The unpredictability of the content of future knowledge is a necessary condition for the unlimited growth of that knowkedge...‏

The future of civilization is unknowable,
because the knowledge that is going to affect it
has yet to be created.  Hence, the possible outcomes 
are not yet known, let alone their probabilities.

The growth of knowledge cannot change that fact.

On the contrary, it contributes strongly to it:
the ability of scientific theories to predict the future
depends on the reach of their explanations,
but no explanation has enough reach
to predict the content of its own successors
-or their effects, or those of other ideas
that have not been thought of.

___

The Beginning of Infinity
David Deutsch
Penguin Books (New York, 2011)


Epistemology: Knowledge about knowledge.

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