this is not some external reality coming out of an aggregation, it is a metaphor for our increasing ability to comprehend the nature of our own mind as consciousness .. it is what consciousness is and can already do, already a super-organism .. it seems to becoming externalized, but there turns out to be no difference between inner and outer. it is us as we are, becoming actualized

I like the IGKNOWN — the known unknown.

Further to ‘Barry, no relation’ earlier - I lay claim to neologizing the ‘igknown’, the area of knowledge we know exists but we can’t understand… like how the female mind works 8v)

Thanks, Enzo. We’ll add.

How much of this expanded “knowledge” is actually important? The number of bytes may be expanding, but I find it hard to believe that all of this is actually new, important knowledge.

We’re actually regressing: Heavy-handed copyright has essentially made all knowledge since the 1930s disappear from bookstores, as Barnes and Noble and others publish public-domain works from the 19th and early 20th century instead of high-priced copyrighted versions from the late 20th and 21st century. We’ll look back at the 20th century as the century of lost scholarship. How much “knowledge” is actually read by anyone? The late 20th century was a renaissance of the 19th century as copyrighted works were thrown off the shelves and out-of-copyright reprints took their place.

Great post, Kevin.

I have translated it to Spanish: http://abbagliati.blogspot.com/2008/10/la-expansin-de-la-ignorancia.html

Thanks for sharing your thoughts about our future.

Just a quick correction:

Ignorance is not expanding, just our known ignorance.

Hello Kevin thanks for your great post. I have translated this article into Traditional Chinese, please inform me if there is anything offended by this translation, thanks.

the link is as below:

http://tech-sjh.blogspot.com/2008/10/blog-post_7748.html

Great post,

Came to this through the Kurzweil post which was talked about on the Guardian today, and I saw this point follows on quite neatly from that one. People used to laugh at the ol’ Rumsfeldian “known/unknown knowns dichotomy”, but of course it was one only things he ever said that made any sense to me.

I think we constantly traverse the ignorance/knowledge spiral.

These are the stages of knowledge: 1. unaware of our ignorance. (“ignorance is bliss”) 2. aware that we do not know (Questions) 3. Aware of our knowledge (Expertise)

Once we reach stage 3, we unknowingly slip into the next level…and thus we traverse the never-ending knowledge spiral.

-Vasu Srinivasan http://blog.amusecorp.com

Kevin, great stuff, as always. thanks.

Brendan @ #1 Sorry, I tried hard and I can’t. Why would you ever not want knowledge? Ignorance is bliss, but only because it doesn’t know any better. Knowledge is often uncomfortable, to be sure, but it is power.

I’ll take as much knowledge as I can get.

“From the discomfort of truth there is only one refuge, and that is ignorance. I do not need to be comfortable, and I will not take refuge. I demand to know.”

Why do we assume “ignorance” is bad and “knowledge” good? There is an old saw, “Ignorance is Bliss” and I am sure we can all think of situations where ignorance is preferably to knowledge (go on, try!). We need to be careful about framing such binary and academic choices that obscure the real human issue here - the inequality of access to existing knowledge, often with life-threatening consequences.

@Robert: Curves such as x^2 are polynomial curves. Exponential curves are like e^x. The gap between functions like e^x and 2e^x is rising at a rate of

This post was really neat. Someone put it on StumbleUpon.

I apologize if someone else covered this in an earlier comment, and also for being pedantic.

“And as mathematicians will tell you, the widening gap between two exponential curves is itself an exponential curve.”

It depends on the factors. The difference between y=x^2 and y=(x - 1)^2 is 2x - 1. That’s a widening gap, but it’s widening at a linear rate of 2 dy/dx.

@ Simon - I’d say knowledge is a network property or process, and that info is a related system property or process. They work in tandem and as info is input (selectively) into a large complex network (life system, or brain), knowledge results through a combo of hierarchical sorting processes. But learning has to occur gradually as the system intelligence and capacity increases, so more info is good, but too much is indigestible.

