First principles baloney

There is a lot of talk about understanding, developing or teaching from first principles. So just let us imagine a European medieval erudite. If asked to explain anything from first principles, he'd give a lecture on how God's will is the ever controlling hand of everything that goes on in the (geocentric) world. A highbrow professor of today would reduce everything to matter, and us to robots. Which is a magnitude better, but still ignorant.

For long I thought we already know everything (and just needed to fill in the details). Bacon style. Then I assumed we needed to rethink some basics. Now I think that we can't know everything. Heisenberg style.

“Not only is the universe stranger than we think,

It's stranger than we can think.

The year we make contact, we can gain another magnitude or two. Sometimes I hope this happens in my lifetime, although the repercussions will be horrifying. Otherwise I'll spend the rest of my days in this miserably half-way medieval world-view. But probably better free and ignorant than educated and caged.