I Don’t Know
Let’s do a quick thought experiment and say we’ve gotten to the point where we know everything there is to know in the universe. We know how the brain works and I could instantly see how many people are taking thingthing into consideration. Thingthing is just place holder for whatever exists or whatever you can point at or whatever you can think about it. A rock is a thing. Your eyes are thing. Your vision is a thing. Etc
The paradox presents itself that you have to feed your own awareness into consideration and this creates a loop. Quickly anything and everything that we can have a thought about is in clear daylight. That is to say, we can answer the following question: How many time does thingthing exist in the universe? Well one time at least because it appears in the question as a concept and now it appears two time in the explanation and it was referenced a third time in the explanation of the explanation and we’re aware that we’re aware of how many times it has appeared thus far and since we know everything in the universe and know that thingthing only exist in this context, we can contain it in the concept of self-awareness; but because it’s a loop it exists for infinity.
Outside of this box of awareness, thingthing doesn’t exist except in that last instance and these two last references that lock it up in the box of awareness again. But if we know everything, then we already knew of this self-referencing paradox. We can always say, “other than in this instance, thingthing doesn’t exist.” And the justification for all of that? We know because we know. That is to say, if we know the premises and the system then the logical conclusion is necessary. The system of addition takes premises (2, 2) and it always produces 4 no matter what. We know that addition works like this because we already know the conclusion before we understand either the system or the premise. The cavemen didn’t invent addition, they just observed the conclusion and created different premises that were consistent with the conclusion. Until they founded axioms which are loops (infinity). And we create these loops as building blocks for reaching further conclusions.
If all there is conclusions and we’re just waiting to find premises to create a loop with the conclusion, then we say that we know the premises and systems because of the conclusion. Because of irony, however, we already know we can change the conclusion. To say that we know because we know can easily change. I only know I know nothing, QED.
A concrete example: we have access to all of the universe’s information in a search engine up to date. We can search how many strawberries are there currently in the universe. We search it and we have the answer. The problem arises that to know this, we have to have at least the conclusion of a strawberry in our awareness. Is this thing in my hand a strawberry? Yes or no. The loop that gets locked into infinity here is that the strawberry has to satisfy a conclusion within you to be considered a strawberry. Being part of this conclusion, you have to have the exact definition of a strawberry in your own awareness.
If you don’t have this definition in your own awareness then the only reference you have for strawberry is from other sources. But then you wouldn’t know directly what you claim to know. Your reference would be an axiom created by someone else. It is because it is. But why is it? Because it is! Why is it not something else? I don’t know.
Let’s say that the loop exists with you in the equation. Rather than an outside observer experiencing an axiom, you have the definition of the strawberry in you and the loop is that you corroborate what a strawberry is.
Let’s further say that there’s only one strawberry in the universe and it’s sitting right next to you. But you don’t know its conclusion (that it’s a strawberry) until you satisfy enough of the definition of a strawberry to determine that it’s a strawberry.
You can review its chemical makeup or just see that it’s red and strawberry shaped. You can eat it and see if its effect are similar to that of a strawberry. But ultimately what you’re doing is abstracting the different essences of the strawberry and verifying that its essence results in the same conclusion as if you had eaten a strawberry. Here we see that the loop of Strawberry(?) -> Strawberry(!) is bridged through essences. And essences are further axioms.
Lets visualize this a different way. Instead of saying strawberry we represent strawberry as [q,r,s,t,u,v,w,x,y,z] and we can say that [q,r,s,t,u,v,w,x,y,z] represents all the essences of a strawberry that have to be represented to determine that something is a strawberry. So that, for example, [q,r,s,u,v,w,x,z] looks like a strawberry but doesn’t fit the exact definition.
Going back to the example where the only strawberry left in existence is right in front of you, you have to have a way to verify each factor in the definition [q,r,s,t,u,v,w,x,y,z]. If you don’t have the capacity to see the color red, then when you see a strawberry you might see [q,g,s,t,u,v,w,x,y,z] instead of [q,r,s,t,u,v,w,x,y,z]. So thus far, [q,r,s,t,u,v,w,x,y,z], [q,g,s,t,u,v,w,x,y,z] and [q,r,s,u,v,w,x,z] might be strawberries but only one fits the original “objective” definition.
Even if we’re color blind and we only see [q,g,s,t,u,v,w,x,y,z], we have to create a loop between what we experience ([q,g,s,t,u,v,w,x,y,z]) and the definition of strawberry that we have ([q,r,s,t,u,v,w,x,y,z]). Because we’re colorblind but are aware of it, we can simply close the loop between r and g by taking into account that in our system g could be either g or r. The significant of this last sentence being that irony is taken into account to reach truth. You have to see something (r) as something else (g) to reach the original conclusion (r) without ever experiencing (r). Thus we can say that we have such things as positive irony that is used to reach truth and negative irony that is used to unravel all the truths that we have.
Closing the loop only shows that, again, you know that q=q because it does. But this self referencing leads towards a never-ending loop: Why? Because. Why? Because. Why? Because! (well it ends eventually in absurdity or physical violence).
The point of this drawn out illustration is to show that it is dualistic to consider the strawberry as something separate than its definition [q,r,s,t,u,v,w,x,y,z]. And it’s dualistic to say that we don’t create a loop with [q,r,s,t,u,v,w,x,y,z] by referencing the concepts of [q,r,s,t,u,v,w,x,y,z] within us with its respective premise that closes the loop. Said differently, for us to close the loop between q=q, we have to presume that within the system (=) there is a premise that leads to the conclusion. For example, the premise that we have the capacity to see colors. Again, why do we have the capacity to see color? Because we do. Etc.
Like always irony is our saving grace in all of this. It breaks us free of the chain of ignorance by showing us that we don’t know anything.
