ABSTRACT
Can ignorance ‘grow’, and if so, does it grow out of the decay of its supposed opposite, knowledge? I should like to move from these categories towards a consideration of the processes which appear to give them meaning. Certainly, it is a commonplace that knowledge is something which ‘grows’, both in popular speech and in critical philosophy (Lakatos and Musgrave 1970). This image comes from notions of organic processes in which ever more complex forms arise out of simpler ones, all the while preserving or enhancing an intrinsic mathematical order and perfection. A tree grows, putting out ever more branches; an embryo grows from a single cell to a fully-formed human. Whether the impulse comes from within, as in the concept of genetic code, or from without as in the concepts of entelechy and of morphic field (Sheldrake 1981), the imagery of organic growth makes the growth of knowledge seem tantamount to a growth of order, a defiance of entropy in the realm of cognition.
