The smartest people know that they know nothing

I love this qoute. One specific reason I love this qoute is because its a constant thought or maybe idea in my head. I have no further comment on it because id make myself feel dumb to be honest haha good post

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"The more i know the less i understand"

The Eagles

 

"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool." - William Shakespeare

 

Think about something which you are good at or a subject in which you are knowledgable.  Now compare that to what outsiders of your field think about your field (or what is portayed in movies).  You may think that they are lacking in knowledge.
But keep in mind that is how you are in everything in which you are not an expert.  Every discovery that you make should lead you to think that there is always more.
 
Relevant:   Dunning Kruger effect

 

I was actually just refrencing that saying in a post I made yesterday which was in relation to people being so biased and close minded. It's rediculous to some but this quote rectifies true human nature. The manner of how we built up our civilizations with vanity, money, production, populaton growth... Honestly it's all a very weird picture.

 

Population growth ?

 

So everything around us is a construct of our minds. There's no real knowledge, only what we THINK is to be considered knowledge. When really, we brought it into existence. I'm fucked.

 

 
"The smartest people know more than the dumbest people."  -Cactus Ed

 

That is actually a quote from Socrates.

"I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing."

That's pretty cool if you came up with a similar idea on your own, OP. I really like the quote and have had it posted on my website for a long time. To me, what the quote is saying is that sure you can know a lot. You can be the smartest person in the room. But there are so many things that you don't and can't know. And it says something about yourself if you are aware of that and can contemplate it.

 

The more I think I know the less room I have for what I don't - esseff.
 
In fact, I'm less likely to even see something outside of what I think I know because in thinking I know there IS nothing outside it for me. This is what creates the closed mind, for the ego lives inside a bubble, and likes it.

 

This has been on my mind a lot over the years as well, ever since I came across the Socrates quote in highschool Latin class.  As fascinating as I find it, I also find it a very simplistic concept to comprehend.  
 
If you think about any skill or field that exists in the world today, you will find that those who know the most about it are usually, if not always, the ones who realize its depths.  Mozart, for example, understood the depths of music better than someone who just had his third piano lesson.  The best surfers out there know the best which waves are tough to catch, which are impossible, and what would be possible if only they had  X, Y, or Z  skill/equipment.    It seems only logical that knowledge by default opens up the gates of thought and shows the knowledgeable person just how much more there is out there.      

In the case of someone like Socrates, or even a bright leyman reality ponderer in today's world,  it seems inevitable to realize that there is far more data out there than we are privy to, both as individuals and as a species.  The realization seems almost banal considering that we can't even conceptualize the end of data.   Try to picture actually knowing >everything<.   It's impossible because aside from your little mortal earthly knowledge, you have no idea where "everything" ends.  

Realizing the vastness of one's own ignorance seems like an inevitable experience for anyone with a functioning brain not straddled with ego at the helm.

 

A smart man looks like a mad man to a dumb man.


JESUS GOT SHOT IN THE FACE