I see humanity’s understanding as a core metric for our "progress" as a species. But could we achieve complete understanding? Could we, as humanity, if given enough time, get to a point where we understand everything? Or, will there always be some phenomena we yet can’t explain? Is knowledge finite or infinite? What does this question even mean? What does it imply about us? About the world?
Understanding or Approximations?
Let’s start by defining ”understanding” as an objective match between model and reality. When we ask “is knowledge finite or infinite?” a natural wonder is if we even can truly “understand” something in the first place. We make theories, we conduct experiments, we analyze results, we make inferences, we refine old theories to better accommodate new results. But is it true? What do we mean by ”true”? If some all-knowing, transcendent, English-speaking alien lifeform came to Earth and we shared our most bullet-proof result, our truest understanding of something, would they agree? Maybe they would, which would, in some sense, suggest that our understanding of this thing is true. But what if they had some alternate understanding? How do we know which understanding is truer?
Can truth be tested?
It seems reasonable to think that our understanding consists of approximations. In many cases, we might get close enough to the truth that we feel justified in saying we “understand” something, at least for practical purposes. But how can we ever know how close we really are? Without a universal test for truth, we’re always working within the limits of inference and observation. I would love for us to have a universal “test for truth,” so that we could test our understanding and see how true it actually is. But such a tool has sadly yet to be developed.
What Shapes the Boundaries of Our Inquiry?
If we can only make approximations and not truly ever understand something (if we accept that approximations imply no final stopping-point) then we might say that knowledge is infinite. Or is it really that easy? Maybe we are, as usually, just stopped by our brains’ limitations? Maybe knowledge really is finite but just infinite to us human? That is, maybe everything is explainable. However, we as humans can only make approximations, and thus to us it will always feel like knowledge is infinite. Our knowledge might be infinite within a finite boundary. To a limited mind, even a finite space can appear infinite if the tools for measuring it are insufficient. Imagine that the alien species from before had developed this tool for testing truth, then they could potentially be the ones who could truly understand something. They could test their knowledge over and over again until they arrive at something true. So for them, their knowledge could be finite, and they could achieve ”complete understanding.” But what if they can’t? What if knowledge is infinite?
What is infinite knowledge?
What would it mean for knowledge to be infinite? The first answer I think of is that nothing will ever be able to fully understand anything. That is, we will never be able to truly find a match between our models and reality. This seems somewhat intuitive if we don’t have a test of truth as mentioned before. It might also seem intuitive because ”reality” for us is what our brains tell us. But this ”reality” might not be true. We are again maybe limited by our brains. But what if ”infinite knowledge” means something completely different? What we are most likely assuming is that ”knowledge” is a set of facts or truths that we either can unlock or not. So does ”infinite knowledge” mean that this set if facts is infinite? Or does it maybe mean that we can never unlock any truth within the set itself? Not even one single fact can be truly understood. Are we assuming that even our best-validated models could be infinitely off from actual reality? That even our first step toward knowledge is based on an illusion or bias? These are two very different meanings of infinite knowledge.
What even is knowledge in this context
By the usual definition, knowledge is “facts, information, and skills acquired through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject.” But when we talk about knowledge as a universal, cosmological concept—“everything there is to know”—is that still just “facts”? What if we need a new definition when scaling knowledge to ”all there is? Maybe knowledge itself is a physical structure, discoverable by empirical methods rather than purely philosophical thinking? What would change in our purpose if knowledge were a physical thing rather than an abstract set of propositions?
Maybe Understanding Doesn’t Exist?
Is this stupid? Maybe. If could ”ask nature” something like ”Hey, what do you think about your physical knowledge structure?” or ”Hey, we’re trying to unlock the facts of knowledge,” maybe ”nature” would look at us like we’re stupid? Maybe the concept of ”understanding something” is just a product of our minds, and not something universal? Maybe there’s no point in chasing understanding? Indeed, there exist other definitions of ”understanding” like ”a subjective feeling of coherence” and ”a species-specific cognitive process” Maybe “understanding” isn’t a universal property to be attained, but a human-made framework to feel secure in this world. Maybe it doesn’t exist outside the mind that thinks it? If that’s the case, then the quest for “complete understanding” might be chasing a mirage, trying to translate nature into a language it never spoke. In that case we get a vacuously true ”no” to both our questions—is knowledge finite? Is knowledge infinite? And yet, even if understanding is an illusion, the pursuit might still have meaning. We get infinitely closer to something we can never touch but each step still reveals something new, something useful, and beautiful.
How do we navigate infinite knowledge?
To me, this thought initially appeared when thinking about purpose. I would love to one day contribute to research and our knowledge about many different things. This feels really powerful to me because I would be expanding our understanding. I could bring us closer to complete understanding! But maybe I can’t? If knowledge truly is infinite and all we can do is approximations, then it feels like this purpose of contributing to humanity’s knowledge becomes less obvious. I mean I could move us forward, yet I could not move us closer to our goal of complete understanding.