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.

[js1138]

I think skepticism is implied in the opening post of the thread, namely in its sorting of knowledge by degrees of certainty.

As a recovring behaviorist and amateur neuroscientist, I am aware that we quite literally don't know ourselves. I listed personal feelings at the top of my list of things I am certain of, but I did so with a touch of sarcasm. In the light of science, we are singularly unaware of what is going on in our heads, often to the point of not being aware of what we are feeling.

I note that this unawareness is seen by some as a virtue, leading them to assume that whatever is going on is not going on in their heads, but must be going on somewhere else. The construction of the brain doesn't lend itself to core dumps, so analysis of our inner workings is painfully slow and difficult.

Thinking about it doesn't solve the problem. Philosophers have been sayine "know thyself" for a long time, without much effect.

[js1138]

In my research, more and more, I tend to rely on instrumental measurements and statistical tests of certainty.

We are "designed" to make decisions and react quickly based on insufficient information. Our brains favor pattern recognition over detailed analysis. As you probably know, it is quite difficult to mimic this behavior with instruments. This is probably a good thing in the collection of data.

[freedumb2003]

Thank you (uh, I mean thank me).

;)

[aruanan]

2. Prediction from scientific theory: I calculate there will be a partial solar eclipse this week.

Solar eclipses are predicted on the basis of observation of regularities.

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.

The phlogiston theory of heat and all the others that litter the road of science. Of course, those given to scientism exclude those as not being science.

[PatrickHenry]

When the day comes that you receive the Spiritual revelation - nothing will be the same again.

For sure. But my current grumpiness is a big part of my charm.

[Varda]

Read later

[Puddleglum]

I used to love cogitating about subjects like this. I need to see if all the tubes in my brain will warm up and let me participate.

[AntiGuv]

The phlogiston theory of heat and all the others that litter the road of science.

Unsurprisingly invented by a minister, based on principles of alchemy, and popularized by an animistic physician...

[Puddleglum]

Sesnse perception + comon sense (I see...)

Memory

Deductive - mathematic

Deductive - logical (same as above, plus macrocosm/microcosm fun)

Inductive/Inference based on past patterns ("It is Bill calling - he always calls at dinner time," "Bill will call at dinner time tomorrow")

Appeal to authority - "Experts say," "the history book says"

Revelation

Intuition

...And my least favorite, the statistical inference, i.e., "Americans feel the next Pope should be liberal" - the part-to-whole based on inference that the part is like the whole

[PatrickHenry]

I appreciate your thumbnail descriptions of how some other religions deal with the truth/godhead issue. Most informative, and as we all should have suspected, not dispositive.

As a side note, Asimov once wrote -- in one of his rare moments of saying anything favorable about theism -- that the development of Western science might be, at least partially, attributable to our tradition of monotheism. That is, among the Greeks, the observation of confusing or inconsistent facts could be shrugged off as due to conflicts among the gods. In the monotheistic worldview, however, there had to be only one answer, one cause, one explanation.

[sauropod]

read later

[chronic_loser]

all "knowledge" is only a statement about our perceptions. We have no "absolute knowledge" as this is simply not open to us.
All our knowledge is faith based. We TRUST that our perceptions of the cosmos are based on some degree of reliability, and that our brains sort these perceptions into some degree of order that corresponds to what is really "there."
Theists have no problem with this. In fact, science itself is a Christian child, as it was originally based on the presuppositions above, plus the belief that the cosmos was a reflection of the Creator in its order, beauty and ability to reflect the "glory" of the Creator.
Alas, the child has left home, and is only slowly and lately waking to a realization that pompous and arrogant statements about the abilities of atheistic science to build a coherent worldview are limited. Science itself is predicated, or "based", on a view that the universe is consistent, subject to normative laws, and can be ACCURATELY observed...., that is, the cosmos is consistent with our powers of reasoning and observation. Empirical science stands on this assumption with both feet planted firmly in the air. The brighter ones will acknowledge this. It is only the halfwit Bio prof at West Appalachicola State and folks like him who continues to expound about how science and faith don't belong in the classroom together.

