Questions About Adam and Eve

[Birdjaguar]

You ask yourself: what do I know?

Or you could ask yourself a different question. Your question assumes that knowledge (typically intellectual knowledge) is the prime source of Truth. What if that premise is false?

 

[Berzerker]

truth = knowledge

just different words for the same thing

 

[Birdjaguar]

Can such a statement be proven?

Could you provide a definition of each of those words?

 

[Berzerker]

those with the truth also have the knowledge that led them to it

dont know if that helps, I just see them as synonyms for reality

 

[Birdjaguar]

Let's start simple. What is knowledge? What is not knowledge?

Can I know that my cat loves me?

 

[Berzerker]

I was starting simple I have trouble when its more complicated but I might be able to follow bread crumbs

if you know your cat loves you, then you have that truth

 

[Birdjaguar]

I was starting simple I have trouble when its more complicated but I might be able to follow bread crumbs

if you know your cat loves you, then you have that truth

But how do I know it is true?

 

[Perfection]

Don't be a fool, your cat is just using you.

 

[Berzerker]

But how do I know it is true?

you said you knew your cat loved you, if you dont know, you dont have the truth

Don't be a fool, your cat is just using you.

we're just walking pillows with can openers for arms

 

[Borachio]

When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'

Keats

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

Isn't the definition a little grand to start off with?

Especially when you're going to place pretty much all of the rest of your thinking on it?

And what's wrong with starting with: I don't know? I think that is a much better place to start.

If you start with "I dont know." you are forced to start with the sense knowledge and derivated reasoning which, some will argue, is only reasoned acceptance of false appearances.
Isnt better then to start with abstract absolute Zero?

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Not quite. Starting with I don't know simply indicates lack of knowledge, not the path you're going to travel from there.

All you can go to from there is: "I observe that ..." instead of "it is truth that ..."

And since observation is all we can, well, observe, it's a rather good place to start.

 

[warpus]

You are not opposite in that respect. It seems to me that everyone's world view is based on things one is very certain about. The difference is what is that certainty based on. If it is based on tangible falsifiable objective proofs, then one calls it science. If it is based on just personal experiences, then it is personal. If it is based on what other people say, then it is relational.

Nah, not really. My certainty is based on many people running tests and yielding the same results. Anecdotal data can never lead to certainty in terms of understanding how something works. It can help with an understanding of how you feel about something, but that's a totally different animal.

Every world view begins somewhere with some basic precepts that cannot be proven in the generally accepted scientific manner.

The only one I start with is:

1. It is possible to understand the world and how some things work


That's it. It cannot be proven, but if it isn't true then the world is a lie. I choose to make the sensible assumption that it is not.

Your assumption in comparison is magnitudes more unlikely to be true - no offense. There is just no way to know whether it is - and it probably isn't.

 

[El_Machinae]

truth = knowledge

just different words for the same thing

Oh, I don't agree. Truth exists regardless of knowledge. Only things that truly exist affect reality, though. Reality cannot be affected by untrue things.

 

[Borachio]

If I, and a lot of other people, read an untrue report in a newspaper, and we believe it, and it causes us to riot, hasn't reality been affected by something untrue?

(But I realize you may have meant by "untrue" something that doesn't exist. Possibly.)

 

[Berzerker]

Truth exists regardless of knowledge.

but we dont know truth without knowledge

 

[El_Machinae]

Oh, no denying that.

 

[Perfection]

but we dont know truth without knowledge

That doesn't mean that truth = knowledge.

 

[warpus]

There is true knowledge and false knowledge, surely. "Tacos can fly" is knowledge, but it is usually not truth.

 

[Berzerker]

That doesn't mean that truth = knowledge.

yes it does



how do you come upon a truth without knowledge?

There is true knowledge and false knowledge, surely. "Tacos can fly" is knowledge, but it is usually not truth.

if knowledge is false, its no longer knowledge, its ignorance

from wiki

the philosopher Plato famously defined knowledge as "justified true belief."

sounds good to me