It has often been said that humans only exist to work, and that to work is our greatest privilege. It is intrinsic in our nature, both reasonably and faithfully we want to work; to feel the sense of accomplishment. It holds priceless value in our society. However, it is also one of our greatest weaknesses; we continue to search for more even when we have found the answer to a question. We give ourselves more work. When we have an answer, we scramble for more, which calls into question the validity of what we have already proven to be true. And then we doubt, more. It is a circular process, resulting in infinite doubt. Yet we cannot settle for less knowledge than what we reason and believe to justify the absolute truth, as we have proven time and again in the sciences and history.
The more we explore the sciences, the more we doubt what we have already established. The more experiments we run, the more we question what we have derived from the previous tests we ran. Every venture in space causes us to come back with more questions. Black holes, specifically, were predicted by Albert Einstein in the year 1916. Such astronomical objects would not be discovered until half a decade later, in 1971. Once they were, multiple tests were run in an attempt to understand the phenomena. The astronomical field was not yet prepared to comprehend black holes; they were understood the way we understand dragons: unreal. And as the explorers we know ourselves to be, we ran test after test until we ended up with a plethora of “knowledge” on black holes. However, we do not know everything. We continue testing and observing because with everything we learn, we find more questions to ask. When we discovered the existence of black holes, we asked where they come from. More questions. When we discovered that black holes have singularities in the center, we asked what it is those singularities are. More questions. When we discovered that gravitational pull from black holes causes it to consume planets, we asked what becomes of those planets. More questions. The questions seem to be endless, and we, as human sentient knowers, are driven to answer those questions. We are intrinsically motivated by our minds that need to reason. That need is what we believe we should do; our purpose. When another question appears, it makes us question the reasoning we already established. So we answer. It is a game that we will never bore of.
We also must acknowledge the fact that black holes are physically impossible to study. If a scientist wanted to get up close to gather direct data, it has been predicted that the person would cease to exist from our perspective. And whether or not they survive is irrelevant because getting back is absolutely inconceivable to us in this day and age. We are so limited in our vast ability, it is part of our human condition. Our reasoning and belief to exercise our curiosity is powerful; it oftentimes drives us to stretch beyond our means and that is how we evolve. To what extent will our natural curiosity drive us to achieve the unimaginable?
We do not need to stretch as far as deep space to understand this concept, it is also in our school setting. All students at some point in their educational career must complete a science fair project. This project practices our ability to apply the scientific method, and more importantly encourages us to be creative in the problems we are seeking to experiment. Yet, we often are not. Oftentimes, we replicate something previously done, and tweak it just enough so that it is unique. But how much does that tweak affect the validity of the data collected by the experiment we are replicating? It is only a school science fair, to what extent can the data we collect really influence the science world? But that is not the purpose of a science fair project, as I established, it is the application of the scientific method. However, following the scientific method means that we must draw a conclusion. And after slightly tweaking a replication of a project, our data slightly tweaks the original data. Our knowledge becomes blurry.
Our habit of daveling in the unknown extends beyond the sciences and into history as well. We study history as a subject of school, we watch it in the theatres, we are surrounded by it when we walk down the street. Yet with all of this historical knowledge that seems so valid to us, we actually will never know the true historical events as they were.
We tend to stockpile as much as we can on knowledge, we never settle. Our inquisitiveness forces us to keep looking, even when we have found answers. Whenever new information on a subject we have been studying long-term appears, we welcome and explore it. It is part of our open-minded quality. We may think that this newfound knowledge is supplemental to our understanding of the subject, however, that is not all it is. The more knowledge we gather, the more we question our pre existing consensus. Is knowledge ever solid, then? What is solid knowledge if we seem to have infinite doub? Christopher Nolan’s most recent film Dunkirk (2017) proves this point. He took the historical WWII battle at Dunkirk, placed his own knowledge and interpretation of outside knowledge on the event, and created a two hour film. In multiple interviews about the movie, he reveals that Dunkirk is “a story [he] grew up with, [he doesn’t] even remember the first time somebody told [him] the events of Dunkirk. [He] grew up with it more as almost a myth, or a fairytale.” Meaning, that the events at Dunkirk have been told so many times that our understanding of it must be the truth. Yet, we are wrong. With every interpretation of a historical event, or every new fact that is uncovered, our doubt rises. We doubt what it was we previously thought. For instance, when I first saw Dunkirk, I did not have much background knowledge on the event, all I knew was what I was told in my history class: that it was one of the most unique battles during WWII that was pivotal to the war. I was not knowledgeable, but I was confident in what I did know. However, when I saw the movie, I nearly forgot this knowledge. All I could think of was what was in front of me, the knowledge I was being presented with right then and there. And I ate it up. Afterwards, I reflected on the movie and realized that it aligned with what I previously thought, adding a whole new dimension of understanding of the events at Dunkirk.
However, the fault with many movies, especially Nolan’s Dunkirk is that is categorized under the drama genre, not nonfiction. Meaning that anything I saw on screen could have been embellished, if not made up by Nolan, an artist, himself. Perhaps it would have been better for me to never have seen the movie, because it only gave me a non-nonfiction interpretation of the events. It forced me to question my belief in what I knew previously.
My Dunkirk anecdote may serve as an analogy to a universal truth. With such open minds, humans have the ability to accept new information. Whenever new valid information appears regarding a supposedly disclosed subject, we still accept it without much skepticism. But, who determines what is valid information? How can we ever know if a subject is disclosed? This goes back to our intrinsic belief and reasoning that the more knowledge we have, the more we know. We believe in the validity of knowledge, and we reason that the more knowledge we have, the more secure we can be in our conclusions. But we are wrong.
New knowledge only confuses us. It forces us to reconsider our original knowledge. It is like adding an additional brick on top of a sturdy building; a few additions may not make a significant difference in the stability of the structure, but when the additions become numerous enough, it creates instability. The structure eventually crumbles. This is how we are with knowledge; we think we can continue to build, but it only further complicates our understanding that we build on less. It is perhaps one of our most flawed characteristics.
Yet who is to say that the structure was built off of truths? How do we know when information is the truth? How many tests must we run until we know the truth of a subject? Similarly, how many different perspectives of historical events will we consider until we know the ‘truth” of the event? Will our doubt ever run out?
It is possible that all scientific data and historical records are entirely false. Ever since we could first record history or collect scientific data, we might have been building a structure off of an unstable foundation. It is possible that our rendering, our reinterpretation, of scientific results and historical events has only strayed from those original results and events. The more we build, the more questions emerge. The more we answer those questions, the more we ask more questions and our doubt and natural curiosity expands. We are either creating a collection of knowledge, or contradicting ourselves every time. It is a game we will never bore of, our natural obsession, and whether or not we are truly progressing is irrelevant because we are following our belief and our reason for what we think our purpose is: to work.