[omnivore]

"Can you recognize the humility in me that I got from that silly Astronomy Course?"

Yes, I recognize the humility, I had a similar experience, with a different course. Perterbation Methods, a graduate level math course. What I learned, aside from not nearly enough from the course, was that everybody has their limits, as to what level of abstraction they can handle. I'm glad I found mine. When I talk to people, much more important than knowing what their limits of understanding are, is finding out if they even comprehend or will admit that there are limits to their understanding.

Note that this type of thing, finding one's limits of understanding in terms of level of abstraction, finding that one has such limits, is much more concrete in the hard sciences, than it is in the arts and humanities. This is why so many people who come from the humanities side of the educational spectrum (cough ... lawyers ... cough) are either unaware of their own limits of understanding, or are even unaware that they even have limits to their own understanding. So instead they try to contort every description of reality into something they can comprehend, without realizing they are doing so. And this leads them into talking about versions of reality (as if they were real) which are weirdly alien to everybody else on the planet. I don't think this is good for the human race. So I commend you on your discussion of human limits to understanding.

[omnivore]

Perturbation methods. Can't even get the darned name of it right after all these years.

[Radix]

"...finding one's limits of understanding in terms of level of abstraction, finding that one has such limits, is much more concrete in the hard sciences, than it is in the arts and humanities."

Gosh, I am so completely limited.

I was watching a TV show some while back. The doctor called out...." Give me a high F I O 2...."

I left out some important part of your post that I wanted to quote. Space and all.

The High FiO2 stuff refers to the % of Oxygen inhaled and the context was totally absurd in that fictional circumstance.

I laughed out loud, but then later realized, that, I was likely one of the few viewers who actually got it.. I sort of laughed because it was so meaningless a request to be made in an emergency situation.

I left out some of your quote, but my point really is that we are all limited in our knowledge, and the we really, after all in so many ways, stand on the shoulders of a few giants.

I think so.