How about problem sets vs. solution sets? Or perceived problems, perceived problem sets, collective problem perception, solution demand. Problematics and solvables…

@ Barry Kelly (no relation): Yes, I think I do gloss over this distinction, lumping both types as “ignorance” when I should make a distinction between known unknowns and unknown unkowns. We are moving from less of the latter and more of the former, but we call them the same: ignorance. We need a new better word for “known unknowns.” Any suggestions?

So knowledge is networked? The more pieces of information available, the more nodes and the more possible connectors?

“…our knowledge is expanding exponentially, our questions are expanding exponentially faster. And as mathematicians will tell you, the widening gap between two exponential curves is itself an exponential curve. 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.”

I get what you’re saying but think you’re leaving a few important pieces out of the equation.

First, while I agree that our questions (aka sense that’s there’s infinitely more out there that we don’t know) are expanding, weren’t we more ignorant before even acknowledging these? The term ignorance chasm you refer too is really more a solution chasm, technically. Our maximum ignorance is far behind us. Our maximum question set is far in the future (perhaps it will shrink as we try to “close” off our definition of our system.)

Second, as we co-evolve with information and develop our technology and intelligence we constantly strive to shrink the gap. Yes, there are more questions, but we also mine answers at an increasing rate. There’s probably a fundamental systems power law here for # of questions:solutions.

If you have a moment, take a peek at this crude diagram I pieced together about the relationship between humans tunneling to inner space and expanding outward. Implicit is the idea that as we mine information from our environment and simultaneously develop new capabilities we generate knowledge. It’s rough, but I think it applies here.

http://memebox.com/futureblogger/show/915-nova-spivack-s-web-as-world-observation-leads-us-further-down-the-rabbit-hole

Agreed. The thing that troubles me is the lack of moral humility in the face of one’s own ignorance, no matter how ‘expert’ one is in any particular field.

It isn’t the answers. It’s the questions. 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. Just look at the Republican party which seems to be running on the idea that the mediocre rule and what they call “elites” must always be bad.

Questions/Answers are mutually interpendant Arisings that at least are pired. All questions have at least one answer.. some have more. Apparent distance of perception ‘between’ interactional ‘completion’ is illusory unless at least one Answer facilitates Achievement.. After this, the Question/Answer dance is a self-sustainable synergistic medium for Potential permutationals to be correlatively produced and interplayed… furthering Experiencial Extropy of Self.

which is why mystics emphasize the importance of “knowing that by which all else is known” and why, as interesting as it is, relative knowledge will always be incomplete.

kevin kelly is a mystic. too. :-)

enjoy, gregory lent

I’d heard the John Wheeler quote slightly differently - “The larger the circle of the known, the greater the circumference of the unkown” - but I think I prefer the geographical metaphor.

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! Almost like a Yin & Yang balance of what constitutes knowledge and ignorance.

And of course, agree that we have not asked our biggest questions… :-) We have left those for the poor philosophers and religious folks..who might be the least qualified to handle that topic!

That’s not quite right. 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’re just discovering more ‘known unknowns’, but since they’re pulled from the pool of ‘unknown unknowns’, I wouldn’t be so sensationalistic as to talk about the “expansion of ignorance”. The ignorance is indeed being reduced, by the movement of ‘known unknowns’ into ‘known knowns’.

Excellent analogy. But few things that are running across my mind are:

1. Aren’t we talking of captive audience within whom KNOWLEDGE is getting dissipated whereas others (majority) are still grappling to acquire that?

2. The gap between Answers & Questions is Ignorance according to you. But can we really assume that rate of ignorance also increases exponentially?

3. My point of contention is that more information = more knowledge = few informed people = CHANGE in the world. Isn’t that what are we looking with all these information leading to knowledge?

—Sampad

John Wheeler put it nicely: “As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.” (Scientific American (1992), Vol. 267)

(I’ve always found this quote combines well with Mandelbrot’s 1967 paper “How Long is the Coast of Britain?”. Answer: depends how you measure, but essentially infinite!)