Quote:
Originally Posted by Lanny_McDonald
Oh great, this is going to devolve into a Corsi level game of semantics, because if you understand something you have to know about something to understand it. If you understand everything, you know everything. Except there appears to be plenty beyond us. For example, we don't understand gravity. We don't understand dreaming. We don't understand yawning. We don't understand consciousness. We don't understand quantum mechanics. We don't even understand matter, which makes up everything around us. We don't understand and that has involved the greatest minds in the history of humankind taking on these questions. I'm certain your next play is to say we "could some day" understand these things, but that is a guestimation or projection, not unlike looking at the math and making the assumption there are thousands of other intelligent life forms in the universe and applying the bell curve to determine we are possibly in the middle (at best). Do the math. It's not hard. Well, it's a little harder than Euclid's common notions, and you screwed those up, so maybe it is harder than it looks.
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It's not a game of semantics, you just want to make it one because it's easier to admit you don't understand the basic point. No sense in doubling down.
I can simplify it for you:
- knowing everything = being aware of "everything" (everything there is to be aware of) through observation, inquiry, or information
- the capability to understand everything = the power or ability to interpret or perceive the significance, explanation, or cause of everything
So, we don't "know" what gravity is, but we do have some "understanding" of gravity. We can measure gravity. We understand how things behave on Earth in relation to gravity and how they would behave differently somewhere like the moon.
And of course suggesting that we have the capability to understand everything, despite not yet doing so, is a guess. It's an educated guess, just like "there is life beyond our planet" is an educated guess. You get to decide if, based on "the math" or really any and all of the knowledge we've acquired thus far, whether it's more or less likely than us currently being observed by a peaceful alien species that views us as violent toddlers. I'm sure that, too, is an educated guess, right? If you decide my educated guess is less likely than yours, I'd love for you to do the math for all of us, since it isn't hard.
Go on and show your work. I'm excited to see it.