"The more we know, the less we realize we know" - has this phenomenon always been understood by humanity?

Answer 1

I don't think it's been understood by some people. There are a lot of arrogant people who believe they know everything, or that nothing can be true besides what they believe is true. In the early 1900s, the US Patent Office closed down, because the people who ran the office believed they weren't needed anymore. They thought everything that could be invented had been invented. It's amazing when you think about it. Every new discovery can potentially lead to a million more new discoveries, but some people just stop as soon as they discover something new, and never fathom that they may have only scratched the surface.

Answer 2

Can you look around at humanity today and know just a bit about history and ask this question with a straight face. For if we all knew that what we know is only the beginning of what we understand we do not know, then we would not have the rulers and heathen that put us through the hell on earth we are experiencing.

It is only now beginning to be understood by the common man, since most likely Luther forced the church to let men and women read the Bible for themselves, and man started to read the written word and think for himself, that he has the realization that the more we learn the more we want to learn and the more we want to learn the more there is to learn and because God is infinite and we are His creations created with all His attributes we will be forever experiencing the new ideals and knowledge of the Universes and those beyond into eternity.

Answer 3

The totality is never a common universality and man has not always had the ability to count, so he never knew if he was knowing more at a moment or less. The intellectually superior half (or an unknown fraction of the total) of our total sum human population knows that the more question answered, the more question ask-able or posit-able. Whenever we form new description to represent new knowledge, we have more logical symbols and determinant description to generate or construct new questions. Theoretically this progression is infinite.

'the more we know, the less we realize we know' is transformed to 'the more we know, the more we realize new questions'.

This understood intuitively is not the same thing as understanding it logically consciously, when intellectual purpose is realizable in itself for itself, rather than some immediate external materialistic biological need.

Answer 4

No this phenomenon is what makes us even try harder to understand but we will never be able to come to trams with it,.it is just to huge for full understanding even thou we think we have the right answers but we really don't.

Answer 5

"The difference between what the most and the least learned people know is inexpressibly trivial in relation to that which is unknown."
- Albert Einstein

Always? No.

Add in Socrates as well.

I think most people would deny this statement, or at least, not fully understand what it means.

Answer 6

Yes. Even primative man noticed that the farther he walked, the more of earth there seemed to be. This notion is expressed on every path man finds himself.

Answer 7

its not understood by 99% of humanity today.

Answer 8

i believe this statement....i really think that people think they may know or understand a lot but i think they are fooling themselves when they believe this...i do not think anyone knows all yet today...and the more they learn the more they need to learn ...

Answer 9

Don't think so... otherwise, why do we keep making mistakes?
It's part of Life, I guess.
Life is an ongoing learning process.

Answer 10

only the humanity that knows enough to know that the know next to nothing.