“I Know That I Know Nothing”

When a thinker, after a lifetime of reflection, comes to that conclusion, he’s either very slow on the uptake or truly wise and humble.

And the other man — the younger one at the time?
That was Plato, also a Greek, also a philosopher.
Plato stood between two giants of thought: Socrates was his teacher, Aristotle his student.
Quite the intellectual sandwich.
Plato’s role, apart from thinking itself, was that of a secretary or assistant.
He wrote down what Socrates said.

I often wonder what Plato must have thought when Socrates shared that revelation about his own ignorance.
“Has the old man lost it? All we do is explore, question, and write down knowledge — and now he tells me he knows nothing?”

Fast-forward a few millennia, and the line still feels revolutionary.
When Socrates decided he knew nothing, he didn’t slow down — he sped up.
He asked more questions, dug deeper, challenged everything.
Asking questions, after all, exposes more than it answers — especially those vast, uncomfortable gaps in what we don’t know.

Maybe Socrates was the first true motivator of science.
Science, at least, has learned one thing: that its knowledge is always temporary.
That’s why every research paper begins with the sacred disclaimer — “According to the current state of science...”
Those words leave a door wide open — for new knowledge to enter, as it always does.

And what about my own knowledge?
Is it enough, or could I do a little better?
Oh yes — and how!
School was hardly designed to teach me real thinking.
Being a learning machine gets boring fast.
There’s life after the classroom.
The joy of discovering something for yourself — digging to the bottom rather than getting stuck on the surface — that’s the real thrill.
It has nothing to do with Google or AI.
It’s that tiny, electric spark in your brain when an idea forms — or when a new insight steps out onto the stage and says,
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.”

Still — we know nothing.
Not really.
Only fragments of an infinite puzzle.

So what can we do?
Ask questions.
Keep searching.
Knowing full well that it will never be enough.
At best, it’s the knowledge of today.
And honestly — that’s already something.