Reaching the upper limit of relevant knowledge

[rousseau]

Back in the early 19th century an educated man or woman might easily know a good brunt of what there is to know, or at least what there was to know that was relevant to them. These days I'm starting to feel the same way. Anymore, I struggle to find new things to learn about that have a practical affect on my bottom line, my general acumen, or really anything that can help me in anyway. The mystery's pretty much went away and now I'm left to experience.

There isn't really any point to this thread, it just seems like an interesting topic to think about. What exactly would constitute reaching the upper limit of relevant knowledge one could have in the year 2016? Once you get to that point, if you're a knowledge junkie, where do you go from there? Is there some threshold where a thinker of this type just starts distancing themselves conceptually from people in the meat of the bell curve?

 

[zorq]

Back in the early 19th century an educated man or woman might easily know a good brunt of what there is to know, or at least what there was to know that was relevant to them. These days I'm starting to feel the same way. Anymore, I struggle to find new things to learn about that have a practical affect on my bottom line, my general acumen, or really anything that can help me in anyway. The mystery's pretty much went away and now I'm left to experience.

There isn't really any point to this thread, it just seems like an interesting topic to think about. What exactly would constitute reaching the upper limit of relevant knowledge one could have in the year 2016? Once you get to that point, if you're a knowledge junkie, where do you go from there? Is there some threshold where a thinker of this type just starts distancing themselves conceptually from people in the meat of the bell curve?

I'm confused by your distinction between useful knowledge that exists and knowledge that is relevant to you. A lot of knowledge is stuff we use every day, but there is all kinds of great things that someone knows out there that is super useful but only in rare circumstances. The thing about this kind of knowledge is that you often don't know you need it unless you already have it.

Medical knowledge is a great example of this. You don't have to be a doctor to potentially save someone's life. If you are in the right place at the right time with the right knowledge you can perform a tracheotomy, deliver a healthy baby or set a broken bone.

Other knowledge is super useful but only if you use it. A spray-paint artist can make a good living selling her art on the street and never have to buy a birthday present for anyone ever again.

These things interests me but I don't have the time to pursue them.

 

[zorq]

Really, all the arts and sciences have libraries of knowledge and countless skills to practice and master. All of it is pleasing to me. Though, I admit that eventually tertiary subjects eventually become tiresome when one is consumed to excess without additional motivation. I think I'm far from a quintessential "lover of knowledge" but I still return time and again to the new and the old.

I would love to write books like J.K. Rowling and comicbooks like Frank Miller, illustrate them like Amanda Conner. Sculpt in clay and stone. Paint in oil. Master more than two linguistic languages. Design new clever puzzles, physical and mental. Recite Shakespeare, Thomas Jefferson and Monty Python. Compose music. Find lost ship wrecks. Discover new celestial bodies. Juggle six balls. Charm men and women. Ballroom dance. etc.

There is really too much great stuff out there to learn and not enough time.

There's no upper limit for a true lover of knowledge.

 

[Under the Rose]

With the advent of the internet and it's myriad avenues of entertainment and information, I find much of it to be repetitive and a significant portion is based in commerce.
Most of what interests me is in the real world though the virtual world is a resource that I utilize to augment that which I seek as it enables me to cast a wider net and
it has often assisted me in making various decisions by the shared experiences of others.

I frequently go against the flow but it helps to know what challenges to expect along the way.

 

[bigfield]

Back in the early 19th century an educated man or woman might easily know a good brunt of what there is to know, or at least what there was to know that was relevant to them. These days I'm starting to feel the same way. Anymore, I struggle to find new things to learn about that have a practical affect on my bottom line, my general acumen, or really anything that can help me in anyway. The mystery's pretty much went away and now I'm left to experience.

There isn't really any point to this thread, it just seems like an interesting topic to think about. What exactly would constitute reaching the upper limit of relevant knowledge one could have in the year 2016? Once you get to that point, if you're a knowledge junkie, where do you go from there? Is there some threshold where a thinker of this type just starts distancing themselves conceptually from people in the meat of the bell curve?

