Socrates paradox

     "I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing."
socrates 

The phrase "I know that I know nothing" or "I know one thing: that I know nothing"  sometimes called the Socratic paradox, is a well-known saying that is derived from Plato's account of the Greek Philosopher Socrates. This saying is also connected and/or conflated with the answer Socrates is said to have received from Pythia,  the oracle of Delphi, in answer to the question "who is the wisest man in Greece?".




The story behind socrates wisdom

We know one thing and that is that we know nothing! I think that's the story behind the quote from Socrates. sometimes the less you know the better. 
The fact that Socrates at one hand believes that he knows something  while not knowing [anything] at the other hand he says: do not believe [that I know anything]. The impreciseness of the paraphrase of this as I know that I know nothing stems from the fact that the socrates is not saying that he does not know anything but means instead that one cannot know anything with absolute certainty but can feel confident about certain things! in order to prove this Chaerephon , a friend of Socrates asked  Pythia,  "Is anyone wiser than Socrates?". The answer was: "No human is wiser". Socrates tried to find someone who 

Socrates tried to find someone who is wiser than himself, since he denied any knowledge, among politicians, poets, and craftsmen. It appeared that politicians claimed wisdom without knowledge; poets could touch people with their words, but did not know their meaning; and craftsmen could claim knowledge only in specific and narrow fields. The interpretation of Oracle's answer might be Socrates' awareness of his own ignorance.

Awareness 

For me, this leads to awareness of something! we can say with certainty that we do know nothing, because we are aware of our not knowing. But we can not say that we do know something! This may have to do with how much knowledge we have, time, age, and culture. Our knowledge about something can change in time, but also the problems and moments we face everyday. We can explore more about "something", but time itself plays a major role in our way of understanding and to discovering the perfect solution for a certain problem! The key to all this, is to become aware of the emptiness! with this i mean our thoughts as a empty place which is aware of not knowing and to observe for new and genuine possibilities.

In the emptiness of our thoughts, we are able to open our selves for more ideas, and to explore new and genuine possibilities/solutions. 

Finally, as human beings we will never have such knowledge to understand everything and to find a solution for all our existing problems. Beside this, it's hard to prove if everything that happens in our environment is REAL!  What if everything that is happening, is just our imagination or a dream? will be still be able to find prove of our existing? 

 This phenomenon could be explored by focusing on the Brain in a vat phenomenon. 

In philosophy is brain in a vat a thought experiment to think about reality, knowledge, truth and consciousness. The idea, which is also widely used in science fiction, is that a scientist removes someone's brains from the body, explains in a vat of liquid and connect the neurons of the brains on a very powerful computer. Then the computer will simulate the Virtual reality: the brain receives the signals such as sound and visuals from the computer, and instead of sending the signals to the muscles the brain retunes it back to the computer to execute an action. The brains would have the same experience as if they were in a physical body, but this is now supplied by a computer instead of a real environment. 
The brains in a vat experiment can be used as an argument for philosophical skepticism and solipsism. 


A simple version of this argument goes at this: Since the brains receive and react on the same signals and impulses as if they were in a normal head and since these signals are the only way to interact with the environment, it is not possible to ( viewed from the brains) determine whether the brains is in a vat or located in a human head. In the first case u could say that most of human thoughts are True, such as walking and eating. The second case disprove this argument by saying that this in Not True! Since according to this argument, we are not able to  know whether the brains are in a vat,we can not know if the thoughts are false.  And since, in principle, it is impossible to exclude that the brains are in a vat, we can never have good reasoning to think what we think, because we don't know whether something what we think is True. 



bron: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/s/socrates125872.html#GjCesqALxFPJAhGs.99