Dec. 21: Nothing

 "I know that I know nothing."

That sentence is usually attributed to Socrates. It is supposed to be something uttered by people who are incredibly wise. Solomon tells us that there is more hope for a fool than for someone who thinks he's a genius. I don't think I'm a genius. I think I'm an idiot.

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The dialogue is supposed to go like this:

Pupil: Oh beloved master, now that you are near the end of your life, tell us what you know for sure.

Beloved master: What I do know, at this ripe old age, is that I know nothing.

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"I know nothing" is an idiotic statement when you take it at face value. There are quite a few things that I do know. Since you're reading this blog, it's obvious that I KNOW how to turn on my computer, how to load the blogger web page, and how to edit a post. I also know that two plus two equals four, that the French word for window is fenetre, and that Jamie Marchand Forrest cheers for the Saskatchewan Roughriders. I know that in Canada, Christmas is generally celebrated on December 25 and that my country will see a federal election sometime in 2025.

But "I know nothing" isn't supposed to be taken literally. It's hyperbole. When you say that you "know nothing," what you're really saying is that you still have so much to learn and that the sheer amount of knowledge out there that you don't have is so vast that, when you compare it to what you do know, makes you appear like you know nothing.

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I do a school presentation where I tell the kids that there are three types of knowledge. There is what you know. There is what you don't know. And there is what you don't know that you don't know. I say that what you know could fill a teacup, what you don't know could fill this entire school, and what you don't know you don't know could fill the entire bleedin country.

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Get this, a long time ago, people not only didn't know that the Earth was round, they had no concept of it. The ancients used to think the planet was flat and that it rested on the backs of giant turtles. For much of our existence, we didn't even know that there was another side of the planet. Some of us even thought that at night, the gods threw a blanket over the Earth and that the stars were just pin pricks in that blanket.

It is scary and thrilling to think about all the discoveries yet to be made.

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I know nothing. Socrates knew nothing. You know nothing. The only person who knows everything is that loudmouth at the bar who who believes all those stupid conspiracy theories and uses phrases like "I'm too smart to vote", "look it up" and "not gonna drink the Kool-Aid." Michael Nenonen also knows everything. At least that's how I feel when I talk to him.

As ignorant as we all are, here are some random facts that will make that big pile of things you don't know just an infinitessimal bit smaller. 

1. The planet Saturn is so light that it will float on water.

2. The cells in your fingernails and in a bull's horns are exactly the same. 

3. School buses are yellow because that's the first colour that the human eye registers.

4. David Lee Roth's song Yankee Rose is about the Statue of Liberty.

5. The 2025 Grey Cup will be played in Winnipeg.

6. Olympus Mons, a mountain on Mars, is taller than Mount Everest.

7. This symbol : # is caled an octothorpe.

8. Tragomascaria is the technical term for foul smelling armpits.

9. There are more Facebook users than there are people in China and India combined (not as many as Rosetown, Saskatchewan though.)

10. There are more possible sequences for a deck of cards than there are atoms in the universe.