Librarians have systems that can classify every published book. And scientific publishers can classify every paper. Those don't add up to a complete classification of all human knowledge, but it's a substantial fraction of it.
Mmhmm. A talented cataloger in a research library understands where the 'fuzz' in these systems is - where the margins intersect - and they have a process for helping systematize those classifications in a way that they can socialize with other librarians across the world. (If nobody has ever cataloged a particular book before... your record is probably going into OCLC WorldCat and other people will borrow the output of your thinking process later... making things more and more definitive.)
I once read that if you tried to read every Wikipedia article for 12 hours a day, it would take you about 42 years to finish—assuming no new content gets added along the way.
MIT OpenCourseWare has a series of lectures on AI by Marvin Minsky and in one lecture he describes two projects in need of each other but were drifting apart that aimed to keep a beat on knowledge.
You may want to trace the history of librarianship.
This is a deep question. Many a great mind in history have thought about how to organize all of the world's knowledge systematically.
> Indeed, the purpose of an encyclopedia is to collect knowledge disseminated around the globe; to set forth its general system to the men with whom we live, and transmit it to those who will come after us.. -- Denis Diderot
A key word is "ontology", a system or architecture of categories to group entities which represent objects, events, relationships between concepts.
Honestly, none of the lists are satisfyingly comprehensive. Like a fractal, you can zoom into any one subject, and it branches into more and more specific categories. Wikipedia has various lists and outlines that come closer to what you describe.
Start with the library of congress classification system. It'll get you 90 percent of the way there for 10% of the effort.
(Classification systems are very much an information science topic... and they're pretty damn important. Along those same lines - you'll want to think carefully and critically about what is seen as canonical knowledge, and what's "in" those fields, versus what is perceived as "utter crackpot bullshit" that nobody takes seriously. The fields you've mentioned ALL have a significant amount of bleed at the edges - where does math become mathematical physics and then 'really physics' ... it's just not that easy.)
Fanboy comment: just google Eugene Garfield. Have fun!
Librarians have systems that can classify every published book. And scientific publishers can classify every paper. Those don't add up to a complete classification of all human knowledge, but it's a substantial fraction of it.
If you skim the high-level book categories at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dewey_Decimal_classes, you may conclude this is is beyond a lifetime's work.
Mmhmm. A talented cataloger in a research library understands where the 'fuzz' in these systems is - where the margins intersect - and they have a process for helping systematize those classifications in a way that they can socialize with other librarians across the world. (If nobody has ever cataloged a particular book before... your record is probably going into OCLC WorldCat and other people will borrow the output of your thinking process later... making things more and more definitive.)
I once read that if you tried to read every Wikipedia article for 12 hours a day, it would take you about 42 years to finish—assuming no new content gets added along the way.
- https://www.rxjourney.net/the-great-ocean-of-truth
MIT OpenCourseWare has a series of lectures on AI by Marvin Minsky and in one lecture he describes two projects in need of each other but were drifting apart that aimed to keep a beat on knowledge.
You may want to trace the history of librarianship.
What about private knowledge such as my account password? I think you need to first rigorously define what you mean by "knowledge" and "subject".
This is a deep question. Many a great mind in history have thought about how to organize all of the world's knowledge systematically.
> Indeed, the purpose of an encyclopedia is to collect knowledge disseminated around the globe; to set forth its general system to the men with whom we live, and transmit it to those who will come after us.. -- Denis Diderot
A key word is "ontology", a system or architecture of categories to group entities which represent objects, events, relationships between concepts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology_(information_science)
The Dewey Decimal Classes mentioned in another comment is a good start. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dewey_Decimal_classes
Also..
Basic Register of Thesauri, Ontologies & Classifications - https://bartoc.org/about
Encyclopedia of Knowledge Organization - https://www.isko.org/cyclo/kos
Universal Decimal Classification - https://udcc.org/index.php/site/page?view=subject_coverage
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Honestly, none of the lists are satisfyingly comprehensive. Like a fractal, you can zoom into any one subject, and it branches into more and more specific categories. Wikipedia has various lists and outlines that come closer to what you describe.
Outline of academic disciplines - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_academic_discipline...
> summary of the world's knowledge, in the form of an outline
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Contents/Outlines
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_knowledge#Knowledge...
There is no map. Because knowledge and the relations between concepts are not static. Its a dynamical ever growing system.
Start with the library of congress classification system. It'll get you 90 percent of the way there for 10% of the effort.
(Classification systems are very much an information science topic... and they're pretty damn important. Along those same lines - you'll want to think carefully and critically about what is seen as canonical knowledge, and what's "in" those fields, versus what is perceived as "utter crackpot bullshit" that nobody takes seriously. The fields you've mentioned ALL have a significant amount of bleed at the edges - where does math become mathematical physics and then 'really physics' ... it's just not that easy.)
Fanboy comment: just google Eugene Garfield. Have fun!