Posted on 04/06/2005 11:36:46 AM PDT by Alamo-Girl
Freepers began a most engaging dialogue at the end of another thread! It is not only a fascinating subject - it also presents us with an opportunity to clarify ourselves and hopefully help us appreciate our differences and thus relieve some of the contention on various threads (most especially science and philosophy threads).
The subject is knowledge - which, as it turns out, means different things to different people. Moreover, we each have our own style of classifying “knowledge” – and valuing the certainty of that “knowledge”. Those differences account for much of the differences in our views on all kinds of topics – and the contentiousness which may derive from them.
Below are examples. First is PatrickHenry’s offering of his classification and valuation followed by mine – so that the correspondents here can see the difference. Below mine is js1138’s offering.
Please review these and let us know how you classify and value “knowledge”! We’d appreciate very much your following the same format so it’ll be easier for us to make comparisons and understand differences.
PatrickHenry’s types of “knowledge” and valuation of certainties:
1. Revelation: Spiritual understanding divinely communicated.
Alamo-Girl’s types of “knowledge” and valuation of certainties:
js1138’s types of “knowledge” and valuation of certainties
2. Prediction from scientific theory: I calculate there will be a partial solar eclipse this week.
3. Conclusion from evidence: I conclude from the verifiable evidence that ...
4. Sensory perception of something external to me: I see my dog is lying at my feet.
5. Acceptance of another's opinion: I provisionally accept the opinion of X (an individual or group) as knowledge because (a) I haven't worked it out for myself; and (b) I have what I regard as good reason for confidence in X.
6. Personal memory: I recall I had breakfast this morning.
7. Internal emotional state: I feel I'm happy, or I have empathy, compassion or sympathy for you.
Separate List for theological knowledge:
2. Faith: Belief in a revelation experienced by another.
2. Theological knowledge, indirect revelation: I believe in a revelation experienced by another, i.e. Scripture is confirmed to me by the indwelling Spirit.
4. Evidence/Historical fact, uninterpreted: I have verifiable evidence Reagan was once President.
5. Sensory perception of something external to me: I see my dog is lying at my feet.
6. Personal memory: I recall I had breakfast this morning.
7. Prediction from scientific theory: I calculate there will be a partial solar eclipse this week.
8. Trust in a Mentor: I trust this particular person to always tell me the truth, therefore I know …
9. Internal emotional state: I feel I'm happy, or I have empathy, compassion or sympathy for you.
10. Evidence/Historical fact, interpreted: I conclude from the fossil evidence in the geologic record that …
11. Determined facts: I accept this as fact because of a consensus or veto determination by others, i.e. I trust that these experts or fact finders know what they are talking about.
12. Imaginings: I imagine how things ought to have been in the Schiavo case.
2. Sensory perception of something external to me: I see my dog is lying at my feet. I am aware that this has limitations, but what choices do I have? I learn the limitations and live with them.
3. Personal memory: I recall I had breakfast this morning. Same limitations apply, except that they are more frequent and serious.
4. Logical conclusion: I can prove the Pythagorean theorem is valid and true. The trueness may be unassailable, but the conclusions of axiomatic reasoning are only as true as the axioms, which may be arbitrary. Outside of pure logic and pure mathematics, axiomatic reasoning drops quickly in my estimation of usefulness. People who argue politics and religion from a "rational" perspective are low on my list of useful sources.
5. Prediction from scientific theory: I calculate there will be a partial solar eclipse this week. I am not aware of any scientific theory that I understand which has failed in a major way. Some theories, of course, make sharper predictions than others. Eclipses are pretty certain.
6. Conclusion from evidence: I conclude from the verifiable evidence that ... Oddly enough, "facts" are less certain in my view than theories.
7. Acceptance of another's opinion: I provisionally accept the opinion of X (an individual or group) as knowledge because (a) I haven't worked it out for myself; and (b) I have what I regard as good reason for confidence in X.
Well, it was meant as more observational than sarcastic, but silopsism has always fascinated me, in a distant way.
I think going down that road actually opens the most doors to seeing the wider world, from a priori through total faith.
You are right about humor. You laugh at jokes where you see the familiar. The early Carlin humor was that way (before the drugs permanently burned his brain cells out)
No mention of truth?
Truth is, whether we have knowledge of it or not. Knowledge is an attempt to describe truth.
We can know by the principle of sufficient reason. Schopenhauer identified four kinds of sufficient reason.
Yes, a very slippery subject to be sure. I agree with that definition of intelligence that defines it as the ability to discern patterns. The higher the intelligence the more subtle and complex the patterns can be. Prodigious memory, while useful, is not intelligence. In an extreme case, it could be like hooking up a 160 GB hard drive to a Tandy computer. Then you'd have lots of memory, but not much computing power. A lot of people confuse memory and intelligence.
Well good grief!!! Why did he never try any of them out on himself????
Sorry for not providing a more responsive reply, b_sharp. But I've got to call it a day and get some sleep....
See you tomorrow!
LOL, my mistake. Sorry.
All knowledge that can be known eh? OK. How much money is in my wallet? I know, therefore it can be known.
See #43. We agree.
I'm not evading the point. I just don't get it. Perhaps the problem is that I've never received a revelation, so I have no experience of such matters. That severely limits my ability to see what you see. All that I have to go on is what people tell me, and that's not the same thing as personally experiencing what they experience.
Overlap of usage is a historical phenomenon, a matter of fact, I suppose, and not a fallacy: 2 + 2 = 6. No sir, your answer is wrong!
But you make a good distinction, what they like to call the fact-value distinction.
Hey, wait a minute! My personal beliefs and feelings have no bearing on reality! Strike that above comment.
Memory plays a role, but it is only a factor. There are numerous other factors as well and cataloguing them all and their relative influence is where the difficulty arises.
But a thorough discussion of "intelligence" is a major topic at least as grand as a discussion of "knowledge"..
I think you are mixing posts. I most certainly was not speaking of "mathematical reality" when I said that reality is never incorrect. I do not distinguish between different types of reality. Those distinctions are illusory. I stated that reality is never incorrect, and if it is found to be incorrect then either the method to analyze it is flawed or the observer is artificially constraining his vision (most likely unintentionally).
I take my guidance here from Kurt Godel - within each logical system, and what we are describing here is largely that - within each system of sufficient power a statement may be made that is true and yet unprovable. This being the case, any attempt to describe "knowledge" categorically is doomed to fail in the face of knowledge that may not be reached through the strictures of the logical system through which it is described.
Another way of saying this is that while God may be unlimited in this fashion, human knowledge is not only limited but provably so. That need not be a cause of frustration - the bounds are as wide as the world and within them we may operate to the limits of the very formidable tools we have been blessed with. But it is a call for intellectual humility. And to me at least it is a hint that the limits are there to remind us of that.
IMHO, the real question is, after taking all things into consideration, where one looks for knowledge. We know that we cannot and do not know everything --- so where we look and the resources we choose are what determines 'our knowledge’ and shapes our world view.
* Abstract thinking/reasoning
* Capacity to acquire knowledge
* Ability to solve problems
I would argue that these three are different facets of the ability to perceive patterns, to wit:
Abstract thinking/reasoning : the ability to conjure new patterns by merging existing patterns;
Capacity to acquire knowledge: the ability to catalog facts by application of patterns of information; and
Ability to solve problems: The ability to apply patterns to real situations and correctly extrapolate future system responses based on adherence to those patterns.
Well, its been fun, but I've got to go. Thanks AG for a really fun thread! (I'm getting so old!!! I remember that "fun" used to be a bit more ribald than this).
Dang! My post #139 was supposed to be to you. Oh well. Good night!
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