Found this post on my blog from about 6 years ago. It was a neat read so I decided to update it slightly and repost. Let me know what ya think.
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In the 21st century, humanity tends to think of itself as being incredibly intelligent and knowledgeable about all things in the world. However, it never ceases to amaze me how much new information is absorbed by people everyday. How much information is really out there to be learned? Is it possible to know everything there is to know about everything. I propose that all knowledge, regardless of how complex or significant, is in fact already known by all members of the human species. Such I give you my Unified Knowledge Theory.
The premise is simple to envision, but can be hard to explain or detail out but I will do my best to put forth an accurate description of Unified Knowledge.
The very name, “Unified Knowledge”, gives the persona that all knowledge is one. This is in fact the very basis of Unified Knowledge Theory (referred to from here on in as UKT). The theory of UKT claims that all knowledge that exists in the known humiverse (human universe), is in fact already known to all of it’s occupants. This would mean that every human being in fact knows the answers to all questions that could possibly be asked.
If this was in fact true, then would not all human beings being incredibly smart, and already know the answers to everything there is to know? No. UKT implies that all humans are a part of a larger knowledge core, or large bubble that is all knowledge.
If someone were to take all knowledge, whether it be about science, health, technology, history, etc, and put all of those facts and figures and put them into a box, that box would contain the sum of all knowledge that exists. Everything there is to know about everything is in that box. Instead of a box, picture a large bubble which contains all of these facts and figures. This knowledge bubble is never changing. Since it contains everything there is to know about everything, it would be massive, but it’s size would remain constant. This bubble is the end all be all of everything there is to know about everything and therefore would always remain constant.
Now, for a moment, consider the English alphabet. There are 26 letters in the English alphabet. This is a fixed amount. It never grows or shrinks and the contents of this alphabet are never changing. A-Z. Words may have changed but the core alphabet itself has remained since it’s conception. Consider that the knowledge bubble is like the English alphabet. Whole and unchanged, containing everything.
Now, with the English alphabet, you can combine different letters to create words. Words that may not have been thought of before, but they were always there in the first place since they are in fact made up of parts of the original alphabet. A person who invents a new word is taking a combination of letters and putting them together in a format not previously known or understood to others, but the word always existed since the letters were always there. This may be hard to fathom but combining the three letters C, A, & N to create the word CAN creates a new word, which has new meaning, but those three letters already existed, it’s just that human perception of them together was not known until someone brought them together. It may be hard to understand but the focus is that all words already exist, because they stem from the alphabet which exists. It is important to understand this to understand the basis of UKT.
Like the letters of the alphabet, human beings are part of the knowledge bubble that exists. Each human contains part of that knowledge bubble and when you combine different humans in different scenarios, people discover new things. Whether it be cures to diseases, new technologies, or other advancements in humanity. In the same way that you combine different letters to create a new word, you combine different people to create new ideas or learn new things. This is evident in many research communities where groups of unique individuals come discover new things that before were not known. This is in fact very common.
This implies that each human being is in fact part of something larger, and in fact connected to every other human being in the world, through the knowledge bubble. It also means that the sum of all human knowledge equates to the knowledge bubble.
But what if a person dies? Is their knowledge lost? What about children and new people being born into the world? How do they get to be a part of this knowledge bubble?
UKT allows for this in a very simple manner. UKT is in fact separate from humanity. Humanity shares it’s knowledge through the bubble, but is not in fact a part of it. The bubble is separate entity or element than humanity itself. When a person dies, the knowledge that this person had is put back into the bubble, and redistributed amongst all of mankind. When a new person is born, the bubble remains the same, but the knowledge shared amongst all humanity is reduced by a minute amount. That amount is given to the new person being born. Since people age and lose some of their knowledge that they had in their youth, that knowledge is then transferred back into the bubble, and redistributed amongst others. This is how those in our youth learn so much and those in their elder years tend to learn very little.
It has been said that within the last few centuries, although we have amassed a large amount of knowledge and technology, the general public or general people have had less and less of an education and in fact may not be as intelligent as they once were centuries ago. We build massive pieces of technology yes, but a large portion of people remain oblivious to many things around them, making it appear the mankind in general has become less intelligent as a whole.