Instead of focusing on what you know, perhaps you should focus more on what you might do with your knowledge, ie. what tangible things you can produce.

Leonardo da Vinci is known as the quintessential Renaissance Man; he is known as a 'painter, sculptor, engineer, astronomer, anatomist, biologist, geologist, physicist, architect, musician, philosopher and humanist.' Da Vinci would not be known as a painter if he did not produce the Mona Lisa, or as an anatomist if he did not produce the Vitruvian Man, or an engineer without designing the Aerial Screw. His contributions to the arts and the sciences are what distance him from someone who is merely knowledgeable about those same subjects.

Do what Da Vinci did and apply your brain: write a book on social history; brew a beer with your favourite flavour; learn jazz trumpet; build a better Android app for vBulletin and convince Maverick to give it access to TFT.

 

[gmbteach]

This is going to sound peculiar but watch Jepoardy!

It might give you an insight into further topics of interest that you haven't thought of yet.

With regards to reaching a limit to knowing what is relevant, the thought scares me. I suppose because I Try to instill a sense of curiosity and being a life-long learner into students, that, I, myself still search out info on topics of current interest, and try out other topics as well.

 

[rousseau]

Really, all the arts and sciences have libraries of knowledge and countless skills to practice and master. All of it is pleasing to me. Though, I admit that eventually tertiary subjects eventually become tiresome when one is consumed to excess without additional motivation. I think I'm far from a quintessential "lover of knowledge" but I still return time and again to the new and the old.

I would love to write books like J.K. Rowling and comicbooks like Frank Miller, illustrate them like Amanda Conner. Sculpt in clay and stone. Paint in oil. Master more than two linguistic languages. Design new clever puzzles, physical and mental. Recite Shakespeare, Thomas Jefferson and Monty Python. Compose music. Find lost ship wrecks. Discover new celestial bodies. Juggle six balls. Charm men and women. Ballroom dance. etc.

There is really too much great stuff out there to learn and not enough time.

There's no upper limit for a true lover of knowledge.

I've always been a high-level thinker. I don't want to spend 5 years studying the minutiae of quantum mechanics, but I might spend a day or two reading about the biological implications of various physics theories. In my mind the goal has always been to integrate knowledge from different fields and disciplines together until I felt like I got what was happening around me on any given day.

I guess to me, the pursuit of knowledge has always been tied to productivity. I like accomplishing things that help me live my life better in some way, and that's why I use the word 'relevant'. Granted, oftentimes the things I learn about are very loosely related to this goal, but usually they are related.

The thing with that is I've always felt like if I understand the over-arching phenomenon then whatever's happening inside of that phenomenon is just a bunch of quibbling and so not as important, or at least interesting to me. For instance, I read a History of Christianity earlier this year and got a sense of it's movement and evolution as an organization over time, but wasn't so interested in what some bishop did in the twelfth century, unless it reinforced an overarching point.

To some extent I guess it just comes from an awareness that really we all only have so much time, and there are some things I'd rather know about than others, but now I'm at a point where I'm struggling to find that utility. Now that I think of it, though, it might be time to turn around and start learning more practical things, like cooking, cleaning, mechanics.. hands on, around the house stuff.

 

[rousseau]

Back in the early 19th century an educated man or woman might easily know a good brunt of what there is to know, or at least what there was to know that was relevant to them. These days I'm starting to feel the same way. Anymore, I struggle to find new things to learn about that have a practical affect on my bottom line, my general acumen, or really anything that can help me in anyway. The mystery's pretty much went away and now I'm left to experience.

There isn't really any point to this thread, it just seems like an interesting topic to think about. What exactly would constitute reaching the upper limit of relevant knowledge one could have in the year 2016? Once you get to that point, if you're a knowledge junkie, where do you go from there? Is there some threshold where a thinker of this type just starts distancing themselves conceptually from people in the meat of the bell curve?

Instead of focusing on what you know, perhaps you should focus more on what you might do with your knowledge, ie. what tangible things you can produce.

