I don't know

[Exian]

I wrote this up last night while in an odd mood. I'm not normally in this mind frame, so I decided to draft it and reread it in the morning. After rereading it, I do think its a bit silly, but I'm posting it anyways, because I would like to hear how others feel about that hard "I don't know", the type of "I don't know" that may never be answered. How are you coping with it, and what are your specific "I don't know's" that drive you particularly crazy?

Here it is:
I'm in a mood right now that's making me really, really fucking not ok with "I don't know." It's the intellectually honest thing to say, but god damn, am I sick of it. We, who are alive right now, will never know, and most of us will never get a chance to be in a position to do something about not knowing. Fuck, that pisses me off. We're left to wait for others to the work. And, in the meantime, we'll be too busy dying off to ever learn what's beyond inflation, or if anything from our current knowledge of reality has any relation to the rules that exist outside of our universe.

I so badly want to be there when we first learn of the relationship between nothing and something. If we learn that the finite is just a part of the nature of infinity, I want to be the first to bawl my eyes out. Gravity! Please, somebody figure that shit out before I die.

Not knowing can a hopeless and helpless feeling. Mostly, it's a motivator, but not when your hands are tied, or when the solution appears to be so far off in the future.

[Pyrrho]

You have a few choices.  You can work on the problem yourself.  You can learn as much as possible about the issues involved, and try to solve the problems that you have.  It involves work, and you may not be up for actually solving anything.  But you can try.

Or you could pretend that you know things that you don't know, and try to convince yourself of some BS nonsense.  Many people take that approach to questions to which they do not know the answer.  It is intellectually dishonest, but many people seem to want to take this option.

Or you can get over the fact that there are countless things you will never know.  Right now, you don't know what I had for breakfast this morning.  And it is something you will never know.  My guess is, you are okay with not knowing what I had for breakfast.  If you take that attitude with other things that you do not and can not know, you will be okay, and you won't be intellectually dishonest, and you don't have to do any work.

I personally am fine with not knowing how the universe got started, or even if it got started.  I don't need to know that.  What is useful for me to know are things like which wine to buy at the store, and I have some ideas on that subject.

[SteelCurtain]

I don't attach all the negative feelings to "I don't know."

For me, it's a starting point, so I get some hopeful feelings from it. I have an information addiction. Learning new things is exhilarating for me. Now, I know I'm not going to be the guy to figure out the relationship between nothing and something, but I think the way I approach the unknown sort of informs the way I feel about it.

[Exian]

I'm usually right there with both of you, and even now I'm fine with not knowing some of these things. After all, there's already so much information out there to keep me busy for the rest of my life. But, for whatever reason, I just reached a point last night that sort of emotionally exhausted me, which is totally out of character haha Something about the night, when all the distractions and wine choices are gone, has that effect.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I'm pretty comfortable with 'I don't know'.  But I think it very important to know what you don't know.  Because if you don't know that which you don't know, then you may actually know, but not know that you know.  Conversely, it's probably very difficult to be in a state where you don't know what you don't know, since if you don't know, I'm not sure how you could know that you don't.

You know?

Boru

[Minimalist]

"I don't know" is so far superior to "goddidit."

[Angrboda]

We float in a river between what we know and what we don't know. It's easier if you just go with the current.

[robvalue]

Why do you think it is making you feel uncomfortable Exian? Is it the curiosity of wanting to know these things, or the uncertainty?

I suppose at least it gives you some sort of insight as to why people grab the mental pacifier/dummy and turn to religion.

[Exian]

Man, that's a good question, Rob. I'm fairly certain that it wasn't fear-based, as the feeling suddenly came upon me through honest searching, reading, and playful speculation. I wasn't looking for an answer to a particular question. Maybe it's just the idea that all we can ask for is to know, and being pretty sure that by the time my time comes, I won't know some pretty big answers. That's a little uncomfortable.

To be less general, I was thinking on the nature of nothing, and whether there is a relationship with something, and my own mortality did weigh in unexpectedly, but only as a time limit, not as a fear-based belief motivator. The thought crossed my mind that, if there is some unavoidable relationship between nothing and something, then maybe there is no "end", just two different states to exist in, or maybe two sides to the same coin, and that thought somehow comforted me in an odd way that I never needed before. I wasn't even looking for comfort.

Two things happened, I got really frustrated, because I wanted to know the answer and I knew that most of that stuff is outside of the scope of science at the moment, but also I recognized the deistic nature of my thoughts, which I've never had. I'm uncomfortable with asserting that the relationship could be some deistic thing, but putting any label on the entirety of existence and non-existence gets tricky. Seems you could call it anything you want and nothing would change. Say it's deistic in nature or just nature and I couldn't tell who would be wrong.

I don't know (Ha), I'm just feeling around in the dark here and fleshing this out in real-time. I'm sure it'll pass and I'll go back to worrying about Jolie's grades or whatever.

[robvalue]

I see I wonder if this would help: how boring would it be if we knew everything? There would be no mystery left!

The journey is more important than the destination. A glib platitude, but I think it is generally true.

It sounds to me that maybe this is about self reflection more than it is about the actual questions, and examining your own attitudes and strategies.