Deepening our understanding of the universe
Understanding is not knowing more facts. It is having fewer, deeper explanations that connect what looked unrelated. That makes understanding everything a real goal, not an absurd one.
“What I am discussing is the possibility of understanding everything that is understood. That depends more on the structure of our knowledge than on its content. But of course the structure of our knowledge – whether it is expressible in theories that fit together as a comprehensible whole – does depend on what the fabric of reality, as a whole, is like.”
Audiobooks and podcasts are monologues. You cannot stop them to ask why, so you finish an hour of listening with the feeling of understanding and little of the thing itself.
Understand is the interactive alternative. Talk a topic through with a tutor, or have it read you an article or book and interrupt whenever something does not add up. It asks you to put ideas in your own words, and remembers what you have actually grasped.