I think to some extent individuals that continue the process of learning into adulthood naturally become adverse to stating anything in completely concrete terms. Presumably part of this is from painful past experience, but also as one's depth of knowledge grows so does the realisation of just how much there is to know - even in a supposedly finite domain!
Yes, but be careful with this line of thought - it is a result of a person being aware that there are known-unknowns. That is why they avoid using concrete terms, because they know that they are ignorant about many things. But there are still things which this person will be unaware that they don't know.
I have always felt that Richard Feynmann's greatness devolved largely from the fact that he was better at identifying things that he didn't know than his colleagues. Where one person might develop a theory that works to explain a particular phenomenon, Feynmann would understand that this answer would just reveal new questions, so he would dig further than others.
Comments
I think to some extent individuals that continue the process of learning into adulthood naturally become adverse to stating anything in completely concrete terms. Presumably part of this is from painful past experience, but also as one's depth of knowledge grows so does the realisation of just how much there is to know - even in a supposedly finite domain!
Yes, but be careful with this line of thought - it is a result of a person being aware that there are known-unknowns. That is why they avoid using concrete terms, because they know that they are ignorant about many things. But there are still things which this person will be unaware that they don't know.
I have always felt that Richard Feynmann's greatness devolved largely from the fact that he was better at identifying things that he didn't know than his colleagues. Where one person might develop a theory that works to explain a particular phenomenon, Feynmann would understand that this answer would just reveal new questions, so he would dig further than others.