# The Sum of All Human Knowledge.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sum-of-all-human-knowledge/447845
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [May 3, 2008, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sum-of-all-human-knowledge/447845 "2008-05-03T03:11:48Z")
**Posts on this page:** 18
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2008, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sum-of-all-human-knowledge/447845/21 "2008-05-04T03:18:20Z")
Let us not forget, there’s a lot of knowledge out there currently under wraps due to national and corporate security.
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### Author:  [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2008, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sum-of-all-human-knowledge/447845/22 "2008-05-04T03:49:20Z")
In my AI class, our professor recently told us about Cyc, a project by an acquaintance of his to collect all common sense human knowledge into a first-order logic database. Apparently it’s had mixed results.
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### Author:  [@Kozmik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kozmik)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2008, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sum-of-all-human-knowledge/447845/23 "2008-05-04T22:00:58Z")
I think we need to distinguish quantity vs. quality because much of the significance of knowledge is relational. Not to say that Wikipeida or an AI program could do better but - you should factor in human intelligence. The sum of human knowledge…
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### Author:  [@mwbrooks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mwbrooks)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2008, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sum-of-all-human-knowledge/447845/24 "2008-05-04T23:54:30Z")
[QUOTE=Kozmik]
I think we need to distinguish quantity vs. quality because much of the significance of knowledge is relational. Not to say that Wikipeida or an AI program could do better but - you should factor in human intelligence. The sum of human knowledge…
[/QUOTE]
That’s an interesting thought. I take it that your ellipsis points to the idea that the sum of human knowledge includes negative values–things “known” that are in fact false, misleading, or profoundly useless. These things subtract, or at least detract, from the sum.
Re the upthread comment about having and not being able to find, the Internet really shines in that respect. Things knowable are much more findable than they used to be. ([Mcmaster.com](http://Mcmaster.com), no affiliation, makes me feel like a mechanical near-genius.) Although what you find about a topic (unless it’s popular), might be much less than what is known and hidden in print somewhere.
About Borges, etc., the internet has the potential of being almost a higher-level infinity than, say, all of mankind’s libraries. Electronic knowledge is vastly smaller than print knowledge, and shrinking all the time. The Internet is entirely abstract, so the insertion of new knowledge is much easier than, say, making up a new Dewey Decimal number.
Look at Google Earth: the day could come soon when you might zoom in on my house, look at it from several angles, click on surrounding trees and shrubs to learn their taxonomic data, look up the birds, snakes, bugs and other critters likely to be living in my yard, look up the age and brand of shingles on my roof (posted by the roofer, of course, with contact info), and so forth.
This is all pretty superficial information, not requiring a great deal of storage (mostly links). But it’s not too much to imagine this sort of detail and more being available, in time, for the entire surface of the Earth–not just population centers.
Of course, once you know everything, or at least that everything is knowable, the question remains as to what one can do that’s useful? Offhand, I suspect it’s not what I’m doing now! :smack:
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### Author:  [@AlphaCentauri77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlphaCentauri77)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2010, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sum-of-all-human-knowledge/447845/25 "2010-10-10T14:55:50Z")
Hello
My name is José Sánchez-Cerezo de la Fuente.
I´ve designed a map of human knowledge that, I think, could be displayed on a Google-Earth like applet. Instead of showing the surface of the Earth, Google-Earth (or should I call it “Google-Knowledge”, jeje) would show all fields of studies on its surface (philosophy, science, arts, medicine, and so on) displayed in such a way that each field is placed near all its related fields, and the closer you look (using conventional zoom) the most precise the knowledge, or the information, or data, becames.
It can be used to organize libraries collections, internet sites, and whatever information thematicly organized.
Well, it´s just a thought, but here is a video with several designs, first in 2D and later on in 3D.
What do you think?
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-5TBb235Fo](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-5TBb235Fo)
José
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### Author:  [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2010, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sum-of-all-human-knowledge/447845/26 "2010-10-10T20:14:42Z")
[The British Library](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_British_Library). If humans know about it, write it down, and publish it, it is to be found here.
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### Author:  [@Silent\_Kal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silent_Kal)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2010, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sum-of-all-human-knowledge/447845/27 "2010-10-10T20:55:32Z")
If one could compile and digitize everything produced by humanity up to this moment, how much hard drive space would be required to store it? Wikipedia says the books contained in the [Library of Congress](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_congress#Holdings) would amount to about 20TB if stored as plain text.
