Define Knowledge

[Borachio]

In that case, what's the exact standard for certainty that all knowledge fails to meet?

Golly. Good question!

100% justified - meah.

100% true (no that's not quite right: something's either true or not - so that demands that we can determine whether something is true or not with certainty! Very circular)

100% believed ( and how do we measure that?)

I have, as you see, no (ahem) certain answer to your question.

What do you think might be the exact standard? What's the difference between exact and certain?

So then do we know everything we observe?

What we observe (if you include internal observation) is all we have to work on. Is that knowledge?

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Could it be that knowledge is limited because it needs observation (which is limited)?

Hmm, that wouldn't account for math would it?

So then do we know everything we observe?

I didn't say that. Nor can that conclusion be drawn from my words.

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

At the moment, to simply ascertain the location of my car keys would trump anything.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Have you tried whistling?

 

[Souron]

Golly. Good question!

100% justified - meah.

100% true (no that's not quite right: something's either true or not - so that demands that we can determine whether something is true or not with certainty! Very circular)

100% believed ( and how do we measure that?)

I have, as you see, no (ahem) certain answer to your question.

So you really just have one definition, but are using more stringent constraints at different times.

What do you think might be the exact standard? What's the difference between exact and certain?

I was just asking you to specify more detail.

 

[Borachio]

At the moment, to simply ascertain the location of my car keys would trump anything.

Where were you when you last had them? Probably unhelpful.

Oh, and there's a trick you can play with your subconscious. Go hunting for them while saying repeatedly "car keys, car keys". I kid you not. Because sure as t-bone steaks are t-bone steaks your subconscious must know where they are. You were there, after all, when you last had them.

So you really just have one definition, but are using more stringent constraints at different times.

Well, I suppose so. I'm not sure, though.

 

[timtofly]

Would it not be best to keep knowledge as simple as possible? Also, can knowldge exist if no one knows it? I think justified, believed, and true would be building blocks added to a simple fact. Each simple fact would be the basis of knowledge that can be varified up to a certain extent. I agree that every one does not see everything the same way, because their knowledge developed different from every other person on the planet.

I doubt this thread is much about what knowledge is as opposed to how to determine value to the knowledge we have on certain other topics discussed in OT?

Here would be my take on human knowledge:

Simple knowledge = just the facts.
The more a fact gains acceptance = the more it is believed.
The more it is believed = the more it becomes a truth.
A truth takes it's place as a known into the total knowledge of the human experience.
truth drops off in relevance or can be lost as new facts are revealed or just because a fact has fallen out of usage.

We have little knowledge of how the heads on easter island got there, but we do know they are there. At one point in time, they represented certain facts, beliefs, and even truths, that may or may not make sense to us today.

 

[Souron]

Would it not be best to keep knowledge as simple as possible? Also, can knowldge exist if no one knows it? I think justified, believed, and true would be building blocks added to a simple fact. Each simple fact would be the basis of knowledge that can be varified up to a certain extent. I agree that every one does not see everything the same way, because their knowledge developed different from every other person on the planet.

I doubt this thread is much about what knowledge is as opposed to how to determine value to the knowledge we have on certain other topics discussed in OT?

Here would be my take on human knowledge:

Simple knowledge = just the facts.
The more a fact gains acceptance = the more it is believed.
The more it is believed = the more it becomes a truth.
A truth takes it's place as a known into the total knowledge of the human experience.
truth drops off in relevance or can be lost as new facts are revealed or just because a fact has fallen out of usage.

We have little knowledge of how the heads on easter island got there, but we do know they are there. At one point in time, they represented certain facts, beliefs, and even truths, that may or may not make sense to us today.

But that would mean that it was known that the sun revolved around the earth, until it was proven otherwise. You're equating knowledge with belief, which seems strange.

