Speculation about what is knowable and unknowable has been part of the philosophical tradition since the inception of philosophy.
Rescher organizes unknowability in three major categories: In-principle unknowability may also be due to a need for more energy and matter than is available in the universe to answer a question, or due to fundamental reasons associated with the quantum nature of matter.
For example, it means that there is no general algorithm for proving that a given mathematical statement is true or false.
Gödel's incompleteness theorems demonstrate the implicit in-principle unknowability of methods to prove consistency and completeness of foundation mathematical systems.
Earlier attempts to capture and record knowledge include writing deep tracts on specific topics as well as the use of encyclopedias to organize and summarize entire fields or event the entirety of human knowledge.
[10][11][12] Chaos theory is a theory of dynamics that argues that, for sufficiently complex systems, even if we know initial conditions fairly well, measurement errors and computational limitations render fully correct long-term prediction impossible, hence guaranteeing ultimate unknowability of physical system behaviors.