Well then, Protagoras, we’re also stating opinions of a human being, or rather of all human beings, and claiming that no one at all does not consider himself wiser than others in some respects and other people wiser than himself in other respects, and in the greatest dangers at least, when people are in distress in military campaigns or diseases or at sea, they have the same relation to those who rule them in each situation as to gods, expecting them to be their saviors, even though they are no different from themselves by any other thing than by knowing; and all human things are filled with people seeking teachers and rulers for themselves and for the other animals, as well as for their jobs, and in turn with people who suppose themselves to be competent to teach and competent to rule. And in all these situations, what else are we going to say but that human beings themselves consider there to be wisdom and lack of understanding than among them?

What must survive a student’s higher education today is a facility for life-long learning. Consider how steep the learning curve has become in the professional workplace. Knowledge has become so ephemeral that management experts have tried to get a handle on the educational challenge by using a yardstick they call the “half-life of knowledge.” This is the amount of time it takes for half of one’s professional knowledge to become obsolete. I’ve seen estimates that, overall, the half-life of knowledge is somewhere between four and seven years. For technical fields, it is much less; half of what software developers know now, for example, will likely be irrelevant in just 18 months.9 As Maryanne Rouse has written, “We used to think of the long run as ten to fifteen years; in many technology-dependent industries the long run may now be six months or less. And while the pace of knowledge-creation is accelerating, the half-life of knowledge becomes shorter each year. What this means for us is that concepts are far more important than facts and the ability to analyze and synthesize has much greater value than the ability to memorize. In short, school may be multiple choice but real life is all essay.”
In real life, then, the skills of synthesis and systemic thinking are not just luxuries, they are invaluable. We are, after all, living through an Information Revolution, which parallels the Industrial Revolution in its impact and far-reaching consequences. Information—of all varieties, all levels of priority and all without much context—is bombarding us from all directions all the time.

All we know is still infinitely less than all that still remains unknown.

Have you persuaded yourself that there are knowledges and truths beyond your grasp, things that you simply cannot learn? Have you allowed adverse evidence to pile up and force you to conclude that you are not mathematical, not linguistic, not poetic, not scientific, not philosophical? If you have allowed this to happen, you have arbitrarily imposed limits on your intellectual freedom, and you have smothered the fires from which all other freedoms arise.

Gotama had listened to him quietly, motionless. And now the Perfect One spoke in his kind, polite and clear voice. “You have listened well to the teachings, O Brahmin’s son, and it is a credit to you that you have thought so deeply about them. You have found a flaw. Think well about it again. Let me warn you, you who are thirsty for knowledge, against the thicket of opinions and conflict of words. Opinions mean nothing; they may be beautiful or ugly, clever or foolish, anyone can embrace or reject them. The teaching which you have heard, however, is not my opinion, and its goal is not to explain the world to those who are thirsty for knowledge. Its goal is quite different; its goal is salvation from suffering. That is what the Gotama teaches, nothing else.