Imagine that all the knowledge you have gathered throughout your life is contained within a cube. Everything you have learned, experienced, read, and discovered has found its place somewhere inside it. The cube grows with you. Every new experience, every conversation, and every insight adds something to what you already know. And as your knowledge expands, something remarkable happens. The outer surface of your cube becomes larger, increasing the area where everything you know meets everything you have yet to discover.

That boundary fascinates me. It is where knowledge and ignorance meet, where you discover that your understanding, however extensive, will always have its limits. You can spend a lifetime learning, only to realise that the world is far greater and more complex than you could ever have imagined. The more you know, the more you may discover how much remains unknown. And it is precisely at this boundary that I believe wisdom emerges.

Ignorance Is the Source of Curiosity

While reflecting on this cube of knowledge, I discovered that my idea was not entirely new. More than two thousand years ago, Socrates was already exploring the question of what wisdom actually means. He came to understand that people who are convinced of their own knowledge do not always recognise how limited that knowledge may be. His wisdom lay precisely in recognising that there were things he did not know.

Centuries later, the philosopher Nicholas of Cusa described something similar. In his work De docta ignorantia, or On Learned Ignorance, he explored how increasing knowledge can go hand in hand with a growing awareness of our limitations. Psychologist Paul Baltes and his colleagues also concluded, through their research into wisdom, that the ability to deal with uncertainty is an important part of being wise.

I find it remarkable to discover that thinkers from such different periods have explored questions that connect so closely with my simple cube. At the same time, their work helps me develop my own thinking further. Because recognising that you do not know something does not automatically make you wise. You can acknowledge the limits of your knowledge and simply leave it at that. Something needs to happen before ignorance becomes meaningful.

Ignorance is the source of curiosity. Once you realise that something lies beyond your knowledge, the possibility of exploring it arises. You can ask questions, listen to different perspectives, and try to understand what you do not yet comprehend. Curiosity brings you to the boundary of your own knowledge and invites you to move beyond it.

This brings me to an idea that has become increasingly important to me: wisdom is something you practise.

Wisdom is a verb

We often speak of wisdom as though it were something a person possesses. We describe people as wise because of their age, experience, or knowledge. Yet I believe wisdom has far less to do with how much someone knows than with what they are willing to do with that knowledge.

You can know an extraordinary amount and still be reluctant to allow anything new into your thinking. You can spend years studying, reading books, and gathering experiences while continually seeking confirmation of what you already believe. Your cube may keep growing, while the way you see the world remains largely unchanged.

Wisdom, in my view, requires movement. It requires a willingness to examine your own knowledge, remain curious, and take new insights seriously, even when they do not fit with what you previously learned. It is not simply about collecting answers. It is equally about continuing to ask questions, particularly when you believe you already know the answer.

And this gives my cube of knowledge a second dimension.

Because while the cube grows on the outside, something equally interesting happens within it.

What Lies Deep Within

Everything you learned early in life gradually moves deeper into the cube, at least in the way I imagine it. Your earliest experiences, the beliefs you inherited from your parents, the ideas formed at school, and the values your surroundings considered important gradually become surrounded by new knowledge.

Many of these beliefs are valuable. They help us understand the world and guide the choices we make. Yet they can become so familiar that we barely recognise them as beliefs anymore. We experience them as truths, simply because we have lived with them for so long.

And the deeper a belief lies within our cube of knowledge, the more difficult it may become to question it again.

This is not solely a matter of knowledge. Our beliefs are often connected to our identity, to the people we belong with, and to the way we have organised our lives. When new information challenges a deeply rooted belief, it affects far more than a single idea. It can change how we understand ourselves and the world around us.

Imagine growing up with a particular view of how people ought to live. That belief has been reinforced by your surroundings for years and has influenced the choices you have made. One day, you meet someone whose life experience hardly fits your understanding. You can dismiss that experience as an exception and hold on to your existing belief. Or you can become curious about what that person is telling you and explore whether your original understanding was ever complete.

