What are the limits to knowledge?
There are none, except if you start to look at the degree to which one can undo the ‘human problem’ we’re all sharing. It also depends upon the boundaries you place upon knowledge and knowing itself. If you mean sensory input + logic, your world will be very, very small; as everything will be reduced to an object. Still, one’s mind ALSO has another mechanism that is unifying and not divisive.In this way, all knowledge is constructed. Through a balance or an imbalance of unified and divisive thinking. Take a hard look at how your own mind works and you will see what I mean. This is a Deep Truth.It can really only be argued to what degree that we are limited is true, as spiritual progress is a dissolution of all identifications. Including with the mind and the body. As one dissolves identifications, the more you can know, as your idea of self and other, knower and known, facts and context, will merge.The founders of the Quantum Mechanics principles faced this problem quite head on, and I find that few are willing to take up the implications of this knowledge, that we may more fully understand a wider range of things in the universe, and about ourselves. And these men were mainly looking at MATH. Imagine…!So, in order to “know” more (I don’t mean facts), we must dissolve, to a greater and greater degree, our humanness; in favor of the timeless, infinite, unchanging Self we actually are.In my tradition, what we’re going for is not knowledge as it is modernly referred to, which is generally indicative knowledge only.What we’re going for is: “The knowledge that, being known, nothing else remains to know.”Ego and ignorance alone restrict our methods of knowing. Thus you can see many problems in science remain unresolved due to the pure error of approach. I speak about this a fair bit in many of my other answers- of which there are many.
Do you think there is a limit to human knowledge?
Do you think there is a limit to questions?
Is human knowledge limited because we are human?
It is limited to the point of survival and hardly anything else. We are apparently in the image of god, however, quite handicapped physically against many creatures and deseases do being smarter makes up for it! The same goes for other creatures - they only know what is needed as per nature dictates! We try to go further but it is still nature’s way to make us extinct even sooner than would normally be. Looks to me that eventually we will even self destruct. Also look at things like ISIS!!! They have pretty intelligent members and look at how idiotic they became all based on some sky daddy and look at the killings!!!
Are the limits of science the limits of human knowledge itself? For example, there isn't a satisfactory definition of 'matter' either in science or in philosophy. How much can science answer important philosophical questions?
Are the limits of science the limits of human knowledge itself?Well. Kind of. Our understanding of Limits of Science will certainly match our human knowledge limits so far. For example what we thought we knew were the limits of Human Knowledge - Internal surgery - has changed. Now we may think we have reached the END of Human Knowledge in regard to some parts of Science. And we may have reached the end of our Limits as we find out the real Limits of Science. Take the speed of light (some now trying to call it the cosmic maximum speed). We believe we have reached the limits of science cause we believe this speed limit WON’T be exceeded. Hence Human Knowledge - match Limit of Science.But brain surgery? We know our current Human Knowledge limit WILL be exceeded as we grow our Scientific understanding of the human brain. Hence - Limits of Science not yet reached.With that the OP switches tracks, gears and method to question our mutually agreed definitions.Like ‘Matter’. OTOH, most people can agree on what matter is - but yes there is scientific debate on very arcane thought about energy state / matter state.So, there will be a GREATER understanding of scientific definitions that may or may not indicate a greater Human Knowledge but rather a more precise LIMIT of science in regard to some of our knowledge.With that the OP switches tracks a third time now arching os off into How can science answer philosophical questions?No relationship to Human Knowledge. No amount of certainty every satisfied philosophy. Us, pseudo thinkers can always say - “yeah, but what if…”When Philosophy ever does reach the Limits of Science, we bring that knowledge OUT of philosophy and call it something else. Like thehermeneutics of sociological implications of gender labelling. :)Overall - a) Yes and No b) Kinda of we do c) Nah not reallyAudstone
Is there a "limit" to how much knowledge the human brain can store?
There are situations in which it becomes harder to retain facts, the more facts you already know. That imposes a real limit on memory. But there are also situations where learning makes it easier to learn more.Psychologists who study the ability of people to memorize lists have found that memorizing lists reduces your ability to memorize new lists. This is called proactive interference. Similarly, memorizing new lists interferes with your ability to remember previously memorized lists. This is called retroactive interference.Both of those forms of interference are strong and reliable. They are easy to detect in Psychological experiments.These limits on memory appear most strongly when what you learned in the past and what you are learning now are similar. You will get lots of interference if you are memorizing lists of animal names on two successive days. But you won’t get interference if you memorize a list of animal names one day and learn puzzles on the next.The opposite also happens. Your memory can get better on account of previous experience. People who spend a lot of time developing a mental skill get better over time. One of the things that improves is memory. Chess experts, for example, develop the ability to memorize positions of a chess board, something that non-experts can’t do very well. If you ever tried to learn a foreign language you may have noticed that it becomes easier to learn more after you reach a certain level of skill.The most dramatic example of memory improving with learning is mnemonics. People can learn to memorize long lists of arbitrary items using various tricks. The most famous mnemonic trick is to first memorize the arrangement of rooms in a big house and then learn to mentally attach things to be remembered to each room. There are people who have used tricks like that to memorize the exact order of a deck of playing cards and reproduce it backwards and forwards. One person could shuffle four decks of cards and quickly memorize the entire list. (This kind of thing is now a sport in which people compete to see who can memorize the most stuff: World Memory Championships - Wikipedia)The big limit on our ability to acquire knowledge is our lifespan. There is only so much you can learn in the course of 80–100 years.
Is there an upper limit to the amount of knowledge the human brain can collect and make sense of?
Definitely, it is difficult to quantify but there have been attempts to do so on the basis of number of connections. 10^11 neurons each having 10^4 connections could be 10^15 bits.. but Neurons have many other tricks to store more information and process output so that this number is likely much lower than actual storage capacity. On the other hand the brain appears to have a high redundancy: you find that different neurons are involved over time in the same basic task: this would reduce the total storage capacity estimate.There are potential mechanisms and cells like microtubules and glia that: if we find them involved in processing could expand capacity by a whole lot more because there are many of them, many interconnected mechanisms.It is an active discussion in research as to computational capacity of the human brain so new answers will follow new discoveries.Something not to forget is that we forget.. this means ability to compress knowledge, to throw out pieces of memories we don't need. This would massively increase our capacity: would be nice to understand how we do this.
Why are we Humans so Limited?
Ha, you sound worse than that kid who seriously tried to go super saiyan, This isn't the Matrix kid, Focus on something that is possible, like getting money, or women or fulfilling your life's goal of being a photographer or a sports journalist, that'show you un-limit man kind, by not being one of these *** holes who limits us from doing great things that actually are possible.
Why is it human nature to seek knowledge and should there be a limit on knowledge?
It is human nature to seek knowledge - we have evolved as curious creatures. One of the survival approaches it to be able to build an accurate picture of the World… the more a creature’s internal model matches Reality, the better chances thay have, overall, to survive. That is not the only factor - so creatures do not all have as much curiosity as humans.There may be a practical limit to the amount of knowledge we can each carry in our heads - which is why we have records - but there is no objective moral imperative to restrict knowledge - in fact, it can be demonstrated that a lot of harm comes that way.Google for “superiority of secular morality”.