Before You Begin
Abstract
For any field, there exists a time after which the minimum knowledge required to contributetakes longer to acquire than a human life allows. I argue this threshold exists given only twoassumptions: that knowledge accumulates, and that humans are finite. I then examine proposedsolutions—AI curation, abstraction, cognitive enhancement—and argue they introduce a second-order problem: the mechanisms that lower the barrier also determine what knowledge survives.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Epistemology
Ethics
and Metaphysics
Scientific Research and Philosophical Inquiry
Research
Science
and Academia
Publication details
- Journal / source
- Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
- Publication date
- 8 February 2026
- Language
- EN
- Document type
- Preprint