For what it is worth, Engels and Lenin , who are arch-materialists, don't exactly put a limit on what humans are capable of understanding, dismiss unknowability in principle (nothing is unknowable in principle), Kant's unknowable thing-in-itself, but also hold to the idea that the universe and knowledge are infinite and human minds finite. Thus, we ( humanity sharing knowledge socially) are in the dialectic of absolute and relative truth, learning more and more, sort of ;like an asymptotic curve approaching a line, we approach but don't reach absolute truth.
=============================
Yes, I understand this point of view, which is serious and worth debating.
I was, however, thinking of something a bit different from the pro and con of this line of reasoning.
I'm wondering whether there are certain phenomena produced by nature which elude us (and perhaps always will) because of the sort of creatures we are and the way our minds are structured.
For example...
We can say with confidence that a dog observing an automobile is able to discern elements of the car's existence: it's size, it's capacity for speed (interpreted in dog terms) the fact that it's not a good idea to get in the path of one that's hurtling along. The dog is able to understand the car up to a certain point.
But the internal combustion principal, plastic and metal and wiring harnesses and GPS assisted navigation and social impact and the fact that roads are built for these machines and a host of other components and implications are forever lost on the dog. No amount of training or exposure to cars will change the dog's limits. Its mind is not constructed in such a way that the full meaning of the *phenomena* car will ever be within reach.
Could this not also be said of us? Might there be natural processes and phenomena which, due to the way our minds are constructed (still a topic of investigation and debate), remain forever beyond our grasp?
I suppose the only way to test this is by attempting to understand something and discovering profound and persistent difficulties which endure from one generation to the next.
DRM