 

[timtofly]

I am not trying to equate it with knowledge. To me, it is the difference in "I believe the sun came up this morning", and "I know the sun came up this morning." Most people take that simple fact for granted. Only the person who saw the actual sun rise knows for a certainty. IMO most people assume their faith, not really experience it or even know it. Allowing a fact instead of faith to be the starting point though, is my attempt to remove the concept of God (or any religion for that matter) altogether out of the equation. One can add that back in later, if they choose to. This is not about who is right or wrong.

It is about who believes in God, and who does not believe in God. Or further more, who believes in the concept of a god or who believes there are not any gods (has no belief in the concept of god-the common term for athiest). If one believes in God or not, that makes God a given. If you only believe in the concept of, then any god will do, or even the lack thereof. Nothing in this paragraph has to do with knowing though, it is still stuck in the belief or IMO the I can not say for certain stage.

I am trying to keep it in the reality common to posters here and not something just made up in my mind as to reality. Most of this is coming from what I think I know compared to what I am hearing other posters say they know or believe.

When did the notion about the sun revolving around the earth come into being? I would say that is a fact that was proven wrong, upon further revelation. The prevailing thought is that humans had no concept of the universe other than the sun came up in the east and went down in the west. The earth was their only focal point, until they had the tools to find out more facts on the matter. The fact that the earth revolves around the sun was there. No one had experienced the reality of it.

The fact boggles my mind that "we" have seen human created track marks on the surface of Mars. Do I know for a fact that they are there? Do I believe they are there? How do we determine if a fact is true or not? Can we know by believing? Or do we only know by knowing? That is my conundrum with human knowledge. At what point in time is a "fact" just a belief, common knowledge, reality, or proven wrong? Do they follow the same pattern, change, or were always there?

 

[Borachio]

This is a bit confused. Let me see what I can pull out.

Let me, like Descartes, start with examining what I "think" I know, and seeing if I can say, with certainty, what I do know.

So this process leaves me with only one certainty. The certainty of my own existence.

And this, in the final analysis, is all that I do know.

Everything else must have some doubt about it.

The sun was thought to go around the earth? Actually I think they thought Phoebus was born anew every day in the east, travelled across the sky in his chariot, and died in the west. And this is reasonable, since it completely conforms with the observation possible* at the time.

Nowadays, the earth is thought to go round the sun. Do we know this for certain? I suggest that we do not. In the same way that we believe our ancestors were mistaken in believing the sun went around the earth, it is not inconceivable - and I would suggest almost inevitable (though of course, this I do not know) - that our descendants will believe that we are mistaken.

Do you see the sort of ground I'm working on, here? Neither out ancestors, ourselves, nor our descendants can be said to have known, to know, or will know for certain.

I realize this is a very high bar I'm setting. But anything else is just going to be an endless debate about semantics, i.e. what people generally understand by the word "know". Which is an interesting and valid inquiry in its own right. But cannot be what it is to know with certainty.

*someone will point out that the Ancient Greeks rumbled this was untrue from their own earth-bound observations, and I'll agree. Confounded clever chaps, those Greeks.

 

[Souron]

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?

 

[Borachio]

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.

 

[Save_Ferris]

Knowledge is power.

Spoiler :

We're 33 posts in, I'm surprised no one's made that joke yet!

 

[Global Skeptic]

This is a bit confused. Let me see what I can pull out.

Let me, like Descartes, start with examining what I "think" I know, and seeing if I can say, with certainty, what I do know.

So this process leaves me with only one certainty. The certainty of my own existence.

And this, in the final analysis, is all that I do know. ...

No, transcribe Descartes' evil demon/genius/deceiver to a modern variant. Are you you as you or are you a computer program started 5 minutes ago?
There is something, which is either reality(R) as you(Y) know it or it is something else; i.e. a computer program.
This something causes you to think/feel/believe you are in reality; what you think/feel/believe about reality as such should match you and the rest of reality.
So you are something, which is either you as you know you or you are something else; i.e. e.g. a computer program.
In short; R is R OR not R. Y are Y OR not Y. R is fair with OR deceiving Y.

