Is the universe conceivable? Does scientific knowledge improve our ability to think about the universe?
What happens when our knowledge reaches a level of sophistication such that the human brain can no longer comfortably hold it, or compute on it? For thousands of years, scholars have optimistically preached the benefits of knowledge. Our world is rich and safe as a result. People live longer, people live in greater personal control over the options they face. All of this is an obvious result of our hard won understanding of how the universe and its parts actually work. We arm our engineers with these knowledges and send them out to solve the problems that lead to a more and more desire-mitigated environment. Wish you weren't hungry, go to the fridge or McDonnalds. Wish you were somewhere else, get in your car and go there. Wish you could be social, but your friends are in Prague, call them. Wish you knew something, look it up on the internet. Lonely, log in to a dating service and set up a rendezvous. Wish your leg wasn't fractured, go to a doc-in-the-box and get it set and cast.
But what if you want to put it all together? What if your interests run to integration and consolidation. What if you want to understand your feelings about parking meters as an ontological stack of hierarchical knowledge built all the way up from the big bang?
