Has Human Knowledge Become To Great For The Human Mind?

by Blueblades 9 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Blueblades

  There are PSYCHOLOGIST'S, PSYCHIATRIST'S, PHILOSOPHERS,etc.All concerned with the human mind and its emotional mental processes.Has human knowledge become unmanageable.After some post their thoughts I will post more on this topic.And btw,I have no idea what I'm talking about.Please enlighten me.I just thought I would post a topic that would get very few responses.Feel free to answer yes or no without any explanation,or feel free to post a long - winded explanation with links.Remember,I have no idea what I'm talking about,my mind is tired.

  Bluebladesps.I forgot to mention along with the three P's,there are the three S's,Spiritual Skillful Shepherds,ie.wt elders who are also concerned with the mental emotional processes of the human mind of the rank and file.
• 

  JamesThomas

  Ironically, life is most vibrant and beautiful when the mind is quiescent and we are just silently present and attentive to what the universe is expressing. No thought. No knowledge. No nothin.

  Go figure.

  j
• 

  Waymores Ghost

  I don't think so. But I think that as we accumulate more and more knowledge, ways must be devised to help us manage it.

  Wg
• 

  Satanus

  Some science fiction writers envisioned us growing larger brains or computer addons/linkages to out brains. The net is a bit like that. However, a lot of the 'information' is junk, imo. Much standard medical drug prescriptions will be obsolete or seen as barbaric in 50 yrs time. Most religious 'knowledge' is merely a placebo w which to fight fear and uncertainty. So, i think it's not so much a matter of too much information as a need to refine and organise it.

  Like somebody said, there are thousands of kinds of bugs out there, but we don't need to know all that. I wish i knew a lot more about the bugs and plants growing in my backyard. That would be relevant info to me.

  SS
• 

  heathen

  I don't think that too much knowlege can hurt anyone . We are living in an ever changing environment that requires alot from people on an emotional level . There are many people who are destructive to themselves and to others because of stress and or mental illness that can only be helped through some sort of diagnoses and treatment. I think the science of psychology and psychiatry is there to help people to overcome fear and depression or destructive behavior .
• 

  larc

  Blueblades, just like you I have no idea as to what I am talking about, but I am going to talk any way. Well, as time goes on, as we know it will, more knowledge is accumulated at an exponential rate, in other words, real fast. Now, where does that leave us? I have no clue, but I will continue anyway. Since no one can know everything, I guess we have to settle for learning the stuff that most interests us, and/or stuff that gets us a better job.
• 

  jgnat

  OF COURSE a single human mind cannot carry the combined cultural and scientific knowledge of the human race. That is why I have a Personal Digital Assistant.

  Really, if a bunch of us were dumped on a pristine gardenlike Paradise Earth, outside the massively interdependent industrial matrix that we live in, we could live no better than Adam. Forget the glass jug of lemonade with ice cubes and a straw. The dazzling blue dress would have to go too. And you can forget the rubber-soled sneakers.

  I figure that mankind is not evolving, the society is. Human beings have remained basically the same. Children of the middle ages were playing stick ball. Since then, we have invented bats, balls, gloves, knee pads, and helmets. We are a safer generation. But we still play ball. The strength of our culture is in our community, and the cumulative sharing and storing of knowledge amongst us.
• 

  Mysterious

  Society has come to the point where we no longer need to remember everything. At one time knowledge was only passed down generation to generation. Very little was recorded. Now we record everything in so many ways and so many places. And never before has there been such easy access to this information or to communication.
• 

  Abaddon

  The expansion of knowledge in the past three hundred years has made the nature of the 'great thinkers' change.

  Newton, da Vinchi, and other 'Natural Philosophers' probably knew a very very high percentage of what had been learnt by man at that point in history.

  Now we know so much more that only the very greatest polymaths can claim to have a good knowledge of more than a handfull of areas of study; Richard Fienman for example took a sabbatical as a physics professor and actually made discoveries in biology - the exception rather than the rule.

  Thus I would say, yes; the sum total of human knowledge is too large for a human brain to integrate. There's so much to know; Newton would have been competent to set up the eqivalent of a factory or supervise building work; Hawkins could supervise the same, but would have to call in experts for certain areas unless he felt like spending a couple of years learning all there is to learn about (for instance) semi-conductor fabrication.

  Also,. the rate of technological progress has increased as inventions typically allow inventions. A hundrted years ago there would have been few changes in medication or treatment for a certain condition in the lifetime of a doctor; now retraining and refreshing skills is essential to keep pace.

  As jgnat pointed out (I like the PDA joke), a random group of a hundred modern people could not rebuild modern society. You'd have one telephone sanitiser too many and not enough food chemists and petrochemical engineers, let alone semiconductor fabrication experts. It would be quite surprising if a random group of a hundred people were able to advance from 'shipwreck' to generating electricity in a short space of time.

  A random group of a hundred neolithic people would hold ALL or almost the knowledge of their people and be able to continue their culture on. A hundred people from 1500 would probably be able to build society up to roughly the level they had before any theoretical 'shipwreck'.

  This however poses no problem; having the ability to integrate the total sum of human knowledge is not something that would receive significant amounts of selection pressure as it would not afford signficant reproductive benefts; we are not going to evolve bigger brains!
• 

  link

  Can anyone remember who it was that said " I learn many new things every day but when I go to bed at night I know less of the sum total of human knowledge that I did when I got up in the morning".

  In other words, on a percentage basis of what we already know, the sum total of human knowledge increases on a daily basis at a rate far in excess of the information that any individual could ever cope with.

  Just a (complicated) thought

  link