Leonardo da Vinci is known as the quintessential Renaissance Man; he is known as a 'painter, sculptor, engineer, astronomer, anatomist, biologist, geologist, physicist, architect, musician, philosopher and humanist.' Da Vinci would not be known as a painter if he did not produce the Mona Lisa, or as an anatomist if he did not produce the Vitruvian Man, or an engineer without designing the Aerial Screw. His contributions to the arts and the sciences are what distance him from someone who is merely knowledgeable about those same subjects.

Do what Da Vinci did and apply your brain: write a book on social history; brew a beer with your favourite flavour; learn jazz trumpet; build a better Android app for vBulletin and convince Maverick to give it access to TFT.

That's a good point although I think I'd be more likely to turn my attention to more practical pursuits. It's actually something I've been thinking about lately... the last several months I've finally settled down and stopped obsessively learning, and now I'm trying to figure out what to do with my life. I'm just a guy sitting here listening to music, hanging out with his partner, and living.

I say I'd be more likely to apply my brain to practical pursuits because I'm starting to tend away from that desire to do exceptional things. Years ago I wanted to write a book and then eventually I figured.. hey will it really matter if I do? And so on. So it shuttled me into a place where I've started to appreciate that anonymity and simplicity of my life. Just live, work, share my life with my partner, make good decisions, be healthy, carry on.

But applying my brain is great advice, I think I really need to get off of the usual channels and start applying my thinking to solving more immediate problems in my life.

 

[untermensche]

Back in the early 19th century an educated man or woman might easily know a good brunt of what there is to know, or at least what there was to know that was relevant to them. These days I'm starting to feel the same way. Anymore, I struggle to find new things to learn about that have a practical affect on my bottom line, my general acumen, or really anything that can help me in anyway. The mystery's pretty much went away and now I'm left to experience.

There isn't really any point to this thread, it just seems like an interesting topic to think about. What exactly would constitute reaching the upper limit of relevant knowledge one could have in the year 2016? Once you get to that point, if you're a knowledge junkie, where do you go from there? Is there some threshold where a thinker of this type just starts distancing themselves conceptually from people in the meat of the bell curve?

Instead of focusing on what you know, perhaps you should focus more on what you might do with your knowledge, ie. what tangible things you can produce.

Leonardo da Vinci is known as the quintessential Renaissance Man; he is known as a 'painter, sculptor, engineer, astronomer, anatomist, biologist, geologist, physicist, architect, musician, philosopher and humanist.' Da Vinci would not be known as a painter if he did not produce the Mona Lisa, or as an anatomist if he did not produce the Vitruvian Man, or an engineer without designing the Aerial Screw. His contributions to the arts and the sciences are what distance him from someone who is merely knowledgeable about those same subjects.

Do what Da Vinci did and apply your brain: write a book on social history; brew a beer with your favourite flavour; learn jazz trumpet; build a better Android app for vBulletin and convince Maverick to give it access to TFT.

But there is enough time to do both, absorb knowledge, and do your art.

You shouldn't shut off your learning skills.

This is just my opinion but for me the most important thing to stimulate interest in learning is vigorous exercise. It also helps in all areas of life from sleep to digestion to potential depression.

The answer is not always an idea.

 

[bigfield]

But there is enough time to do both, absorb knowledge, and do your art.

You shouldn't shut off your learning skills.

I'm not recommending that he stop learning. In fact, I find that applying my knowledge to a project exposes gaps in my knowledge, and so I learn more.

This is just my opinion but for me the most important thing to stimulate interest in learning is vigorous exercise. It also helps in all areas of life from sleep to digestion to potential depression.

Coffee, delivered intravenously, also works. The side effects are nl;gnal;kgf j

The answer is not always an idea.

I don't grok your meaning.

 

[untermensche]

I don't grok your meaning.

Actions are not ideas.

 

[Speakpigeon]

This is just my opinion but for me the most important thing to stimulate interest in learning is vigorous exercise. It also helps in all areas of life from sleep to digestion to potential depression.

Coffee, delivered intravenously, also works. The side effects are nl;gnal;kgf j

The answer is not always an idea.