So you don't know that you exist. You know A is A OR A is not A. That is the second law of thought/logic.

The cosmological principle is usually stated formally as 'Viewed on a sufficiently large scale, the properties of the Universe are the same for all observers.' This amounts to the strongly philosophical statement that the part of the Universe which we can see is a fair sample, and that the same physical laws apply throughout. In essence, this in a sense says that the Universe is knowable and is playing fair with scientists.
William C. Keel (2007). The Road to Galaxy Formation (2nd ed.). Springer-Praxis. ISBN 978-3-540-72534-3.. p. 2.

 

[GoodGame]

What does it mean to have knowledge, to know something?
What is knowledge?
What can a man be said to know? Can matters of existence, science, mathematics, religion, and morality be known?
Does knowledge mean different things in different contexts?

Empirical? Theoretical? Spiritual? Ideological? Philosophical?

Do ideas have substance? Do we know them less than factual observations?

Have you read any Socrates and other ancient/medieval philosophers? Studied epistemology?

Knowledge is power.

Spoiler :

We're 33 posts in, I'm surprised no one's made that joke yet!

Knowledge is half the battle!

 

[Borachio]

In short; R is R OR not R. Y are Y OR not Y. R is fair with OR deceiving Y.

So you don't know that you exist. You know A is A OR A is not A. That is the second law of thought/logic.

Sorry. I don't follow. 2nd law of logic is non-contradiction: A=B intersection A=/=B is empty. Hey, that looks very nearly the same.

BUT

If I have the thought that I do not exist, who is having that thought? (Proof by contradiction)

A computer running a routine that includes the proposition that the computer does not exist cannot (as far as I can see) be said to have the thought.

 

[GoodGame]

Sorry. I don't follow. 2nd law of logic is non-contradiction: A=B intersection A=/=B is empty. Hey, that looks very nearly the same.

BUT

If I have the thought that I do not exist, who is having that thought? (Proof by contradiction)

A computer running a routine that includes the proposition that the computer does not exist cannot (as far as I can see) be said to have the thought.

Hmm...put that one to the Turing test!

 

[Borachio]

Just so. The Turing test is good.

Doesn't really seem to have much relevance to my own experience of myself, though, does it?

 

[Global Skeptic]

Sorry. I don't follow. 2nd law of logic is non-contradiction: A=B intersection A=/=B is empty. Hey, that looks very nearly the same.

BUT

If I have the thought that I do not exist, who is having that thought? (Proof by contradiction)

A computer running a routine that includes the proposition that the computer does not exist cannot (as far as I can see) be said to have the thought.

No, not that you do not exist, but whether you exist as you OR you exist as something else.

Sorry, I left out the law of the excluded middle.

For example, if P is the proposition:

Socrates is mortal.

then the law of excluded middle holds that the logical disjunction:

Either Socrates is mortal, or it is not the case that Socrates is mortal.

P is you exist as you.
So either you exist as you OR you exist as something else; i.e. e.g. a computer program running.

 

[Borachio]

Well, I suppose so. Presupposing a computer program can be self-conscious, which I doubt very much.

That's not to say a computer program couldn't be sufficiently sophisticated to fool an outside observer (the Turing test?) into thinking it was.

But if I upload all my consciousness onto a computer (this is the thought experiment used by Daniel Dennett et al), my position is that this isn't me; i.e. the subjective experience that I have of myself is absent.

At bottom, what I'm getting at is the only thing of which I am 100% certain is the bare fact of my own existence.

I don't know what you mean by "you exist as you".

Even were it possible to exist as something else - a fully self-aware computer program - that would still be me. And my experience would still be that I existed as me. I don't see the difference.

Or would that mean I could exist in different instances of the program all over the place? Hence effecting multi-location.

Interesting. Very interesting.