The only thing I know, is Nothing.

Is what we see, what we believe. I think, therefore I am. Whether it is reality or not. If doing so we negate our sense of seeing to denote what is real. We can only then say, that the only thing we truly know, is nothing.

This morning when I woke up, I believed that it was the evening of today, and thought I had slept through the whole day. The feeling was instantaneous.
Telling me that I had already determined what time I would believe I was in before I woke up.

If we can say that nothing can be for certain, than who's to say I didn't step into my future. only to still have a remnants of that time when I woke up, which was fully displayed through my emotions.

If my thought, and acknowledgment of that thought, determines my existence then cant that thought drive the existence. existence of space and time, and dimension?

as I said. The only thing I know is Nothing. but acknowledging that I know nothing, implies that I know atleast that.

I know something...

One day I will die.

Originally posted by Doomsday 2029
I know something...

One day I will die.

I just had a little thought when reading your reply there.

What if that certainty was taken from us?

Is that what keeps us sane?

"The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool."
William Shakespeare

I think that says it all...

In the end everything we claim to know is based on our own senses, which can be fooled, and thus can only be considered assumptions.
Assumptions are, by definition, non-factual.

I believe there's this book written by David Hume - An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding.

It contains some chapters that are based on something similar, that facts, do not exist. (After all if noone knows anything, then noone knows anything, and thus facts can never be confirmed as fact.)

It also explains the difference between ''facts'' and ''relation of ideas''.

So for example you might say that it is a fact that your name is Albert.
According to David Hume this would not be a fact.

It does bring a few problems if you're trying to discuss this in a shallow philosophic way.

So many things we know, are merely the assumptions derived from empirical studies.

I heard a man say that we're all blind men in a cave, searching for a candle which was lit over a thousand years ago. I believe this is true. We sit in the darkness of our lives and imagine there is a light to be found; we speak of the things we've found and our fellow searchers, but its all a shadow of experience. What we know and love is only as solid as our memories and hopes, and we desperately try to forget this truth. We remember it sometimes when we wake in the middle of the night, and we forget again by morning; its there, in the backs of our minds, and it dominates our lives.
Knowledge is the assumption of a fool.

spelling edit

[edit on 9-3-2009 by Malfeitor]

reply to post by Malfeitor


That sounds like Plato.

I see a tree, I call it a tree. Tree is just a word that I learned to label an image that I can see. So is it really a tree?

Originally posted by Wallachian
"The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool."
William Shakespeare

I think that says it all...

Well... that makes me a f'ing genius.

Originally posted by Malfeitor
I heard a man say that we're all blind men in a cave, searching for a candle which was lit over a thousand years ago. I believe this is true. We sit in the darkness of our lives and imagine there is a light to be found; we speak of the things we've found and our fellow searchers, but its all a shadow of experience. What we know and love is only as solid as our memories and hopes, and we desperately try to forget this truth. We remember it sometimes when we wake in the middle of the night, and we forget again by morning; its there, in the backs of our minds, and it dominates our lives.
Knowledge is the assumption of a fool.

spelling edit

[edit on 9-3-2009 by Malfeitor]

Yes our reality is the shadows... To step beyond the shadows and to exit the cave would be blinding at first.. this was Plato's cave.

We definitely would sound like a fool if we ever came back and explained the life outside the cave to someone still mesmerized by the shadows.

Originally posted by Doomsday 2029
I know something...

One day I will die.

You know that your body will. And what if it's all just a dream?

Drawing out the inner goth/beatnik in me, I'd like to add to the quoting of things people have thought and said before. Here's my contribution:

"All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.

What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.

Is there anything of which one can say,
"Look! This is something new"?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time." - Ecclesiastes 1:8-10

*snaps fingers* I dig it cats...cool...

[edit on 10-3-2009 by saint4God]

You know nothing? Please accept my deepest sympathies.

I trust you are speaking only for yourself. Many of the rest of us know things.

Originally posted by Astyanax
You know nothing? Please accept my deepest sympathies.

I trust you are speaking only for yourself. Many of the rest of us know things.

