Saturday, February 20, 2010
How much is too much?
I know I am posting this a little earlier than Monday night, but I am in a very productive mood. For the blog post I would like it if everyone would ponder and expound on the following quote: "Do you think that everything that can be known should be known?" (Ghosh 59). How much information is too much? What could the ramifications be of too much information?
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That's a really intellectual post... Props to you girl.
ReplyDeleteIf you've ever seen the second Tomb Raider (yes, I like Tomb Raider!) she says that not everything was meant to be discovered. For her, literally, Pandora's box just needs to remain an enigma.
Because then, what happens when you know everything? You have nothing to strive for, or improve, or discover.
Maybe I'm just ridiculously conservative, but I really disagree with "scientia gratis scientis" - knowledge for the sake of knowledge.
So in rebuttal, why don't we ever have enough information? Why do we NEED to keep pushing our limits?
(I think we could make a really noteworthy presentation with this... just a thought.)
I agree. Pandora's box should remain closed, but that doesn't mean we should stop looking for it. Without curiosity, where would we be. Would we have the technology we accept today as normal? Discoveries by exploration and in medicine have made humanity great. We could take this a little further and say the reason is purely personal by thinking about a couple questions that have baffled humanity since the beginning of time, "why are we here?" and "what is the meaning of existence?" People (scientists) may try to validate their existence through exploration in science. They create a reason for their existence.
ReplyDeleteAddressing Alli's rebuttal, we cannot stop pushing our limits because if we did we would be standing still in time. And if you play video games, you know what happens when you stand still :)
I don't know... Personally, I believe that it is impossible to have the allegorical Pandora's box and not open it, for a few reasons. First, it's just human nature to want to know everything. If you remember, she does open the box, because she was curious. Second, we have no gods or puppet master to tell us what and what not to do; only we can set the limit as to what is acceptable to be discovered and what is strictly out of bounds. Since we as human beings cannot see what the results of our actions will be, we cannot tell what our personal Pandora's box will be. Since there is no "box" around what can be discovered, this pushing our limits yet not opening the box is inherently impossible. That doesn't mean not striving for better medicine or technology, yet the scientist must be aware of the implications of his or her discoveries.
ReplyDeleteI understand what y'all are saying, but I think my response comes from a more religious background, rather than science background...
ReplyDeleteI believe that God, and only God, should be the one to know everything and men are simply to know what God says. I know that in modern times, this seems a bit outdated, but personally, I still find a lot of truth in it.
I don't mean to sound like a Holy Roller, but I was raised to be subordinate to God, not to try to be His equal. The metaphorical Pandora's Box isn't meant for humans. If you recall the actual story of Pandora, she was asked to guard it by the gods, and then she opened it and basically doomed mankind to all sorts of evil and hardships.
I'm not saying we shouldn't be curious, I just think there should be a limit and we should have the desire to tame our curiosity. We all know what curiosity did to the cat...
And I understand that in modern times, progression is necessary, but it can be done without ruining society.
(And yeah, standing still in Modern Warfare = bad juju!)
Let me start by asking how do we know that Pandora's box is bad? Because she opened it. If she had never opened it we would never know that it had contained all sorts of evil and hardships, instead of a bunch of rabbits. We as human beings instinctively have an unyeilding desire to know everything we can possibly learn. That desire may be fueled by a yearning for wealth or power or a number of things but the fact remains humans want to know everything we possibly can. It may be true that some things aren't intended for humans to know, but I highly doubt that as far scientific knowledge is concerned there are things we are not suppose to know. BUT, once our mastery of science reaches a certain level,we would ourselves be gods?
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