Knowing that you do not know everything
2604.15264
econ.TH
TLDR
Rational agents, even with true and refinable knowledge, cannot determine if they know everything or not.
Key contributions
- Rational agents cannot know if their knowledge of events is complete.
- This epistemic limitation holds even with true and refinable knowledge.
- Introspection about tautologies does not resolve this knowledge gap.
- Learning about new events also fails to overcome this fundamental limitation.
Why it matters
This paper reveals a fundamental epistemic limit for rational agents, demonstrating they can never truly know if their knowledge is exhaustive. This has significant implications for artificial intelligence, philosophical epistemology, and the design of autonomous systems.
Original Abstract
We show that a rational agent with true and refinable knowledge of events cannot know if she knows everything or not. This epistemic limitation is not resolved by introspection about tautologies or by learning about new events.
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