The knowledge paradox: why knowing more is knowing less

TL;DR

The paper introduces the Knowledge Paradox, explaining how increasing scientific concepts leads to a paradoxical decrease in true understanding due to vagueness and self-reference.

Contribution

It proposes a new paradoxical framework explaining the evolution of scientific knowledge through concept vagueness and self-reference, unifying sorites and liar paradoxes.

Findings

Concept proliferation causes knowledge decay.

New theories with fewer concepts temporarily reverse knowledge decline.

Vagueness in concepts explains the paradoxical nature of scientific progress.

Abstract

To provide an explanation of the evolution of scientific knowledge, I start from the assumption that knowledge is based on concepts, and propose that each concept about reality is affected by vagueness. This entails a paradox, which I term Knowledge Paradox (KP): i.e. we need concepts to acquire knowledge about the real world but each concept is a step away from reality. The KP provides a unifying context for the sorites and the liar paradoxes. Any concept is viewed as a sorites, i.e. it is impossible to set a boundary between what is, and what is not, the entity to which the concept refers. Hence, any statement about reality can be reduced to a liar, wherefrom the KP follows in its most general form: -If I know, then I do not know-. The KP is self-referential but not contradictory, as it can be referred to two levels of knowledge: -if I know(epistemic), then I do not know(ontic)-, where the ontic level is made unachievable by concept vagueness. Such an interpretation of scientific knowledge provides an understanding of its dynamics. Concept proliferation within theories produces periods of knowledge decay that are episodically reversed by the formulation of new theories based on a smaller number of synthetic concepts.