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### Author:  [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2010, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sum-of-all-human-knowledge/447845/28 "2010-10-10T23:09:00Z")
> [@Wildcombination](#):
>
> I’d like to mention Buckminster Fuller, a proto-blogger if there ever was one. From 1915 to 1983 he documented his life every 15 minutes. The result he called the Dymaxion Chronofile - it measures 270 feet/80 meters. Supposing you were to actually collect all the knowledge of the world, it would probably have to be something like that. Only you would have to update it fluidly. And then consider the metaknowledge creating itself out of that same project. And so on.]
He also kept on file _every_ piece of mail he sent or received.
If I did that, just the junk mail that I get might take up that much space. And if I printed out all the email SPAM …
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### Author:  [@ChrisBooth12](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChrisBooth12)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2010, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sum-of-all-human-knowledge/447845/29 "2010-10-10T23:44:01Z")
Impossible, peoples opinions change and opinions are knowledge, John may not like Sue but Charlie might, and their opinions about things may change over time. Knowing that John on Qst likes shadegrass may not even be true after a while. I mean I still have relatively new encyclopedias with false information about flight, some simpler phyiscs and the like
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### Author:  [@KinkiNipponTourist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KinkiNipponTourist)
#### Post date: [October 11, 2010, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sum-of-all-human-knowledge/447845/30 "2010-10-11T00:38:25Z")
And if we’re assuming this extends to all humans, it would have to cover all languages, no? The British Library doesn’t have all this.
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### Author:  [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)
#### Post date: [October 11, 2010, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sum-of-all-human-knowledge/447845/31 "2010-10-11T02:02:06Z")
I believe the sum is 42.
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### Author:  [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)
#### Post date: [October 11, 2010, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sum-of-all-human-knowledge/447845/32 "2010-10-11T06:09:16Z")
> [@Svejk\_1](#):
>
> Actually, much though I like the Internet, and even though it is potentially capable of housing infinite amounts of knowledge, at this stage it is deficient in many respects.
Agreed. I mean, the NUMBER ONE thing that you think would be easily and freely available on the internet would be some kind of (centralized forward and reverse) phone directory. I mean, the internet has found a way to monetize every other seemingly trivial thing! You’d think Google would OCR paper phonebooks at least - they’ve OCR’d everything else, even if just for brand recognition.
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### Author:  [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)
#### Post date: [October 11, 2010, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sum-of-all-human-knowledge/447845/33 "2010-10-11T15:09:47Z")
The sum of all human knowledge goes by the name of Ivy.
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### Author:  [@Phlosphr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phlosphr)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2010, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sum-of-all-human-knowledge/447845/34 "2010-10-12T18:15:04Z")
I’m pretty sure it’s --\> O
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### Author:  [@Darth\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Panda)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2010, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sum-of-all-human-knowledge/447845/35 "2010-10-12T18:43:37Z")
[This attempt](http://futurama.wikia.com/wiki/Infosphere) didn’t work out that well, but it was the closest thing to an actual effort that I can recall.
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### Author:  [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2010, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sum-of-all-human-knowledge/447845/36 "2010-10-12T18:58:00Z")
> [@panache45](#):
>
> [QUOTE=Kozmik]
> But humanity lives forever..
I wouldn’t bet on that.
[/QUOTE]
I would. You’ll only be around if you win.
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### Author:  [@Noel\_Prosequi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noel_Prosequi)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2010, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sum-of-all-human-knowledge/447845/37 "2010-10-12T23:35:30Z")
Bear in mind much human knowledge is not capable of being reduced to writing or other forms of information sharing. How does Roger Federer serve a tennis ball in the way he has that is unique to him? How does a concert pianist make his fingers do what they do? One can _describe_ what those things look like after the event, but not to the level where someone else can replicate them, too. Only Federer and Horowitz have the unique knowledge that they have of playing the way they do.
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### Author:  [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2010, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sum-of-all-human-knowledge/447845/38 "2010-10-13T00:02:40Z")
If they ever do get the sum of human knowledge together, let me know. You see, my grandmother left behind a lot of photographs. She labeled maybe one in thirty and I have no idea who the hell half of these people are. Some of them are probably relatives.
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