Freeper Investigation: What kinds of "Knowledge" exist, and how "certain" are the various types?

4/6/2005 | Various Freepers

[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. Logical conclusion: I can prove the Pythagorean theorem is valid and true.
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.
Some clarification is probably in order here. I'm entirely certain that I have a feeling, so there is no doubt at all regarding knowledge of the feeling's existence. But as for what it is that the feeling may be telling me -- that is, the quality of the "knowledge" involved -- there's not much to recommend this as a great source of information. Example: I very often feel that I'm going to win the lottery. Because I'm so often being misled by my feelings, I've listed them dead last on my certainty index

Separate List for theological knowledge:

1. Revelation: Spiritual understanding divinely communicated.
2. Faith: Belief in a revelation experienced by another.

Alamo-Girl’s types of “knowledge” and valuation of certainties:

1. Theological knowledge, direct revelation: I have Spiritual understanding directly from God concerning this issue, e.g. that Jesus Christ is the Son of God - it didn't come from me.
2. Theological knowledge, indirect revelation: I believe in a revelation experienced by another, i.e. Scripture is confirmed to me by the indwelling Spirit.
To clarify: I eschew the doctrines and traditions of men (Mark 7:7) which includes all mortal interpretations of Scriptures, whether by the Pope, Calvin, Arminius, Billy Graham, Joseph Smith or whoever. The mortal scribes (Paul, John, Peter, Daniel, Moses, David, etc.) do not fall in this category since the actual author is the Spirit Himself and He confirms this is so to me personally by His indwelling. Thus I make a hard distinction between the Living Word of God and mere musings - including the geocentricity interpretations of the early church and my own such as in this article.
3. Logical conclusion: I can prove the Pythagorean theorem is valid and true.
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.

js1138’s types of “knowledge” and valuation of certainties

1. Internal emotional state: I feel I'm happy, or I have empathy, compassion or sympathy for you. This is pretty nearly the only thing I am certain of. It's certain even if I am deranged or on drugs, or both. In this category I would place my knowledge of morality, which for AG seems to be expressed as revealed knowledge.
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.

[cornelis]

There was an ancient philosopher who referred to reality in the way you do and called it ta panta.

[cornelis]

human knowledge is not only limited but provably so

People forget this in order to simplify matters. But it is a call for intellectual humility. Sophocles' Oedipus Rex teaches the same, but it's not easy. I've read some of your posts on FR; I enjoy them.

[AntiGuv]

Umm.. Buddhism does not at all fixate on the precept: God is Truth. In fact, the Buddha dismissed the question of gods altogether as insignificant. His view was that people who indulge in such conjecture are like the man who has been shot with an arrow who then sits down to ask himself where the arrow might have come from and of what it has been made...

Similarly, the Tao of Taoism is not predicated by a godhead, nor is it contingent upon a godhead. Quite the contrary, the gods celebrated by Taoists are part of reality; it is not reality that is a part of them. The Tao is at its most basic "the Way" of reality; it is the pattern of space and time; and it is utterly detached from moral or normative doctrines.

The Greek and Viking gods lied, and did so quite regularly. While there was a spectrum of philosophical thought associated with each culture - too much to cover with any brevity - the gods were certainly not the source of Truth in any sort of absolute or ultimate fashion. In the former case, a swift review of Pythagorean, Platonist, and Aristotelian thought will inform you of the various strands of "truth" that were perceived within Greek thought, and none of them were attributed to the gods.

It's a gross oversimplification to condense the schools of Hinduism and the Amerindian spiritual belief systems in such a manner, but suffice to say that applying Judeo/Christian doctrine to them is no more applicable than is its application to the above.

[AntiGuv]

Here is a rather decent summary of Hinduism - so much as it can be summarized - as it relates to the question at hand:

Within Sanatana Dharma, or Hinduism (as it is commonly called), a variety of lesser gods are seen as aspects of the one impersonal divine ground, Brahman (not Brahma). Brahman is seen as the universal spirit. Brahman is the ultimate, both transcendent and immanent; the absolute infinite existence; the sum total of all that ever is, was, or ever shall be. Brahman is not a God in the monotheistic sense, as it is not imbued with any limiting characteristics, not even those of being and non-being, and this is reflected in the fact that in Sanskrit, the word brahman is of neuter (as opposed to masculine or feminine) gender.

Yes, it is possible to transpose or impose Judeo/Christian tenets onto the Brahman, but it is a misnomer. The Brahman is not an entity. The Brahman instructs nothing. No temporal system can provide transcendent Truth. The Brahman just is what is.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you oh so very much for sharing your three "types" of "knowledge" and your valuation of them! I also appreciate your further explanations. And thank you for keeping the same format, as it makes comparison so much easier for all of us.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for bumping by! I look forward to reading your views!

[Jaysun]

This is right up there with "what is time?".....too deep for me.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for your post and for asserting your definitions and outline for a structure of "knowing"!

It appears your views have attracted the attention of some of our best thinkers. Kudos, lafroste!

Next I define TRUTH as the accurate representation of REALITY.

I find the above statement interesting in comparing it to my own at post 19. In my view "all that there is" (aka "reality") is God's will and is unknowable in its fullness, that the physical realm is a manifestation of that reality.

It appears we both speak to a manifestation of reality! That is good to know. Thank you!

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the Wikipedia link, PatrickHenry!

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the engaging excerpt, KC Burke! I particularly like this:

Often men may not realize the meaning of their immemorial prejudices and customs - indeed, even the most intelligent of men cannot hope to understand all the secrets of traditional morals and social arrangements; but we may be sure that Providence, acting through the medium of human trial and error, has developed every hoary habit for some important purpose. The greatest of prudence is required when man must accommodate this inherited mass of opinion to the exigencies of new times. For prejudice is not bigotry or superstition, although prejudice sometimes may degenerate into these. Prejudice is prejudgment, the answer with which intuition and ancestral consensus of opinion supply a man when he lacks either time or knowledge to arrive at a decision predicated upon pure reason.

