What to learn to learn "everything."
grendel824_
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Registered User regular
Now I'm sure it's not possible, but what line(s) of inquiry/study would one follow to "learn everything," at least hypothetically speaking. I assume that multiple fields and forms of philosophy, epistemology, and memory would be the first stops. If one were going the Batman route, some kind of venture into the fields of martial arts and physiology would also be important... this is primarily for fiction-writing purposes and as an exercise in thought, though I always did think I was a little haphazard with my own learning style and IQ (no eidetic memory, but close to polymath levels in a variety of fields without making a concerted go at learning anything but what I happen to find interesting at the time) and was wondering if I could make better use of it by learning about memory/epitemological approaches... any ideas/systems/references to things already in fiction (or even non-fiction)?
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You can be a jack of many trades, but you can't be a master of all trades, or even a jack of all trades considering human variety.
That said, if you just want -broad- knowledge... just look at the name of every major in a university catalog.
For a start.
Don't let Jeffe see that or he'll lock the thread.
To expand: General humanities degree encompassing sociology, geography, and history, plus a science degree starting with general stuff and majoring in environmental science. The only things I'm missing are a better background in law and econ, some business management stuff and maybe some more physics. Languages and literature stuff are better kept for hobbies. Degrees are only meant to be a start-point, so coming out of undergrad as a jack-of-all-trades isn't actually a problem.
You don't know close to "everything."
QUICK! What shoes am I wearing?
Oh right, it's really a silly question and this is really a silly answer. You can know what you know, but it's idiotic to presume that you could ever know "everything."
I understand what you mean with a degree only being a starting point, but I always struggle to see how something this spread out can take you into something specific at the graduate level or something like that. Out of curiosity, what did you do once you graduated that your degree helped you springboard into?
It's theoretically possible to eventually have a built in computer system, either wearable or surgically implanted (or integrated some other way, I guess) that records everything you see and hear, to a database searchable by content. It would probably use a HUD but I suppose any kind of easily portable interface could work. Add to this an internet connection, and perhaps an ideal Wikipedia, and you've got access to a great deal of information. Who knows, maybe we'll eventually get search technology that works just as well or better than human memory recall.
Half of this I got from a project somebody did in one of my classes two semesters ago, and the other half is from Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow.
For something less... fictional, I really think we'll need a different objective than learning everything.
For a list of things to concentrate on in the meantime:
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
-Robert A. Heinlein
That's plainly not even close to what the OP was asking. Don't be silly.
*the one with the money >.>
No matter what you know, there is always someone who knows more. I think there's some pithy quote along these lines, "The more I learn, the more I realize how little I know" or some shit like that.
It's just foolish to presume that anyone can approach knowing "everything," and the true challenge is knowing when to defer to others when your expertise is exhausted.
Absolutely, but its fun to have a stab at it. God knows I'm nowhere near the 'everything' point and never will be, but i got a fair chunk of stuff in my head. Makes it easy to talk to people, at least. If your head is full of, say, nothing but accountancy and yu-gi-oh, not so much :P
It's just a ridiculous question. We all know what we know, and it's a little presumptuous to lump one kind of knowledge in "everything" and some other kind of knowledge in "everything else."
It all has its value.
How would one go about learning as much as is possible for a human to learn?
Start with a basic list, so you have arts, science, etc, etc. Then once you acquire basic knowledge in those, progress deeper. Basically iterative (might be the wrong word...) learning.
It's basically how the education system of most societies is constructed with primary school, secondary school, tertiary education. It's just that usually you pick one path (science) and follow that (mathematics) to a very specific point (modelling of human population based on environmental factors).
Setting out to learn a lot about something you'd like to do should be how you approach university. Then simply taking the trouble to look things up when you wonder about them should cover the rest.
Lock yourself in a library after an apocalypse destroys all the other humans on earth.
Just be careful not to step on your glasses.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
My 200 or so goals ranged from the high minded (Earn a phd, write a novel) to the less enlightened (go sky diving, two chicks at the same time), from the primal (learn to fight, hunt, garden some of my own food) to the Romantic (become an accomplished musician, live abroad). Its only been a year but I am quite pleased with the progress I see myself making. For instance, I'm three years into a Biology degree with my sights on grad school, I went sky-diving last summer, I train at a Jujitsu dojo every Tuesday and Thursday, once a week I practice with a voice coach, etc.
Most things worth doing take a loooong time to do. For me my list has been incredibly important to keeping me focused. Its sooo fucking easy to just collapse after you get home and not really do much anything, but I try to orient myself to the mindset that I am constantly needing to sow the seeds that will feed me later. Always work toward that payoff. Next month I will be at a local club performing a few songs I wrote. Literally tens of thousands of hours of my life have gone to working toward this moment, from piano lessons as a kid to learning how to string my first guitar to my new voice lessons that I'm paying out the ass for.
