How fast is knowledge expanding

That gap between questions and answers is our ignorance, and it is growing exponentialy. In other words, science is a method that chiefly expands our ignorance rather than our knowledge.

We have no reason to expect this to reverse in the future. The more disruptive a technology and tool is, the more disruptive the questions it will breed. We can expect future technologies such as artificial intelligence, controlled fusion, and quantum computing to name a few on the near horizon to unleash a barrage of thousands of new huge questions — questions we could have never even thought to ask before.

If a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it, does it make a sound? The basic premise here is that as we learn more, we discover more unknowns, i. This is true. Hence absolute level of ignorance is not increasing, but decreasing with new discoveries. Fascinating theory, Kevin. Your mind is a gift to us all. I had so many questions, For which I sought the answers, But every answer found presented twice as many questions.

And then I dreamt of a machine uncovering answers lightning fast, With my two hands I built this thing, Infused it with my logic. This powerful nugget answered all the questions in the world, 3 seconds it took this automaton, With Answers in hand, I marched out to a world frozen with confusion, My bold smile crowned me King. I led my subjects to a yawning chasm, We all jumped in with ether wings designed from the fabric of good intent. Answer: depends how you measure, but essentially infinite!

But can we really assume that rate of ignorance also increases exponentially? Our ignorance includes things that we have not yet asked questions about and things that we do not yet have answers to. People who are unaware of their ignorance are no less ignorant, and similarly, progress simply makes us aware of problems we were previously ignorant of.

We are moving from less of the latter and more of the former, but we call them the same: ignorance. Perfect point and I like to think about it this way.

We seem to growing in ignorance as we learn more because we are growing conscious of our ignorance. The duality of that situation is very appealing actually! And of course, agree that we have not asked our biggest questions… We have left those for the poor philosophers and religious folks.. Ignorance can be identified by a LACK of questioning. A question signifies a desire for knowledge. Our stupidity is already infinite from the human perspective. What is accelerating is the failure to continue validating our stupidity.

All questions have at least one answer.. Are we ignorant about the kinds of questions we are asking rather than the answers we get? There is also a cult of ignorance that seems to be growing, at least in the USA. The term ignorance chasm you refer too is really more a solution chasm, technically. Our maximum ignorance is far behind us. Second, as we co-evolve with information and develop our technology and intelligence we constantly strive to shrink the gap. Header Menu Skip to content.

Home Subscribe Contact. Human Brain Indexing Will Consume Several Billion Petabytes In a recent lecture at Harvard University neuroscientist Jeff Lichtman, who is attempting to map the human brain, has calculated that several billion petabytes of data storage would be needed to index the entire human brain.

Linear to Exponential Growth of Human Knowledge A transition from the linear growth of human knowledge to the exponential growth of human knowledge has taken place.. However, have you truly considered what the rate of increase really is on each of these and how the future will look concerning analytics and technology?

I was watching a program not too long ago and the host said something that really caught my attention. He said that human knowledge is doubling every 13 months.

From an article on Industry Tap written by David Schilling, the host went on to say that not only is human knowledge, on average, doubling every 13 months, we are quickly on our way, with the help of the Internet, to the doubling of knowledge every 12 hours. To put it into context, in human knowledge doubled approximately every years. More Insider Sign Out. Sign In Register. Sign Out Sign In Register. Latest Insider.

Check out the latest Insider stories here. More from the IDG Network. The 8 toughest decisions IT leaders face. Infowhelm There are a growing number of examples of where robotics and automation are impacting our lives. Looking Ahead The bottom line is that data and technology are helping us navigate our journeys at almost every interaction in how we live, work, and play.