I know something: This post is lacking the kind of compassion that most people have naturally been born with in their heart. With a small heart and a big head, it's easy to tumble over from the weight...but perhaps someone with a big heart can help with regaining your balance. Even those with big heads full of knowledge may know that Empath refers to Socrate's school of thought, transcending the literal and moving on to something perhaps ethereal or spiritual:

Socrates was viewed as a great teacher. But he did not claim to be a teacher. In fact, he frequently said ‘all I know is that I know nothing’.

Perhaps the most arresting feature of Socrates’ legacy is his unique method of teaching and arriving at the truth. Socrates didn’t claim the truth is this or the truth is that. He sought to question students in a way that would lead them to arrive at the truth themselves. Socrates frequently claimed to know nothing. Yet, if Socrates knew nothing, why were people so eager to hear him talk? The reason was that Socrates was able to make people reconsider their own ingrained ideas; Socrates had a way of making people think for themselves and consider truth from different angles.This method of conversation incurred the ire of some people; they were not happy that Socrates was able to show the limitations of their thinking. Yet, the genius of the Socratic method was that he never had to directly tell people their inadequacies; they came to realise it themselves.

- www.pickthebrain.com...

Back then however, I'm sure Socrates encountered the literal 'smart guy' as well. There's nothing new under the sun, what has been done will be done again...

reply to post by saint4God

I know something: This post is lacking the kind of compassion that most people have naturally been born with in their heart.

That's great, sain4God, it means we're both luckier than the OP.

By the way, one of the things I know is that I hate preachers. Especially the ones who come to my door and do it uninvited.

Funnily enough, in order to exit the cave, one must first realize and accept that one is, in fact, in a cave; this begs the question that if one has lived one's entire life within a cave, can one begin to accept the existence of anything else? Would one consider the cave, a cave?
Its the same paradox presented by quantum theorists who attempt to define the fourth dimension. If a two-dimensional creature were to see a cube, it would only perceive a square; accordingly, we can't translate higher dimensions into something we can fully percieve.
I'm certain that a person who is born blind cannot even begin to truly understand what it means to see; they may imagine sights, or dream of them, but unless they develop sight itself, everything pertaining to the sense is only a vague description, a metaphor, a dream itself.
In The Call of Cthulhu, H.P. Lovecraft said the following:

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

Perhaps he was right. Perhaps we are better not delving, not asking questions about the things we cannot possibly, as a race, understand. I know it hasn't gained me anything save strange sleeping habits and an undesirable reputation. I wonder if humanity is ready to acknowledge its own potential, or if our latest revelations about psychology and quantum mechanics will ultimately destroy us. If that is the case, let 'er rip; I'll see the world burn before I'll stop trying to find my way out of the cave. I even envy the ignorant members of my race who have things like faith. I can't understand how people can accept, and even revel in, ignorance; at the end of the day, I may still know nothing, but it is my foolish hope to, one day in the future, find a single grain of absolute truth. I can only find solace in the idea that this absolute truth cannot be that everything is a lie; the universe and I share in common that we detest paradoxes, and I'm optimistic enough to believe that existence isn't so...cynical.
Okay, I'm done. Enough rambling for one night, I think. Cheers.

reply to post by Empath


We know everything but forget. And experience life like it was a dream, fragments at a time, that is why the life review upon death is so intense (if you believe in that kind of thing). Living is like remembering. And in that sense, you know something. (I am watching the film Memento 10 minutes at a time for affect, it tells of a condition where you cannot create new memories...anterograde amnesia.)

So to say you know nothing is quite inaccurate. Your brain is doing all of the work. Your third-eye is kickin' sometimes. You know stuff.

You dont need to know anything, but yourself.

Originally posted by Wisen Heimer
You dont need to know anything, but yourself.

I agree.

Judge not lest ye be judged.



[edit on 12-3-2009 by XXXN3O]

The more I learn, the less I know.

The day I stop digging for truth about me & the uni/multiverse is the day someone else picks up the shovel and buries me.

Here's an interesting slant on the discussion

Can you know something if you are knowledge itself? To know something suggests a subject and predicate relationship. I(subject) know this(object) but suppose that there is no subject and object, what there really is, is an absolute, which exists in infinite possibilities and is thereby pure knowledge. In other words, every bit of potential knowledge exists at once; the cat is both alive and dead so to speak. In which case can such an absolute ever know anything? There is nothing to know, because it is already all-knowing.