I don't grok your meaning.

Too much coffee is why.


And I agree with UM, exercise is good for the brain too. And you get to see how the brain works somewhat like a muscle so that familiarity with physical training does help with your mental activity.
EB

 

[untermensche]

Coffee, delivered intravenously, also works. The side effects are nl;gnal;kgf j

The answer is not always an idea.

I don't grok your meaning.

Too much coffee is why.


And I agree with UM, exercise is good for the brain too. And you get to see how the brain works somewhat like a muscle so that familiarity with physical training does help with your mental activity.
EB

Caffeine could work to stimulate the brain, but it can only do so much. Sometimes it just makes you wired and stupid.

Marijuana is better if you want a drug.

But for the long run, exercise is the best method to stimulate the brain.

 

[rousseau]

Coffee, delivered intravenously, also works. The side effects are nl;gnal;kgf j

The answer is not always an idea.

I don't grok your meaning.

Too much coffee is why.


And I agree with UM, exercise is good for the brain too. And you get to see how the brain works somewhat like a muscle so that familiarity with physical training does help with your mental activity.
EB

Caffeine could work to stimulate the brain, but it can only do so much. Sometimes it just makes you wired and stupid.

Marijuana is better if you want a drug.

But for the long run, exercise is the best method to stimulate the brain.

It's so true. The times I think the most soundly are always after exercise. When I'm lacking it has the opposite effect.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Coffee, delivered intravenously, also works. The side effects are nl;gnal;kgf j

The answer is not always an idea.

I don't grok your meaning.

Too much coffee is why.


And I agree with UM, exercise is good for the brain too. And you get to see how the brain works somewhat like a muscle so that familiarity with physical training does help with your mental activity.
EB

Caffeine could work to stimulate the brain, but it can only do so much. Sometimes it just makes you wired and stupid.

Life has become more productive since I stopped coffee.

Marijuana is better if you want a drug.

I wouldn't know and I wouldn't try. I seem to have just one brain, and even that maybe is a delusion.

But for the long run, exercise is the best method to stimulate the brain.

Yes.

First, it increases the blood flow to the brain during exercice. Medecine says apparently it can provide you with extra years of life. For the brain, I guess it's just a matter that the heart is pumping anyway to bring oxygen and glycogen to the muscles so the brain just benefit as iddle bystander. However, if you are doing things like jogging that don't require too much attention to this possibly fictitious outside world then you can use the time to think deep thoughts. You don't have to run stupid.

The second thing possibly is not so much exercise as endurance exercise. Over time, it builds up your store of glycogen in your liver, which is also available when you're just sitting comfortably reading Descartes' prose or Quine's whines. It seems I'm now able to keep it up longer than the other geeks working in the library. I'd say, it works. There're possibly other effects but that seems to be already good enough as an extra motivation to go out there, and make it hard for yourself in this possibly non-existent world.
EB

 

[ryan]

Maybe you don't have enough practical interests; do you only have mental interests?

We all like money. There must be a million different pursuits that would require your knowledge and require you to learn a lot more. The stock market, for example, is infinitely complicated, and the more you know about it the better you will do, usually. It's so interesting because it helps to know a lot about everything, and you could probably apply much of what you know.

For me, if I ever get a chance, I want to learn Spanish fluently so that I can live in Spain for a few months and live like a Spaniard.

If I can make enough money, I want to own a vineyard and learn the fine craft of winemaking.

One of my biggest dreams is to learn how to write a proper movie script and the movie writing process so that I might see my script on the screen one day, or at least try.


I have many interests, and I find myself wishing that there was more time in the day to pursue them. Trust me, you will get to this point too if you look for more practical interests.

 

[untermensche]

One of my biggest dreams is to learn how to write a proper movie script and the movie writing process so that I might see my script on the screen one day, or at least try.

I think finding a creative outlet of some kind is essential.

Writing or painting or woodworking or even gardening.

Creation is relaxation for the mind.

Where learning is work.

Doing nothing but mindless observing, like when watching television, is stagnation for the mind.