But if we know nothing, then how do we know we know nothing? More importantly, if Socrates knew nothing, then why are we still quoting him? :) (Please forgive my semi-pointless semantic arguments, I'm just in the mood.) I know more Perl than my grandmother; I know less Perl than Larry Wall. I'm pretty certain of that. Where I fall in between is a harder question (likely closer to grandmother-country), but I think it's good to be realistic and objective.
So far as the original post, I don't like saying "people smarter than me"; I'd rather say "people better than me at Perl". It's unlikely that anyone is better than me at everything. No one is the best at everything. Very very few people are the best at anything. And even if you're the best at something, there's always still room to grow. I agree that it's good to keep that in mind. Talking with someone better than me at something of interest is always a wonderful experience, to me. | [reply] |
When you think you know some area, you become less opened to new knowledge in this area, so in result it appears you'll not learn new, and will know less afterwards.
The more you're in position you have not enough knowledge, the more attention you'll be paying to otherwise unnoticed details, and when having actual knowledge, multiple times increases quality of final work.
Socrates's sentence was just generalization of this phenomena.
Try this idea on your self and you will notice personal effectivity boost. (I did).
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FWIW, a better translation of that quotation might be:
The only true wisdom is in knowing that what you know is nothing.
The difference is less subtle in Greek, which has several different words that are canonically translated as “nothing,” but differ in connotations. (Its vocabulary is rife with such near-synonyms, whose precise associations are nigh impossible to preserve in translation to most languages.)
Makeshifts last the longest.
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I agree with chester. Wisdom is knowing you're fallible, not in assuming yourself to be a fool.
Nice OP in any case. My own home town had one stop light when I was a boy. Part of the patience equation is the online issue. I have no trouble explaining things 100 times to someone in person but online the third time is nearing the point of ALL CAPS. Ego issues change profoundly when the communications are tone-deaf/plain-text and there are no eyes looking back at you.
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Ego issues change profoundly when the communications are tone-deaf/plain-text and there are no eyes looking back at you.
I agree, though I would re-word that to
Communication issues change profoundly when the communications are monotonic words and are read without the reader benefiting from seeing the body langauge/facial expressions of the writer/speaker. They therefore tend to add the meter and tone in their minds-ear as they read.
The minds-ear is subject to the same rose-tinting/brown-staining as the minds-eye, and "the good ol' days". In particular, it carries the assumptions, perceptions, hopes and fears--and yes, ego--of the reader, regardless of what the writer thought they were writing.
One of the problems with online communities like this is that they encourage a degree of informality and the incorporation of the partisipant's humour and other personality traits into the communications. These are extremely difficult to convey with any accuracy, even by those rare, gifted wordsmiths, much less by your average non-language graduate.
Once some level of informality has become the community norm, even attempts to formalise communications in order alleviate misunderstandings can backfire in the perception of it by the reader.
Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.
Lingua non convalesco, consenesco et abolesco. -- Rule 1 has a caveat! -- Who broke the cabal?
"Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".
The "good enough" maybe good enough for the now, and perfection maybe unobtainable, but that should not preclude us from striving for perfection, when time, circumstance or desire allow.
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