Will all truth eventually be discovered?

Question

Is the path of human understanding inevitable - if Newton had not discovered gravity would someone else have come to it and understood it in the same way?

OR

Is the progress of understanding shaped by what and when things are discovered - is what we learn based on what we look for which is based on what we already know?

OR ...?

The best answer will give examples that support its position. Cheers

Answer 1

I would say that it's rather obvious that knowledge does not necessarily inevitably increase through time. There are simply too many historical examples of times and places where this was not so. Take concrete, for example. Discovered and used by the Romans - and with quite a bit of expertise, too - the secret of its production and use was lost even before the end of the Empire. And it was more than a thousand years before it was re-discovered... even with so many Roman examples lying around. There are other legendary inventions which are still unreproducible today (Damascus steel is a good example - link 1).

Further, there are very sound reasons to believe that it is simply impossible to know everything that is so. Heisenburg's Uncertainty Principle (link 2) prevents us from knowing exact physical information about things, an effect which snowballs to make huge classes of things entirely unpredictable and unknowable (even in theory) across large ranges. There is also Godel's Incompleteness Theorem (link 3) which seems to overtly prevent any single system of knowledge from knowing EVERYTHING. This even precludes the possibility of two systems covering each other's gaps, because the two can be considered part of a single, more complex system.

And on a more philosophical level, it is very unlikely that all truth will ever be discovered simply because new truths are being developed all the time. Especially as we gain more understanding of how everything is put together, we become more and more influential parts of the universe, creating our own complexities and elaborations. It would be like trying to read every book - even if you read all the ones that had been written up until now, you cannot yet read the ones that have not yet been written.

Still, that doesn't mean we shouldn't TRY! ( :

Answer 2

1: What is truth? By any standard physical law is a close guess at best. A law of physics, such as your example Newton's universal law of gravitation is only maths based on a lot of observation, which hasn't as of yet yielded any results to suggest the contrary of the statement it makes. It however may well have a big failing when introduced to different parameters. For instance Newtonian or classical physics breaks down in the case of very small particals, and so Quantum mechanics was born to compensate for this failing.

2) There's alot of universe out there that we would have to but never will be able to look around to gain observation of everything that is, in order to form a Grand Unified theory of the universe. Ie an equation that would explain where everthing came from, and where everything was going. Basically one equation that could explain any concievable idea that might be possible in this universe. This equation would be impossible to form because of the reason just given and because it would scale so much information and would be so incredible vast and complex that no amount of people working on it for the term of thier working or whole lives could ever go about putting it into a useable form.

So no, we will never know all truth.

Answer 3

There has never been an agreement on what 'Truth' is so how can it be discovered?
Newton only named something that everyone was aware of. He did not 'discover' gravity. Humans had been living in it for Millions of years. It is society that takes the new symbolic name and calls it 'truth' and everyone is given the demand to believe in that 'truth' by that new name.
It's mankind's arrogance that makes the statement of discovery. Did Columbus 'discover' the 'new world'? How is that possible when there had been inhabitants there for eons?

Society's ideas of truth and discovery are absurd and ridiculous.

Answer 4

Yes, progress is inevitable. It's the nature of life to discover deeper and deeper things until the deepest truth is known.

And surprisingly, that deepest truth in is your own Being, your own Self... or the subjective aspect of your own existence.

Answer 5

If truth is the realm of God, and God is infinite, then the discovery of truth is a process of discovery and revelation that has no end. Maybe that's the real gift of eternal life.

Answer 6

As per divine religions. at the day of judgement.