Define Knowledge

[Global Skeptic]

The assertion that I exist seems stronger, more certain, than other assertions of the same category. We assert that our senses usually reflect reality. We assert the principle of induction. We assert that some reality exists outside our minds. What puts the assertion that I exist above all these? If it's just like the others, why are we more confident of it?

Why is it not meaningful to call that assertion known?

Okay, you don't have to look "behind" the words in order for you to have a life, or more to the point - whatever suits you as giving name to everything, reality, the universe or what ever I will leave up to you, but notice the 3 bold words and now look behind.

We can agree to rule out ontological dualism and solipsism.
We can agree to differentiate between 1st and 3rd person, objective and subjective.
We can agree to develop a systematic approach and account of reality as a interconnect process of multiple regularities/variations.

Now if we then can agree on the basis and it is to a certain extend possible to do this both with science and religion we can notice the following: Whether we accept some form of (inter-)subjective ethics as per science or that we are souls with free will, the end result seems to be the same.

A part of reality seems to be objective, but another part seems to be subjective. I.e. we, humans, take everything and reduce it to something and something else; then we assign a positive value to one of them and a negative to the other. Now reduce it further and we get A and non-A.

So that you can "take" everything and reduce it down to A, as I am the most meaningful, is something you can do, but from there doesn't follow that another human can't choose something else as the most meaningful to her/him.

 

[Borachio]

How paranoid you choose to be about the eventual conclusion that knowledge can never be certain is up to you.

I mean, at the highest possible level of skepticism and paranoia you at least have to conclude that something is definitely going on. That is fairly odd in itself but I really see no need to overcomplicate matters unnecessarily by introducing behind-the-scenes actors who run the universe or a matrix-like scenario where your mind is the only real one. You might as well start theorizing that everyone else's mind is controlled by a hyperdimensional whale using a priority queue.

So yes, the only thing you can really ever be certain of is that you exist (and some people would even deny that)... But that doesn't mean that the position that you are the only mind is a sensible one.

I agree. It isn't sensible - by all that's sensible.

What is interesting is how hard it is to prove the contrary.

 

[Global Skeptic]

I agree. It isn't sensible - by all that's sensible.

What is interesting is how hard it is to prove the contrary.

You can't in the sense that what is sensible is functionally the position of the solipsist; i.e. sensible is inherently subjective.

 

[Borachio]

Hi, Global Skeptic.

As a global skeptic you must doubt the truth and validity of all of your statements;

i.e. as an outside observer, nothing you say has any meaning for me, since I must suppose it has none for you.



Best wishes

Borachio

 

[Birdjaguar]

As a bit of a tongue in cheek point:
Some people claim free will is an illusion. If so, is thought an illusion? Otherwise, what makes it possible for choice to be an illusion, but not thought?

Er...well, I don't think thought is an illusion. I mean how would you have an illusory thought. I don't know what one would look like.

I'm not sure if you can infer from that that free will must necessarily exist.

It's a good one. What are you getting at, exactly? My mind's gone into a bit of tail spin.

What is illusion is rooted in what is Real. If one begins with a definition of "Real", then what is not Real or illusory gets easier. What does it mean for something to be Real? I don't think one can "know" what is Real, it must be assumed.

If one begins with the assumption that the physical universe is absolutely Real, you will come to different conclusions than if you accepted a more Hindu or Buddhist approach.

 

[Millman]

Edit. Knowledge can go both ways. Did you mean proof?

 

[timtofly]

Do you have proof of a definition?

 

[Souron]

@timtofly
A definition can be reasoned about, but decisive reasoning isn't usually called a "proof" in cases like this.

 

[timtofly]

I apologize, I was trying to see if he would elaborate.

 

[Borachio]

What is illusion is rooted in what is Real. If one begins with a definition of "Real", then what is not Real or illusory gets easier. What does it mean for something to be Real? I don't think one can "know" what is Real, it must be assumed.

If one begins with the assumption that the physical universe is absolutely Real, you will come to different conclusions than if you accepted a more Hindu or Buddhist approach.

I don't think Hindus or Buddhist say the world is an illusion at all. Though many people seem to think they do.

What they do say is: our form of knowledge of the world is necessarily inaccurate. That the world as we see it is, largely, illusory. It is a subtle, but very important, distinction.

 

[Global Skeptic]

Next, 'real' is what we may call a trouser-word. It is usually thought, and I dare say usually rightly thought, that what one might call the affirmative use of a term is basic—that, to understand 'x,' we need to know what it is to be x, or to be an x, and that knowing this apprises us of what it is not to be x, not to be an x. But with 'real' (as we briefly noted earlier) it is the negative use that wears the trousers.

J.L. (John Langshaw) Austin (1911–1960), British philosopher. Sense and Sensibilia, p. 70, Oxford University Press (1962).

So what is unreal?

 

[Borachio]

The past and the future?

I don't know. It's a good question.

 

[Souron]

So what is unreal?

hallucinations, mirages, and thought experiments.

But the illusion of choice which I compared illusionary thought to refers specifically to a resolution to the paradox to some of how we can make choices, but our choices are inevitable.

 

[Global Skeptic]

hallucinations, mirages, and thought experiments.

But the illusion of choice which I compared illusionary thought to refers specifically to a resolution to the paradox to some of how we can make choices, but our choices are inevitable.

How are hallucinations, mirages, and thought experiments unreal?

Because we don't make choices, rather I/you/we are place-holder words for physical processes in brains.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I apologize, I was trying to see if he would elaborate.

Who would elaborate what?

I don't think Hindus or Buddhist say the world is an illusion at all. Though many people seem to think they do.

What they do say is: our form of knowledge of the world is necessarily inaccurate. That the world as we see it is, largely, illusory. It is a subtle, but very important, distinction.

Didn't you just contradict yourself? Or did I miss something?

Without getting into the various Hindu sects and their differences and the many entanglements that would add to the conversation, Maya, illusion, only exists within the limited consciousness of unliberated souls (all of us folks). Everything experienced by these souls, including the physical world, is therefore illusory. That makes all of our life experiences, including our thoughts, part of Maya and illusory. to be liberated to to be free from Maya and all illusion and to experience the unity of god.

 

[Birdjaguar]

hallucinations, mirages, and thought experiments.

But the illusion of choice which I compared illusionary thought to refers specifically to a resolution to the paradox to some of how we can make choices, but our choices are inevitable.

The "illusion of choice" is a subtly different question than the illusion of maya that can be discussed separately or not.

 

[Borachio]

Who would elaborate what?

Didn't you just contradict yourself? Or did I miss something?

Without getting into the various Hindu sects and their differences and the many entanglements that would add to the conversation, Maya, illusion, only exists within the limited consciousness of unliberated souls (all of us folks). Everything experienced by these souls, including the physical world, is therefore illusory. That makes all of our life experiences, including our thoughts, part of Maya and illusory. to be liberated to to be free from Maya and all illusion and to experience the unity of god.

No, I don't think it is a contradiction. I'm saying that what we perceive is wildly inaccurate, but those perceptions are based on reality, i.e. the world.

Some people say the world is an illusion, full stop. I don't think it is.

The world, as it is, is "out there".

To say it is an illusion, for me, is to say it is not "out there". And somehow not "real".