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Limit of Knowledge
Is it ever possible to be at peace with knowledge?
Have you ever had the feeling that the more you know the more stupid you feel? If yes, welcome to the pack. Those of us, who set out on the path of pursuing a PhD degree, are formally trained to feel stupid at each and every step of it. I tried thinking hard why that should be the case (we are jobless anyway!). What I figured out is explained in the following graph.
The knowledge we gain (marked in blue on the graph) as a function of time (which is in years on the timescale of the span of our lives!) is linearly increasing. However, the knowledge of how much we do not know (pink) is increasing exponentially. Thus, the Gap between actual knowledge gained and the knowledge of what we do not know is ever-increasing; making us feel overwhelmed and confused and stupid; all at the same time. The graph substantiates the observation “The more we know, the more we know that we don’t know!”
Ok; back to work now. Also, Happy Easter everyone!
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