THE ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE
1. Is having too much knowledge or knowing everything suppressing our curiosity?
2. What is the happy medium? (knowing enough to question and have curiosity but also not knowing everything to have the curiosity)
3. What is being in the cave and how will we know if we are in one?
1-2. I think that sometimes, people can learn from not knowing everything, or the lack of omnicience can allow them to explore new viewpoints. If everyoe was born knowing everyting, we would lack biases and opinions and through that most emotions and the parts of life that make it interesting. I think curiosity is one of the thing that makes life worth living and if we didn't have that we would all be very dull. Its sort of like Spock vs. the Vulcan in star trek: Spock is alienated by the other vulcan because he is part human and feels emotions because he is not all-knowing and "perfect," but in the end, he lives an exciting life because of his emotions.
ReplyDelete3. I think being "in a cave" is being closed-off or oblivious to something. In ways, we all live in caves because no one has experienced everything and has an omniscient, unbiased view of the world.
1. I don't think it's possible to have too much knowledge. There's always going to be something just beyond the horizon to wonder about (hopefully). For example, the biggest source of knowledge today would probably be the internet, and even though that makes a lot of knowledge available to us, it still encourages curiosity because if someone has a question, they know a place to try and find the answer. If the answer isn't satisfactory to them, then that could inspire this person to find the answer on their own. However, if someone thinks they know everything, then yes, that would suppress their curiosity. After all, if someone knows all, then what do they have to be curious about?
ReplyDelete2. The happy medium probably requires the ability to still be able to ask questions, whether the questions are about the finer details, the big picture, or connections between topics. It shouldn't matter if someone is the foremost expert in a subject or someone who just knows the name, just as long as they have something to wonder about.
3. Being in the cave is having constraints placed on your knowledge, whether those constraints are ignorance or purposeful misinformation (like propaganda). I think one could find if they were in a cave by asking "What if the prevailing view here is wrong?" and seeing where that takes them. On the other hand, that could just lead to another cave...