humility before all that we don’t yet understand.  If we don’t do this we will comfortably take up residence on a rung of the ladder and stop making progress.  On the other hand, if we do combine humility and learning, we will constantly try to ascend the ladder to reach greater and greater heights.

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