5 ms·

Map of All Known Knowledge

All human knowledge I am a high school student, and I have been thinking about the way knowledge is structured. In schools and universities, we study subjects such as mathematics, physics, biology, and many others. This has led me to wonder: exactly how many subjects exist in total? It is generally understood that all the knowledge humanity currently possesses is finite and organized into distinct areas. I am interested in knowing whether there exists a comprehensive list, table, map, or conceptual framework that captures the entire body of known human knowledge without excluding anything. In other words, I am seeking a complete and exhaustive classification of all subjects, such that no area of knowledge is left unaccounted for. I wish to ensure that I am not unaware of any subject.

tlb 3mo ago
Librarians have systems that can classify every published book. And scientific publishers can classify every paper. Those don't add up to a complete classification of all human knowledge, but it's a substantial fraction of it. If you skim the high-level book categories at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dewey_Decimal_classes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dewey_Decimal_classes, you may conclude this is is beyond a lifetime's work.
- elijahwright 3mo ago
  Mmhmm. A talented cataloger in a research library understands where the 'fuzz' in these systems is - where the margins intersect - and they have a process for helping systematize those classifications in a way that they can socialize with other librarians across the world. (If nobody has ever cataloged a particular book before... your record is probably going into OCLC WorldCat and other people will borrow the output of your thinking process later... making things more and more definitive.)
- Abhishek000001 3mo ago
  Okay I got it . But do we have any best possible classification system or map . That is most complete. A map which has tried to capture totality of all known human knowledge without leaving anything significant. I want this so I am not unaware of any field of knowledge. Atleast any significant feild of knowledge Practically Best possible . Thank you sir for your response
elijahwright 3mo ago
Start with the library of congress classification system. It'll get you 90 percent of the way there for 10% of the effort. (Classification systems are very much an information science topic... and they're pretty damn important. Along those same lines - you'll want to think carefully and critically about what is seen as canonical knowledge, and what's "in" those fields, versus what is perceived as "utter crackpot bullshit" that nobody takes seriously. The fields you've mentioned ALL have a significant amount of bleed at the edges - where does math become mathematical physics and then 'really physics' ... it's just not that easy.) Fanboy comment: just google Eugene Garfield. Have fun!
- Abhishek000001 3mo ago
  Thank your for your response sir. Okay I got it . But do we have any best possible classification system or map . That is most complete. A map which has tried to capture totality of all known knowledge without leaving anything significant. I want this so I am not unaware of any field of knowledge. Atleast any significant feild of knowledge Practically Best possible . As you suggest I read the scheme of library of congress And there any some more schemes for all human knowledge. But a question comes in mind that which map should I trust For my needs . Which map has that quality.
  - NishanStepak 3mo ago
    1 point by NishanStepak 21 minutes ago | next | edit | delete [–] This goes well past libraries and into new concepts. Vannevar Bush wrote an article you might find interesting, As We May Think, it is the precursor in many ways to the internet. https://web.mit.edu/sts.035/www/PDFs/think.pdf https://web.mit.edu/sts.035/www/PDFs/think.pdf A book you might also want to read is The World Brain by H.G. Wells which is about a world encyclopedia. https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks13/1303731h.html Some people say that this book helped inspire Wikipedia. However, classification systems are limited. There are currently over 13 zettabytes on the internet right now. This is more than any library can hold. We have entered the zettabyte era. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zettabyte_Era https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zettabyte_Era I believe it would take something similar to a multi zettabyte vector database attached to a knowledge graph of all the content on the internet and available content in universities and libraries to build a universal taxonomy. Artificial intelligence with human oversite would be used to create a self organizing map based on existing taxonomies like the Universal Decimal Classification or Library of Congress. It would fill in the holes of the existing system.
chistev 3mo ago
I once read that if you tried to read every Wikipedia article for 12 hours a day, it would take you about 42 years to finish—assuming no new content gets added along the way. - https://www.rxjourney.net/the-great-ocean-of-truth https://www.rxjourney.net/the-great-ocean-of-truth
- Abhishek000001 3mo ago
  Okay I got it . But do we have any best possible classification system or map . That is most complete. A map which has tried to capture totality of all known knowledge without leaving anything significant. I want this so I am not unaware of any field of knowledge. Atleast any significant feild of knowledge Practically Best possible . Thank you sir for your response
bs55 3mo ago
There is no map. Because knowledge and the relations between concepts are not static. Its a dynamical ever growing system.
__patchbit__ 3mo ago
MIT OpenCourseWare has a series of lectures on AI by Marvin Minsky and in one lecture he describes two projects in need of each other but were drifting apart that aimed to keep a beat on knowledge. You may want to trace the history of librarianship.
- Abhishek000001 3mo ago
  Thank your for your response sir. Okay I got it . But do we have any best possible classification system or map . That is most complete. A map which has tried to capture totality of all known knowledge without leaving anything significant. I want this so I am not unaware of any field of knowledge. Atleast any significant field of knowledge Practically Best possible . As you suggest I read about librarianship And I got some maps But a question comes in mind that which map should I trust For my needs . Which map has that quality.
lioeters 3mo ago
This is a deep question. Many a great mind in history have thought about how to organize all of the world's knowledge systematically. > Indeed, the purpose of an encyclopedia is to collect knowledge disseminated around the globe; to set forth its general system to the men with whom we live, and transmit it to those who will come after us.. -- Denis Diderot A key word is "ontology", a system or architecture of categories to group entities which represent objects, events, relationships between concepts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology_(information_science) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology_(information_science) The Dewey Decimal Classes mentioned in another comment is a good start. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dewey_Decimal_classes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dewey_Decimal_classes Also.. Basic Register of Thesauri, Ontologies & Classifications - https://bartoc.org/about https://bartoc.org/about Encyclopedia of Knowledge Organization - https://www.isko.org/cyclo/kos https://www.isko.org/cyclo/kos Universal Decimal Classification - https://udcc.org/index.php/site/page?view=subject_coverage https://udcc.org/index.php/site/page?view=subject_coverage --- Honestly, none of the lists are satisfyingly comprehensive. Like a fractal, you can zoom into any one subject, and it branches into more and more specific categories. Wikipedia has various lists and outlines that come closer to what you describe. Outline of academic disciplines - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_academic_disciplines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_academic_discipline... > summary of the world's knowledge, in the form of an outline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Contents/Outlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Contents/Outlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_knowledge#Knowledge_of_humanity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_knowledge#Knowledge...
- Abhishek000001 3mo ago
  Thank you for your response sir. Okay I got it . But which is best possible classification system or map . That is most complete. A map which has tried to capture totality of all known knowledge without leaving anything significant. I want this so I am not unaware if any field of knowledge. Atleast any significant feild of knowledge Practically Best possible . As you suggest I read all links But a question comes in mind that which map should I trust For my needs . Which map has that quality.
  - 3mo ago
bjourne 3mo ago
What about private knowledge such as my account password? I think you need to first rigorously define what you mean by "knowledge" and "subject".
carlosjobim 3mo ago
There is no limit at all for the expanses of human knowledge. Including that every single individual out of all the billions of people on Earth has some knowledge that nobody else has. > It is generally understood that all the knowledge humanity currently possesses is finite and organized into distinct areas. No, this is not generally understood, because it is not true. You will go insane if you try to classify or map all human knowledge.
- Abhishek000001 3mo ago
  Okay . As far I have learned is that everything all humanity knows at any specific point of time is finite and growing rapidly. Collective human knowledge is finite at any moment and growing and divided into many areas for convenience . We have disciplines such as physics, maths etc. Yes it is enormous and it seems to Practically extremely difficult to make such a map. I understood your point Thank you sir for your response.
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]

