Aaron Miller
My ignorance knows no bounds. The amount of stuff I don’t know could fill massive, cavernous warehouses. The more I learn, the more I realize how little I actually know. That might seem counterintuitive. But the older I get, and the more I’ve learned over the years through both formal and informal education, the more I realized how much I really don’t know.
There are a number of subjects I know very little about. Physics was never one of my strengths. You could also add geometry and chemistry to that list. I have no idea how to play the accordion. I’m sure that keeps my neighbors happy. I don’t have a clue how to make fancy French cuisine like couilles de mouton. I don’t even know how to pronounce couilles de mouton. Nor do I know what’s in it — I’m not sure I want to know.
But even within my own discipline, history, there is so much that I don’t know. While I might be an expert in some parts of history, I can’t know everything. I have large gaps in some eras and locales. I am certainly not afraid of telling someone, “I don’t know.” Admitting such can be hazardous to your academic professional health. But I’d rather admit the limits of my knowledge than make up something.
And the amount that I don’t know grows each day. That’s the nature of knowledge. More history is uncovered with the passing of time.
There are also the things that cannot be known. These are the great imponderables of life. These are questions like, what’s the meaning of life? Or what happens to us after we cross the great divide? To answer questions like these, we have faith, but not certain knowledge. Maybe we will know these answers some day, but we’ve been considering them for a long time.
I am taking my ignorance in stride. It is actually exciting to know that there is a universe of new things for me to learn. There are still mysteries in life waiting to be uncovered.
I also take comfort in that I know more than artificial intelligence, alias AI. While I don’t have all of the facts and bits of information that computers have or the ability to recall that information in a fraction of a second, human knowledge goes far beyond that.
When I am at my best, I have compassion, empathy, and humor. My computer can always kick my can in chess, but it still can’t tell a joke. I can also be creative and self-aware. These are things that a machine, at least at this point, cannot know or feel.
But the biggest benefit to knowing that I don’t know it all is that I know that no one else can know it all, either. (There are a lot of “know” words in that last sentence. A professor once told me that kind of repetition shows a lack of vocabulary and imagination. Then again, what do professors know?)
Let me put it another way. No one can know it all. If they claim that they have all the answers or that they alone can fix it all, that makes me suspicious. They are either a fool, a liar, or a conman. At least I know that much.
Aaron Miller is one of The Republic’s community columnists and all opinions expressed are those of the writer. He has a doctorate in history and is an associate professor of history at Ivy Tech Community College-Columbus. Send comments to [email protected].
