Evanston RoundTable, Nov. 15,2018 I’m obsessed with knowledge. I want to know everything. Well, not everything, of course, that’s impossible, but the big things: quantum physics and plate tectonics and macroeconomics and…all the stuff I didn’t get around to studying in school because I was too lazy or preoccupied with other, more important stuff, like getting a date. But that’s problematic from a number of angles. For starters there’s an almost infinite number of big things to know and very limited time—a mere lifetime—to get to know them. For another the effort of gaining total knowledge involves a certain amount of hubris. Who am I to play God? Because only God can know everything. Or even all the big things. The problem was addressed in the Bible. God forbids Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Some scholars consider that to mean all understanding—not just good and evil but everything in between. Forbidding that knowledge would make sense, because to know everything would be Godlike. But if Adam and Eve did indeed munch on  the apple, how come we’re so short of knowledge today? Another interpretation suggests that after the irrevocable bite, good … Continue reading →