tlb 3mo ago

Librarians have systems that can classify every published book. And scientific publishers can classify every paper. Those don't add up to a complete classification of all human knowledge, but it's a substantial fraction of it. If you skim the high-level book categories at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dewey_Decimal_classes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dewey_Decimal_classes, you may conclude this is is beyond a lifetime's work.

elijahwright 3mo ago
Mmhmm. A talented cataloger in a research library understands where the 'fuzz' in these systems is - where the margins intersect - and they have a process for helping systematize those classifications in a way that they can socialize with other librarians across the world. (If nobody has ever cataloged a particular book before... your record is probably going into OCLC WorldCat and other people will borrow the output of your thinking process later... making things more and more definitive.)
Abhishek000001 3mo ago
Okay I got it . But do we have any best possible classification system or map . That is most complete. A map which has tried to capture totality of all known human knowledge without leaving anything significant. I want this so I am not unaware of any field of knowledge. Atleast any significant feild of knowledge Practically Best possible . Thank you sir for your response

elijahwright 3mo ago

Start with the library of congress classification system. It'll get you 90 percent of the way there for 10% of the effort. (Classification systems are very much an information science topic... and they're pretty damn important. Along those same lines - you'll want to think carefully and critically about what is seen as canonical knowledge, and what's "in" those fields, versus what is perceived as "utter crackpot bullshit" that nobody takes seriously. The fields you've mentioned ALL have a significant amount of bleed at the edges - where does math become mathematical physics and then 'really physics' ... it's just not that easy.) Fanboy comment: just google Eugene Garfield. Have fun!