In both cases, you have received new information. The difference lies in what you are willing to do with it.

And this is where wisdom touches on something I consider particularly important: the willingness to embrace uncertainty.

The Value of Uncertainty

Uncertainty does not always have a good reputation in our society. We value people who know what they want, express their opinions clearly, and appear convinced that they are right. Particularly in public debate, doubt is often interpreted as a lack of conviction. Someone who revises their position may quickly find themselves having to explain why they previously thought differently.

Yet I wonder why we attach so much importance to certainty. After all, our knowledge is always incomplete. We never possess all the information, and our experiences represent only a small part of reality. Why, then, should we expect our beliefs to remain unchanged?

Uncertainty does not have to be a weakness. It can become a source of curiosity. Realising that something you have always considered true might be different can encourage you to investigate it again. And that requires a particular kind of openness, because you cannot know in advance where that investigation will lead.

This does not mean that doubting requires us to question everything constantly. We need beliefs to make choices and give direction to our lives. Nor does critical examination necessarily mean abandoning a belief. You can reconsider it, explore different perspectives, and eventually conclude that it still stands.

The difference is that you have consciously examined it.

To me, that is an essential part of wisdom. Not an obligation to change your mind, but a willingness to do so when new insights give you reason to reconsider.

How Free Is Our Thinking?

This is where my cube of knowledge connects with my personal understanding of freedom. To me, freedom means that every person should be able to make independent choices and shape their own life. We often think of freedom in terms of the opportunities society provides, our rights, our possibilities, and the absence of coercion.

Yet I believe there is also an inner freedom that is at least as important.

How independent are our choices if we are unwilling to examine the beliefs on which those choices are based? How freely do we really think when our opinions are largely determined by what we once learned, without allowing ourselves to question those ideas again?

Everyone is shaped by their surroundings. That is inevitable and valuable in itself. Parents, teachers, friends, and the society in which we grow up provide us with knowledge, values, and ways of understanding the world. Without those influences, we would hardly be able to develop. At the same time, independent thinking requires that, at some point, we become willing to examine those inherited beliefs for ourselves.

That does not mean distancing ourselves from our upbringing or abandoning everything we believe in. It means giving ourselves the freedom to choose again, guided by a growing understanding of the world.

And this is where the movement within my cube of knowledge becomes meaningful.

At the outer surface, curiosity asks us to be willing to encounter the unknown. Deep within, wisdom asks us to be willing to reconsider what has become familiar. New knowledge should not merely increase the size of our cube. It should also have the opportunity to reach the beliefs on which our thinking rests.

Even when those beliefs begin to lose their certainty.

How Deeply Do You Dare to Doubt?

I began with a simple cube containing all the knowledge a person possesses. A cube that grows as we learn, with outer surfaces that continually meet everything we do not yet know.

I now see more in this image than a way of understanding knowledge. The cube also reveals that wisdom requires two movements: the curiosity to look beyond our existing knowledge and the willingness to bring new insights back into its deepest layers.

Socrates helped me understand why recognising our ignorance matters so much. Nicholas of Cusa showed how growing knowledge can make us increasingly aware of our limitations. The research of Baltes suggests that dealing with uncertainty can be an essential part of wisdom. Their ideas provide my cube with a philosophical and scientific background, while the question of what we actually do with our knowledge becomes increasingly important to me personally.

Because wisdom is something you practise. It asks us to keep exploring, listening, reflecting, and remaining willing to reconsider our beliefs. It requires curiosity about what lies beyond our knowledge and the inner freedom to recognise that even our deepest certainties should not automatically be taken for granted.

The size of our cube of knowledge tells us something about how much we have learned. The way we deal with its boundaries, and with everything that lies within them, may tell us far more about our wisdom.

And that ultimately leaves me with one question.

How deeply do you dare to enter your own cube of knowledge to discover whether what you have always believed to be true is still true?