I’m reading this book. I don’t understand some of it, and my interest in it comes and goes depending on what David Deutsch talks about, but it’s amazing. And I’ve got right back into it today, after starting chapter 10 – A Dream of Socrates.
The chapter recounts a dialogue between Socrates and Hermes (from what I’m guessing, based on the chapter title, is in a dream) where they discuss knowledge and what ‘knowing’ something actually means.
I haven’t finished the whole chapter yet, but this is what I’m thinking about after today – where Socrates tells Hermes of what the philosopher Xenophanes said:
‘The gods did not reveal, from the beginning,
all things to us; but in the course of time,
Through seeking we may learn and know things better.’
Knowing things isn’t what matters. Knowing things better does.