Ancient and not so ancient philosophers and thinkers once imagined that if you could know the mathematics governing every part of the universe you would have complete knowledge and thus foresight. That hope slowly broke down over time until it was finished off by Werner Heisenberg and the other geniuses of quantum mechanics.

But it’s amazing how that thinking still exists outside of physics; that the more data we have, the more detailed it is, the better our knowledge and control will be.

Yet, just as in physics, this idea has started to break down in recent years, and one Ted Goia thinks it’s about to have it’s own version of wave function collapse, The Collapse Of The Knowledge System. You can read his details and arguments at the link but here are the ten warning signs he reckons herald this collapse:

The following video (7minutes long) is related to this, looking at another aspect of the falsity of thinking more data is good. In the fields of education, healthcare and policing that’s turned out not to be the case.

One word I haven’t seen in either of this pieces is “wisdom!”. However Goia may be alluding to that with his conclusions about what will happen after our knowledge system collapses:

Let me point out that despite all the manipulations, hallucinations, abuses, and dysfunctional excesses of the digital life…Despite all of these, symphonies sound as majestic as ever. Philosophy is more necessary than ever. Paintings are still glorious. Great architecture does not collapse. Nature warms the heart. As do poems and epics and myths… Jazz still swings. Heroes still prevail. The soul is stirred. And one lover still reaches for another.

I’m not sure what exactly will replace the cold, dying knowledge system. But I suspect it will recognize the value of these things. And will prevail for that very reason… I’m not suggesting that you can replace tech with a poem. But tech now desparately needs what can only be provided by the humanities and human values.

The new knowledge system will be built on these human values. Technology will be forced to serve it—or it will get locked into a losing battle with the new ‘softer and gentler’ knowledge system.