And here we stand intellectually as humans, scattered across the wide plain of our accumulated knowledge. On that plain we can see peaks with higher plateaus representing areas as yet unexplored or with areas where our current understanding cannot properly define the conditions that exist on those plateaus.

As humans we are curious, seeking truth about the world around us. We attempt to understand the things we see and experience because ultimately, those are the things that we know best. Within any discipline of human study there are plateaus which represent situations that we have not yet experienced or studied well enough to become certain of the answers to the questions that lead to that information plateau where our actual knowledge is sparsely distributed today and therefore we have no idea how to truthfully answer the original question.

With many plateaus around us on this plain we seek enough information through our curiosity that we can connect the plateaus to each other since we know that everything is connected physically, and mathematically. As we study, test, and document our processes we add information to each plateau until we solve a problem. The solution to a problem is a new peak and the tested hypotheses that led us to that peak allow us to make the connections between peaks that create new knowledge plateaus where humanity has fewer real existential questions that still have no provable answers. As we reach each new peak we raise the plateau of knowledge upon which we all stand and that new plateau has fewer challenging areas to explore but at the same time we have a huge base of human knowledge and experience upon which to explore the final plateau rising from the plain.

Why are we here? What is the meaning of life? Where did we come from? Is there a God? What happens to our spirits, our imaginations, and our energy when the clock runs out on our individual existence?

Answers to these and other currently unprovable questions will be found on that last, highest plateau after all other questions have been answered and have filled in the knowledge gaps between peaks where individual truths have been documented.

One thing that we don't know now is whether, once we reach the point where our research places us humans on the slopes up to that last plateau is just how wide that plateau will be and how persistent. The dimensions of the last plateau on that last broad plain are effectively defined by the uncertainty in the assumptions we can make from all our accumulated experiences. We can't know today whether as humans we will ever be able to decrease the dimensions of that plateau so that all questions we could ever have will have clearly defined answers supported by the accumulated knowledge of thousands of generations of curious human researchers.

We can hope that our curiosity will one day allow us to collapse that plateau to a peak where we suddenly know everything about everything all at once and knowing it all just seems natural. Perhaps this is our ultimate reward. Or perhaps in finally reaching this peak we initiate contact with the ultimate level of wisdom and in the process we prick our finger on the infinitely sharp point of wisdom and the blood flows out over humanity, waiting patiently on the plain for the real truths, drowning our brothers and sisters in the knowledge that we were never intended to have.

Curiosity is a human condition, also shared with other animals. Just as humans can bait traps to capture curious animals, our own curiosity could lead us to be captured by false peaks as we seek to understand and control everything around us.

EDIT: There’s another situation that we should consider. Consider the section 21 [0] in this Papal Note under Relationship with the Truth. The concluding section builds the case that humans are driven to understand the truth about things and “it is as if reason were overwhelmed to see that it can always go beyond what it has already achieved.”

Considering this section it appears that as humans, we are driven to know the truth. If our journey to understanding everything were to eventually give us ultimate wisdom, the power that would come from that would be immense, rivaling God’s own power. Therefore it seems likely to me that God, in his eternal wisdom, allows us to understand ever more about ourselves and our world but that there will be peaks that we reach – truths that we discover – that will result in the knowledge plain upon which we build our existence suddenly having more plateaus than before as the new truth reveals or suggests uncertainty in some of the assumptions that we had codified and considered well-understood truths.

God effectively moves the goalposts as we learn so that the fires that drive us to know ever more about everything around us are never quenched by the ultimate wisdom that would come from having answered all of our existential questions.

[0] >Relationship with the Truth 21. Human intelligence is ultimately “God’s gift fashioned for the assimilation of truth.”[34]In the dual sense of intellectus-ratio, it enables the person to explore realities that surpass mere sensory experience or utility, since “the desire for truth is part of human nature itself. It is an innate property of human reason to ask why things are as they are.”[35] Moving beyond the limits of empirical data, human intelligence can “with genuine certitude attain to reality itself as knowable.”[36] While reality remains only partially known, the desire for truth “spurs reason always to go further; indeed, it is as if reason were overwhelmed to see that it can always go beyond what it has already achieved.”[37] Although Truth in itself transcends the boundaries of human intelligence, it irresistibly attracts it.[38] Drawn by this attraction, the human person is led to seek “truths of a higher order.”[39]