Naïeveté
In the not-too-distant past, there seems to have been a prevailing belief that there was a kind of direction to human progress — that we were moving ourselves along a path towards some sort of Total Enlightenment.
With the advent of antibiotics and vaccines, it was believed that diseases would all be cured in a matter of time. Eugenics was a popular idea, until it was tarnished. In Mathematics, the unsolved problems were believed to be ripe for solution in the coming years. The paradoxes would be resolved; even the act of creating proofs would be automated. In time, you could simply ask a machine "Is this statement true?" and it would tell you the answer.
It was almost as though the dirtiness and messiness of our initial conditions (whether genetic, mathematical, societal, or otherwise) could all be cleaned up with enough effort, leading to a superior existence. It was within reach. Our understanding of the world would be complete, and we would achieve mastery even over ourselves.
But in recent times, this has all rather come apart. It's not just that we've failed in one way or another, but in some cases we've proven that we can never succeed. This is more useful than mere failure, but perhaps also more depressing.
Gödel's Incompleteness theorem has shown us that there will always be some truths that are outside the reach of proof. The impossibility of solving the Halting problem has shown us that computers (as we know them today) cannot answer all our questions. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle seems to say that we can never fully understand the state of the universe. The Ignorabimus haunts us still.
Perhaps it is not true that anything is possible. Perhaps only what is possible is possible.
In some respects, this is depressing knowledge.
I think it's wonderful.
The Unknown that surrounds us will never dry up, so existence will remain interesting. Frontiers may be pushed back here and there, but they will never go away.
Furthermore, having proof that we will never achieve a lofty state of Total Enlightenment, we can move on from our obsession with it. Like the person who realizes they have been wasting their life waiting for the perfect moment to come, we can finally snap out of it, and get on with simply doing the best we can with what we have.
It is a freeing sensation.
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