Abhishek000001 3mo ago
Thank your for your response sir. Okay I got it . But do we have any best possible classification system or map . That is most complete. A map which has tried to capture totality of all known knowledge without leaving anything significant. I want this so I am not unaware of any field of knowledge. Atleast any significant feild of knowledge Practically Best possible . As you suggest I read the scheme of library of congress And there any some more schemes for all human knowledge. But a question comes in mind that which map should I trust For my needs . Which map has that quality.
- NishanStepak 3mo ago
  1 point by NishanStepak 21 minutes ago | next | edit | delete [–] This goes well past libraries and into new concepts. Vannevar Bush wrote an article you might find interesting, As We May Think, it is the precursor in many ways to the internet. https://web.mit.edu/sts.035/www/PDFs/think.pdf https://web.mit.edu/sts.035/www/PDFs/think.pdf A book you might also want to read is The World Brain by H.G. Wells which is about a world encyclopedia. https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks13/1303731h.html Some people say that this book helped inspire Wikipedia. However, classification systems are limited. There are currently over 13 zettabytes on the internet right now. This is more than any library can hold. We have entered the zettabyte era. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zettabyte_Era https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zettabyte_Era I believe it would take something similar to a multi zettabyte vector database attached to a knowledge graph of all the content on the internet and available content in universities and libraries to build a universal taxonomy. Artificial intelligence with human oversite would be used to create a self organizing map based on existing taxonomies like the Universal Decimal Classification or Library of Congress. It would fill in the holes of the existing system.

chistev 3mo ago

I once read that if you tried to read every Wikipedia article for 12 hours a day, it would take you about 42 years to finish—assuming no new content gets added along the way. - https://www.rxjourney.net/the-great-ocean-of-truth https://www.rxjourney.net/the-great-ocean-of-truth

Abhishek000001 3mo ago
Okay I got it . But do we have any best possible classification system or map . That is most complete. A map which has tried to capture totality of all known knowledge without leaving anything significant. I want this so I am not unaware of any field of knowledge. Atleast any significant feild of knowledge Practically Best possible . Thank you sir for your response

bs55 3mo ago

There is no map. Because knowledge and the relations between concepts are not static. Its a dynamical ever growing system.

__patchbit__ 3mo ago

MIT OpenCourseWare has a series of lectures on AI by Marvin Minsky and in one lecture he describes two projects in need of each other but were drifting apart that aimed to keep a beat on knowledge. You may want to trace the history of librarianship.

Abhishek000001 3mo ago
Thank your for your response sir. Okay I got it . But do we have any best possible classification system or map . That is most complete. A map which has tried to capture totality of all known knowledge without leaving anything significant. I want this so I am not unaware of any field of knowledge. Atleast any significant field of knowledge Practically Best possible . As you suggest I read about librarianship And I got some maps But a question comes in mind that which map should I trust For my needs . Which map has that quality.

lioeters 3mo ago

This is a deep question. Many a great mind in history have thought about how to organize all of the world's knowledge systematically. > Indeed, the purpose of an encyclopedia is to collect knowledge disseminated around the globe; to set forth its general system to the men with whom we live, and transmit it to those who will come after us.. -- Denis Diderot A key word is "ontology", a system or architecture of categories to group entities which represent objects, events, relationships between concepts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology_(information_science) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology_(information_science) The Dewey Decimal Classes mentioned in another comment is a good start. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dewey_Decimal_classes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dewey_Decimal_classes Also.. Basic Register of Thesauri, Ontologies & Classifications - https://bartoc.org/about https://bartoc.org/about Encyclopedia of Knowledge Organization - https://www.isko.org/cyclo/kos https://www.isko.org/cyclo/kos Universal Decimal Classification - https://udcc.org/index.php/site/page?view=subject_coverage https://udcc.org/index.php/site/page?view=subject_coverage --- Honestly, none of the lists are satisfyingly comprehensive. Like a fractal, you can zoom into any one subject, and it branches into more and more specific categories. Wikipedia has various lists and outlines that come closer to what you describe. Outline of academic disciplines - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_academic_disciplines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_academic_discipline... > summary of the world's knowledge, in the form of an outline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Contents/Outlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Contents/Outlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_knowledge#Knowledge_of_humanity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_knowledge#Knowledge...

Abhishek000001 3mo ago
Thank you for your response sir. Okay I got it . But which is best possible classification system or map . That is most complete. A map which has tried to capture totality of all known knowledge without leaving anything significant. I want this so I am not unaware if any field of knowledge. Atleast any significant feild of knowledge Practically Best possible . As you suggest I read all links But a question comes in mind that which map should I trust For my needs . Which map has that quality.
- 3mo ago

bjourne 3mo ago

What about private knowledge such as my account password? I think you need to first rigorously define what you mean by "knowledge" and "subject".

carlosjobim 3mo ago

There is no limit at all for the expanses of human knowledge. Including that every single individual out of all the billions of people on Earth has some knowledge that nobody else has. > It is generally understood that all the knowledge humanity currently possesses is finite and organized into distinct areas. No, this is not generally understood, because it is not true. You will go insane if you try to classify or map all human knowledge.

Abhishek000001 3mo ago
Okay . As far I have learned is that everything all humanity knows at any specific point of time is finite and growing rapidly. Collective human knowledge is finite at any moment and growing and divided into many areas for convenience . We have disciplines such as physics, maths etc. Yes it is enormous and it seems to Practically extremely difficult to make such a map. I understood your point Thank you sir for your response.

deleted 3mo ago

[deleted]