Theres a quote from a movie, and maybe this is cliche and banal to you, but I don't care because its fucking beautiful to me and its helped to sustain me when I feel like quitting. Its from A League of Their Own, and Gena Davis's character is telling Tom Hanks that she's going home and giving up baseball, because, she says "it just got too hard". Hanks says back to her "It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard everybody would do it. The Hard is what makes it great."
I felt I had to address this. Some of these are valid. Others, less so.
Those I'd consider valid in a typical environment:
change a diaper, balance accounts, build a wall, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, cook a tasty meal
I'm not totally sure about "solve equations", I admit. That one's dependent on how exactly it's defined - I wouldn't expect the ability to solve cubics, for instance. Even some of these are unnecessary in certain circumstances. The first, for instance, is only an issue if you have children.
These, however, I would consider specialist in today's environment:
plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, set a bone, pitch manure, program a computer, fight efficiently, die gallantly
I think that these are worth considering in greater detail.
Admittedly, this all comes from a character who happens to be practically immortal (whee, plot armour!). In a society which actually requires all of this. So, in context, it makes more sense. However, as we do not live in isolated bubbles within which we are required to survive (and, furthermore, carry out warfare), it's not totally relevant.
As far as learning as much as you can, though, you first have to determine whether you value depth or breadth more. Learning what you want to is probably the best option.
Reading Wikipedia for fun is a great first step.
I'm the same way. I'm well-versed in enough stuff that even if I don't know a lot about something (sports is my severely weak point), I can ask some good questions.
Well, to be fair, I probably was as well, in offering it as any kind of literal guide. I think it does give a fairly good approximation of the variety of fields one could benefit from having knowledge in, for the type of person that enjoys being useful.
For instance, I would interpret write a sonnet, set a bone, and pitch manure as express oneself artisically, know first aid, and be capable of manual labor, respectively. I do think these are quite reasonable for any able bodied individual even in today's society- let alone an individual who wants to learn whatever he or she can.
If you're the kind of person who's naturally interested in a broad spectrum of fields, then you'll eventually develop a working knowledge in many/most fields within said spectrum. I'm not sure if formal education is necessary or even the best way to achieve this. My approach to school has always been "this is how I get a reasonably interesting, reasonably well paid job so I can afford to pursue my other interests", and at the moment I'm working on a PhD in a very specialized field, but this hasn't stopped me from becoming familiar with what I think is a wide variety of subjects.
In any case, I've developped a philosophy wherein, as long as I know where to look for a piece of information or knowledge, I don't need to know the information or knowledge myself. So an unrestricted Internet connection at your fingertips is the closest you might come to "knowing" everything. The only problem is, you end up "knowing" all sorts of inaccurate or even false stuff.
If you want to go into a science fiction route in your writing, then you can try to imagine a simple but fertile mathematical and programming construct that "contains" all possible knowledge, and then figure out a way for a human mind to interface with that, so that the human in question has access to all possible knowledge.
Check out my new blog: http://50wordstories.ca
Also check out my old game design blog: http://stealmygamedesigns.blogspot.com
Further, I would say that that the amount of knowledge that pertains to any reasonably specific subset of study is still more than any human can hope to learn in a life time. Let's say, economics. No one person will ever be able to learn everything there is to know about econ. That would require them to internalize the work of every half-decent economist, learn all theories ever created, learn about the workings of every civilization in every nation on the planet for all of human history, just for starters. A human can't do that. And that's just for a single field of study.
Unless you're willing to somehow quantify the value of some knowledge over others - establish, for instance, that the ideal breadth of knowledge for a given field is X, and then work towards achieving X in as many fields as possible - there's not really an answer that isn't self-evident.
Read a lot. Try to read about something every day that you don't already know. If acquisition of knowledge is your only goal, it doesn't really matter what you read. If you buy nothing but sociology books, you'll still be gaining knowledge each day, and you'll be getting closer to that so-unattainable-it's-not-even-funny goal of yours.
If a broad knowledge base is also part of your goal, then read a lot. Search the internet a lot. Wiki a lot. Talk to people who know more than you a lot.
http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/under.htm
Victim of severe brain damage undergoes experimental techniques to regenerate brain tissue and becomes increasingly intelligent. I haven't read it for a while, but remember that initially the main character seems to be blessed and it's easy to feel envious of his blossoming abilities. However, before long he has acquired such a unique perspective through his increased intelligence and knowledge that he becomes quite obnoxious. This is a character that potentially could learn everything, and instead of using that knowledge to benefit everyone he just goes into evil genius mode...
So, y'know, be warned.
Actually, it's worse.
I completely forgot about that twist. There really is no hope.
You also learn why good katanas are made in a totally different manner from bastard-swords, what each one is better for and why, and why they should both be made of carbon steel, not stainless. In fact you learn to think very little of stainless steel for any use except food preparation and consumption.
Edit: You also need physics and chemistry. Take at least the first two of each that an engineer would take. Which means you're going to have to take calculus. Take a logic course (usually listed under both Math and Philosophy, like simultaneously, with a slash), too.
I'm also disappointed by the lack of mention of sex and a thorough understanding of it. I mean, of all the things to be knowledgable in one would think that'd be high up on the list.