Why attempt the “impossible” task of arriving at and sharing access to “All Knowledge”?

Humans have been studying themselves and the world around for thousands of years leading to innumerable streams of studies across broad study categories like Arts, Humanities, Science, Engineering, Medicine and so on.

With thousands of specializations all over the world across different civilizations, are we getting better at understanding our world or are we getting lost? What is the big picture? What do we really need to know?

Reason #1: Curiosity, Love of Knowledge and a Learning Adventure

The genesis of this project lies in pure curiosity, love for knowledge of “all kinds” and, last but not the least, attempting the biggest learning adventure all! In addition, there are various reasons why this project could be seen as urgent need.

FROM Naval Ravikant as quoted by KYLE KOWALSKI in her post “Naval Ravikant: 15 Timeless Thoughts & 50 Naval Quotes on Peace, Happiness, the Meaning of Life, & More”:

Naval #13: LEARNING & TRYING WIDELY—Humans are broad and multivariate. Try your hand at everything because you only have one life.

  • “I like the model of life that the ancients had…there’s sort of this arc to life where you try your hand at everything…You’ve got one life, just do everything you’re gonna do.”

  • “At some level, all humans are broad, we’re all multivariate…at some deep level…every human, basically, is capable of every experience and every thought.”

  • “Would I still be interested in learning this thing if I couldn’t ever tell anybody about it? That’s how I know it’s real. That’s how I know it’s something I actually want to know.”

  • “Even today, what to study and how to study it are more important than where to study it and for how long. The best teachers are on the Internet. The best books are on the Internet. The best peers are on the Internet. The tools for learning are abundant. It’s the desire to learn that’s scarce.”¹

Reason #2: Almost all knowledge dished out to us could be potentially false or incomplete

Most of us “consume” knowledge created by so called experts who might bring in their own deficiencies, blindspots, biases and “incompleteness” of work. Humans have spend their lifetimes strongly believing in “facts” which turned to be false later.

James William Loewen (born 1942), an American sociologist, historian, and author found out that History textbook authors have many misleading narratives and distortions. He published his work in Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong (1995). We need to look at similar work in other subjects. Regarding contemporary news and media, anyway the trust levels are quite low. A report title “Bias, Bullshit and Lies: Audience Perspectives on Low Trust in the Media” states:

Simply put, a significant proportion of the public feels that powerful people are using the media to push their own political or economic interests, rather than represent ordinary readers or viewers.

Wikipedia maintains a page Superseded theories in science.

Some more fun links on the plethora myths and misinformation around us:

Reason #3: Take advantage of cross-functional knowledge intersections to enrich individual studies / subjects

Reason #4: Connecting dots across different domains could lead to creation of new areas of studies / subjects

Reason #5: Stretch our intellectual limits to the maximum

If we are in an unknown infinite universe then why not stretch ourselves to the maximum to see how far we can travel to understand this universe and existence?

Reason #6: Take more informed and better decisions in our personal and professional lives

This may seem superficial and obvious – yet this is the most important reason. Let us say, someone does not care about knowledge. However, that person, unless there are psychological issues or masochistic issues (or someone who has subscribed to fatalism or someone who has subjugated himself or herself to a religion, guru or cult) would surely  like to spend time in the best way possible? With reason #2 above questioning all available knowledge, it becomes critical to know more. We need to test what we think we know and stretch ourselves to “unknown domains” and potentially get access to and take advantage of useful knowledge that, at the moment, could be lying in the domain “you do not even know that you do not even know”. The last phrase was made popular by Werner Erhad – for more on this, look here.

Also see:

  • The Last Man Who Knew Everything (2006): Written by Andrew Robinson, is a biography of the British polymath Thomas Young (1773–1829).
    • This biography is subtitled Thomas Young, the Anonymous Polymath Who Proved Newton Wrong, Explained How We See, Cured the Sick, and Deciphered the Rosetta Stone, Among Other Feats of Genius.
    • Particular emphasis is given to Young’s achievements in physics (e.g., Young’s modulus), mathematics, physiology, medicine (e.g., Young’s rule), linguistics, and Egyptology.
  • Thomas Young (scientist):
    • A British polymath who made notable contributions to the fields of vision, light, solid mechanics, energy, physiology, language, musical harmony, and Egyptology. He “made a number of original and insightful innovations” in the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs (specifically the Rosetta Stone) before Jean-François Champollion eventually expanded on his work.
    • Young has been described as “The Last Man Who Knew Everything“. His work influenced that of William Herschel, Hermann von Helmholtz, James Clerk Maxwell, and Albert Einstein. Young is credited with establishing the wave theory of light, in contrast to the particle theory of Isaac Newton. 
    • Young was highly regarded by his friends and colleagues. He was said never to impose his knowledge, but if asked was able to answer even the most difficult scientific question with ease.
    • Although very learned he had a reputation for sometimes having difficulty in communicating his knowledge.
    • It was said by one of his contemporaries that, “His words were not those in familiar use, and the arrangement of his ideas seldom the same as those he conversed with. He was therefore worse calculated than any man I ever knew for the communication of knowledge.” (“Peacock’s Life of Dr Young” by George Peacock, D.D., F.R.S., etc. Dean of Ely, Lowndean Professor of Astronomy University of Cambridge, etc. quoted in “The Living Age” by E. Littell, Second Series, Volume X, 1855, Littell, Son and Company, Boston).

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