Scientific Narratives and the Opportunity to Humanize Knowledge

Knowledge is a flawed idea, and it has been since Plato.

Photo by Valeriy Andrushko on Unsplash

Imagine an advanced civilization of aliens that visit Earth. These aliens call themselves “Dasien” and bring with them advanced technology. They offer it to us.

We do our best to try to understand Dasien and the tools they bring, but no matter what we do we are incapable of understanding. They provide manuals written in their Dasien language, which we try to decipher and translate into our own human language. Despite our best efforts, we stumble and fail to grasp anything meaningful. To us, Dasien and their technology are nothing short of magic.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
— Arthur C. Clarke

Language creates an interesting predicament in that we find ourselves always unable to completely understand our world. No matter how well we describe our experience of the world, it still nonetheless is our experience. Our scientific narratives can never substitute the actual experience of knowing and understanding.

The Most Common Understanding of Knowledge and Truth is Based on the Correspondence Theory