The One Percent Rule
First a quick update - once or twice per week I will post an essay on AI and its impact, progress, jobs and human intelligence. The other two or three posts will generally be focused on great scientists, human behavior, ideas on intelligence (and stupidity) and human progress. I’ll aim to issue 4 or 5 posts per week instead of one per day…
One of the most iconic images of the English Renaissance is the engraved title page of Francis Bacon's Instauratio Magna. This image depicts the ship of learning sailing through the "Pillars of Hercules", the straits of Gibraltar, once the symbolic boundary marking the edge of the known world. The ship, however, is not content to stay within limits, it returns from the vast open seas, bearing the fruits of exploration, new ideas and fresh discoveries. Beneath this powerful image is a quote from the Book of Daniel (12:4) in the Latin Vulgate: Multi pertransibunt et augebitur scientia (" Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased"). Bacon made this quote his own, interlacing it into his grand vision of knowledge and learning.
Bacon's personal spin on this biblical passage is evident when he first references it in Valerius Terminus, specifically in the chapter titled "Of the Limits and End of Knowledge." The "levels of knowledge" are numerous and noble, he says, and well within human grasp. His interpretation is characteristic of his belief that there is still a wealth of understanding to be cultivated by humanity, and this, for Bacon, was both a duty and a moral obligation.
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