Thinking About: Ignorance


The more I learn the more aware I become of the scale of my ignorance. Despite making fairly strenuous efforts over the years to know more about more I realise that much of human knowledge will forever be beyond me. Given ten lifetimes I might have developed a general understanding of many things, but as I have only a single lifetime even that general knowledge is simply beyond me. Not only will I remain ignorant of many things, I am now, and will remain, ignorant of the very existence of whole areas of knowledge.

Even if not a single new book was published from today I will never be able to catch up if I spent all day every day until my death reading. Not only will I never read the more obscure and difficult texts sitting mostly on university shelves and nowhere else, many of the great classics of human literature will never pass through my hands. Anything not translated at some point into English is beyond me as is anything remotely mathematical without a whole lot of study that would take me away from other subjects. Whole swathes of history are unknown to me. I might be able to locate a battle or two and a few names in a particular century but that would be it – and it’s almost guaranteed that these events and those people existed in Europe. My knowledge of non-European events and personalities is generally pitiful. Although I see myself as having a scientific frame of mind most of science is a closed book to me. Anything requiring much more than basic mathematics is a real struggle, yet my knowledge of physics is probably best when compared to biology and especially chemistry of which I know very little.

One of the reasons you might have noticed that I read so many introductory books – often on the same subject – is that I don’t believe that my grounding is good enough in anything I think I might understand. I am, rather paradoxically, fairly certain that I do not know anything with any degree of certainty. The knowledge that I do have (or at least think I have) is probably built on foundations hanging in the air. The more I dig into them the less solid ground I find. I cannot, however, simply stop digging for fear of what I might, or might not, find there. Of course in some ways this is incredibly exciting. It is like entering a hidden valley with only the sketchiest of guidebooks (if that) and taking the rest of your life to find out everything you can about the place despite knowing that there is another valley beyond this one and, probably, another one beyond that. Exploring the vast unknown is a little overwhelming when you glance momentarily at the ‘big picture’ but is more easily digested in bite-sized chunks. This despite the nagging knowledge that there are meals, both exotic and plain, that we will never encounter or even hear of.

It is not surprising then that my reaction to statements of certain knowledge is usually laughter. It is not, however, because I cannot conceive of anyone knowing things for certain where I do not. It’s because when questioned on the grounds of their certainty it quickly becomes clear that they know even less than I do. Their certainty is based on ignorance whereas my uncertainty is based on my certain knowledge of my own ignorance. Those who safely reside inside the bubble of political or religious certainty appear to exist on one side of a semi-permeable membrane which allows their ignorance out into the world but prevents knowledge of their ignorance seeping back in to inform them of the error of their certainty. They are unaware of their ignorance even when they come face to face with it. I can only suppose that their feelings of certain knowledge helps keep them warm at night whereas my feelings of ignorance do not. From my point of view I’d rather be aware of what I don’t know rather than being ignorant and, falsely, happy about it. I don’t like being ignorant and there’s not a whole lot I can do about it, but I’ll do the little that is possible and see where it leads. Welcome to my journey……