Epistemic Limits - Bryant McGill

# Epistemic Limits ## Definition **Epistemic Limits** are boundaries on what a mind, method or civilization can know. Human cognition may face limits imposed by biology, complexity, observational horizons or conceptual architecture even when reality remains lawful and more capable intelligences could understand it. ## Conceptual relationships [[wiki/Scientific Inference|Scientific Inference]] · [[wiki/Intelligence Cap|Intelligence Cap]] · [[wiki/Cosmology|Cosmology]] ## Martin Rees research route [[research/Martin Rees on Machine Succession, Post-Human Intelligence, and the Cosmic Future|Martin Rees on Machine Succession, Post-Human Intelligence, and the Cosmic Future]] supplies a primary quotation dossier connecting this concept to Rees's work on cosmology, technological risk, machine intelligence, posthuman evolution and deep time. ## Article and collection routes - [[collections/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]] - [[articles/We Cannot Un-Strike the Match|We Cannot Un-Strike the Match]] - [[articles/The Last Migration Will Not Be Human|The Last Migration Will Not Be Human]] - [[articles/We Were Never Going to Make It|We Were Never Going to Make It]] ## Simple Reminders, Quotations, and Thoughts  > “There’s a widely held presumption that our insight will deepen indefinitely—that all scientific problems will eventually yield to attack. But I think we may need to abandon this optimism. The human intellect may hit the buffers—even though in most fields of science there’s surely a long way to go before this happens.” > **— Martin Rees**, *2014: What Scientific Idea Is Ready for Retirement?, Edge, 2014* [[reminders/Scientific Literacy/Human Intelligence May Reach Its Scientific Limits by Martin Rees|Human Intelligence May Reach Its Scientific Limits by Martin Rees]] > “We do not know whether there are other universes. Perhaps we never shall.” > **— Martin Rees**, *Many Universes?, Edge, 2002* [[reminders/Cosmic Perspective/We May Never Know Whether Other Universes Exist by Martin Rees|We May Never Know Whether Other Universes Exist by Martin Rees]]