It saddens me when, in the name of the scientific materialism, the great body of man's experiences over the ages is dismissed with a handwave as irrelevant. We see this too often in discussions of consciousness and the mind.

[RightWhale]

Truth. A worthy word project. Since the Pope mentioned that he would want dignity until death, I looked up the word dignity. Then I looked up every associated word used in the definition of dignity, and every word used to define those words. Etc. until down to body parts. It is quite a constellation, similar to the constellations of meaning mentioned by Schopenhauer in 'Will and Representation.' Four hours later I had an association list, and eight hours after that I had a flowchart [Pflow, really powerful for this]. There is no meaning to dignity that is not on the chart, excepting some Derrida-esque deconstruction or Lacan-ite higher level synthesis that would not be in the usual range of common meaning.

Did this also for 'evil', since that seems to be a recurring theme lately. 'Truth' would also be worthy of the method. It needs some serious free time to work even one term. Maybe it is worth it, maybe not, but many times a term is used in a way that assumes everybody knows what is meant, while a rigorous analysis would show that use meaningless and useless.

[AntiGuv]

I had to go eat, but I'm back! Wanted to post a bit more on a couple spiritual systems I glossed over above.

The one common trait, perhaps, between the Vikings and the Amerindians generally was that they perceived reality to have emerged more or less spontaneously from the primordial chaos. The Viking gods were not omnipotent; they were not omnisicient; they were by no means infinite or even eternal. They were certainly well beyond the capacity of men, but in little more than a sense of being "supermen" - they were all the features of humanity writ large. And not only could they die, but they would die, and then another universe would be born of the ruins, with its own reality and its own Truth.

Quite similarly, a common strand of much Amerindian philosophy was that the phenomenological world emerged gradually as a sort of nexus of all the spiritual and material entities within it. Reality was a dynamic function and the Truth was everchanging as it shaped and was shaped by the recombination and rearrangement of forms in the flux of time. One might say that it was a very holistic spiritualism, and the reality of the universe was akin to a growing, living creature.

Neither Vikings nor Amerindians would comprehend the statement "God is Truth" within the context of their pre-Christian spiritual beliefs.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for sharing your views!

Because of your position against universals, you might be interested in viewing and commenting on this other thread which is actively debating Nominalism v Realism: If a Tree Falls in the Forest...the indivisible link between consciousness and existence.. You and I are polar opposites in that debate. LOL!

Concerning fideism, the Lurkers might be interested in reading more about it over here on Wikipedia. Again, you and I are polar opposites in the debate. But that is good to know!

[Alamo-Girl]

Kudos, furball4paws! You have a very engaging sidebar going with some really big thinkers.

All I can add to the side discussion is that Einstein in his book Relativity gave a considerable nod to Descartes:

We shall see later, however, that the general theory of relativity confirms Descartes' conception in a roundabout way. What brought Descartes to his remarkably attractive view was certainly the feeling that, without compelling necessity, one ought not to ascribe reality to a thing like space, which is not capable of being "directly experienced". [This expression is to be taken cum grano salis.]

He continues by explaining Descartes' aversion to space being considered independent of physical objects, i.e. space without matter. And of course, relativity and inflationary theory show us that space/time is created as the universe expands.

It is interesting to meditate on Descartes' sense of physical reality in light of Descartes' sense of existence cogito ergo sum (I think therefore I am).

It makes me wonder how often we put the cart before the horse ...

[Alamo-Girl]

LOLOLOL! What a precious response! Thank you so much, hosepipe!

[Alamo-Girl]

If I had to operate with your set of valuations, I would feel very queasy about the state of the "knowledge" that I had acuumulated. I know you don't agree with this, but I just couldn't do it. You are probably correct in that many of the differences that we have on Crevo threads are due to the above lists and those differences are probably insurmountable. The bottom line is that we have to be comfortable with ourselves, even while we are in conflict with others.

Indeed, furball4paws! That is why I am finding this thread so wonderfully illuminating. The more I understand you, personally, the better I can understand your posts and engage with you productively.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so very much for your list of "types" of "knowledge" and your valuation of them! And especially thank you for the summary of philosophy on the subject of "knowledge". Very informative, StJacques!

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for bumping by! I look forward to your comments!

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for post!

I haven't noticed a definition of 'knowledge' put forward and agreed upon in any of the earlier posts. You separate the terms 'knowledge' and 'certainty' in your original post but are they not inextricably linked? If we simply accept any input into our consciousness without first calculating its inherent level of certainty we can not call it knowledge as opposed to say, 'rumour'.

We can categorize any number of informational inputs with arbitrarily chosen divisions without statistical limits imposed but if we do are they relevant? Should we not rather first set the statistical lower boundary of certainty in the definition of knowledge and then instead of trying to specify each category's level of certainty, specify each category's relevance to our world view?

Unless of course we are just trying to compose a list of informational inputs.

Exactly. That is the point. We cannot negotiate a agreement as to what knowledge "is" but we can describe how we each view "knowledge" and how we value the certainty of it.

Indeed, some may very well accept "rumors" or "conspiracy theories" or "op/eds" as knowledge. You and I might find that bizarre, but if our correspondent has that worldview, it is helpful to us to know about it.

[Alamo-Girl]

Let me be the first on the thread to say the word "carnal". And to think that the semblance of decorum lasted this long.

LOLOLOL! Thank you so much for your post!