Chapter 8
The Unknowable
Chapter 9
The Unknown
The preceding chapter dealt with the unknowable. It was left blank on purpose.
Science, philosophers and thinkers in every field, have long
been compared to explorers. They live in
the realm of the known, and set foot into the unknown, to discover and
understand it. As we explore, we chart
new territories, and what once was unknown, is brought into the realm of the
known.
Actually, it is a bit more complicated than that, because
oftentimes, what we thought we knew, turns out to have been incomplete, or in
some cases, completely wrong. For
example, the theories of relativity and quantum physics, radically redirected
the course of science and philosophy.
Concepts such as space-time (instead of space and time being separate
from each other) are even today, very difficult for most people to internalize.
The realm of the unknown has been compared to a vast ocean,
upon the edge of which we stand. It is
not a simple matter of exploration and discovery; it is also a matter of
changing our ways of thinking.
In the English language, it is difficult to express this,
except in grammatically awkward terms, such as, “We do not know what we do not
know.” That sounds circular, but the real
meaning is not. It is one thing not to
know what is over the next hill, but at least we know that something is there. It is another thing to not know that, underneath
the hill, where we may not even think to explore, there are things that
invisibly affect our lives at every moment without our ever suspecting it.
What this implies is that, no matter how much we may ever
learn, there will always be something more to learn, not just a detail, but a
new principle, a new way of thinking. It
is as if we were all color-blind, seeing only in black-and-white and shades of
grey. We would not only not know about color,
but we would not even know, that we do not even suspect color exists. If someone told us about it, we might be so
mystified that we might not even believe.
If you have difficulty understanding this chapter, perhaps
it is because you did not read the preceding chapter carefully enough.
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