If this is in fact true, it would support UKT. Since we have had a massive population explosion within the last few centuries, the contents of the knowledge bubble would have had to spread amongst more people. If the bubble is like a bowl of Jello, then if you have 10 people who share the bowl of Jello, each of them get one tenth of the bowl. If you share it with 100 people, each person gets one one-hundredth of the bowl. If you share that bowl of Jello with six billion people, each person barely gets anything. Our knowledge bubble equals the bowl of Jello.
What about a mass death? Would this mean that a large portion of knowledge is redistributed amongst all of the human population? Absolutely. This is evident all the time in the media. How many new discoveries and technologies are discovered due to large population declines or mass deaths. Wars have a horrible impact on the human population but with regards to what knowledge is acquired during that time. All of the knowledge known by 10,000 people who die in an earthquake is redistributed amongst the people who remain, and through some sort of discovery during that earthquake, scientists learn how to better understand earthquakes, saving lives down the road. Had those 10,000 people not died, this knowledge may never have been known. Large disasters tend to focus research into specific areas bringing different people together and thusly causing new ideas and new knowledge to be learned. This type of knowledge redistribution is supported by the UKT.
If you subscribe to the idea that UKT could possibly be true, then you would have to question how such a theory would sustain any viability when looking at our past. If you are to believe that the human race evolved from a lower form of life and eventually into the human beings we are now, then the idea of UKT would seem to imply that our cave dwelling ancestors should have had the technological and scientific knowledge that we have now. Since there were far fewer human beings thousands of years ago, you would think that far more knowledge would have been apparent among the humans that did exist. Why were there no skyscrapers and internet back 5000 years ago? I believe there is a somewhat logical answer to this that fits within the realm UKT.
The earliest known human beings would have possessed the largest amount of insight into the knowledge bubble than any single person does today. However, human beings were far less evolved than they are now. Specifically, they lacked intelligence which in of itself does not equate to knowledge. It is possible that although these earliest human beings had this knowledge, they had no concept of how to apply it, express it, or even understand it, due to the limited capacities of the human brain at that time and their limited intelligence. The human brain, and the human race itself would have to evolve to a certain stage of development before that knowledge would make much sense. Further to that, with human beings spread so far across the globe, it would have been virtually impossible for the right minds to come together to form new ideas that would allow them to unlock the knowledge they already had. Using the alphabet comparison again, if the letters D & O lived in Canada, and the letter G lived in Australia, with no means to ever meet each other, the word DOG could never exist.
A combination of early evolution, lack of intelligence, and the geography of the human population contributed to the inability for early humans to fully understand unified knowledge, and thusly unable to produce results from it.
By conventional means, UKT cannot be proven or disproved. If the above facts are true, then annihilation of all human beings, save one, would provide one of three scenarios.
1) The final human being would be the only outlet of the knowledge bubble and therefore know everything there is to know about everything. This being would not be able to sincerely ask any question to himself without knowing the truthful answer. Should this be the case, UKT would be proven as true.
2) The final human being would know nothing more than they already did. This being would be able to ask many different questions to himself without knowing the truthful answer. Should this be the case, UKT would be proven as false.
3) The final human being would think that they are the final outlet for the knowledge bubble. They would have amassed a very large amount of knowledge but would find that there are some questions in which they cannot answer. This would provide several other scenarios
- UKT is false and this person simply is extraordinarily intelligent and has a great deal of knowledge.
- This person is not the only human being alive, and therefore the knowledge bubble is still sharing knowledge with more than one person.
- The knowledge bubble is shared by more than just human beings.
If you submit to theory 3-2, this could simply indicate that there are other humans still alive on the planet Earth, or perhaps there are human beings elsewhere in the universe that we are not aware of.
If you submit to theory 3-3, this could indicate that UKT is shared amongst not only human beings, but other intelligent life that may exist. This may be other forms of life on our own planet such as animals that co-exist with us, or it could refer to another form of life in which we are not yet familiar with. This would leave UKT to still be proven.
If UKT is real, this would open the doors to a possible new means of acquiring knowledge about ourselves and the world around us. If all knowledge is already known amongst all humans, then it’s simply a matter of finding either the right combination of individuals to realize that knowledge, or finding a way to access the knowledge bubble directly, giving you full, and complete access to all the knowledge there is to know. This of course, can lead to both positive and negative affects, depending on where humanity is in it’s evolution.
UKT is a theory I came up with all on my own and although it may be a little hard to wrap your mind around, if you think about the basic facts, it does make a lot of sense, just not feasible to prove.
I do think that it is a possibility and therefore have put it out there for others to debate.
Matthew Klem