[chronic_loser]

I am not aware of any scientific theory that I understand which has failed in a major way. >>>>

Although I am not sure what you mean by "in a major way" I am sure you would have to admit all of Newtonian Physics have "failed" when you move down to a subatomic level.

Newton and the "macro" world of physics just "feels" right to our perceptions and it is quite interesting to watch the physicists who play with these worlds insist that there will be a unified theory. The reason why this is interesting is that at present there is NO such coherent theory. Scientists posit that there must be such a theory with the same degree of faith that his quasi literate janitor recites the Lord's Prayer. The reason is that they WANT such a connection to exist. Without it, the universe is random and science ceases to exist.

I am with them that such a unified theory awaits discovery. What is fascinating is that this same person will mock the faith of others, say it belongs in a church and not a classroom, while predicating his whole scientific and academic career on a faith that differs not one whit from the fundamentalist he despises. That faith simply has another object.

[chronic_loser]

As a side note, Asimov once wrote -- in one of his rare moments of saying anything favorable about theism -- that the development of Western science might be, at least partially, attributable to our tradition of monotheism. That is, among the Greeks, the observation of confusing or inconsistent facts could be shrugged off as due to conflicts among the gods. In the monotheistic worldview, however, there had to be only one answer, one cause, one explanation.>>>>>

Actually Asimov was simply borrowing a thought (most of us do, you know, almost all the good thoughts have already been thunk) from Alfred North Whitehead.
Whitehead accurately stated that science as we know it is a product of a Christian worldview, in that the requisite belief in an orderly, observable, and consistent cosmos are the product of a Christian view of the universe. Modern science was birthed in such a world, and would not have been able to be sired elsewhere. So says Whitehead, anyway.

[AntiGuv]

Not too sure I can agree with Asimov on that one. The state of Christian logic was in rather sorry shape until the works of Aristotle were 'rediscovered' by Europe in the libraries of Moors during the Reconquista. So far as I can tell, you can brush off everything between Ptolemy and Galileo and not be much worse for wear as far as this topic..

I cannot think of a single instance where the Greek philosophers shrugged off enigmas or paradoxes as the caprice of the gods. It would not have made much sense considering they did not regard the universe as ultimately contingent upon the gods. Maybe they just didn't bother writing about such perceptions, if they ever actually had them.

Wonder how Asimov would explain the Muslims stuck in the 14th century..

[stremba]

I think that the main difference between logical deduction and scientific theory is that logic is deductive whereas most conclusions or calculations from scientific theories are inductive in nature. For example, given the axioms of Euclidean geometry, it is deductively necessary that all right triangles will conform to the Pythagorean theorem. It is just as impossible to find a right triangle that varies from this theorem as it is to find a square circle. The concept of a right triangle in a Euclidean geometry that doesn't follow the Pythagorean theorem just doesn't make sense.

With regard to scientific theory, OTOH, an observation that contradicts the theory is at least sensible. That is, it is not impossible to find a counterexample to a theory; one just hasn't been found, which is why the theory is accepted. A good example would be the calculated force of gravity between two objects, as given by the theory of general relativity (or equivalently in most situations, Newton's law of gravity). According to theory, the calculation works no matter which two objects we use to measure the force of attraction. However, we haven't measured the attractive force between EVERY two pairs of objects in the universe. Logically, it is possible that if we somehow measure the attraction between two galaxies that are a couple billion light years away from us, that this will not adhere to the accepted scientific theory. This would have profound implications for our scientific understanding, but it is not impossible that our scientific understanding is incomplete or incorrect.

[js1138]

Solar eclipses are predicted on the basis of observation of regularities.

Plus a theory of why those regularities occur. It just so happens it doesn't matter whether your visualization is geocentric or heliocentric, but you can't easily find the regularities without a visualization.

[js1138]

In the monotheistic worldview, however, there had to be only one answer, one cause, one explanation.

For those inclined to attribute science to Western theism, I ask why Eastern theism isn't more suited to science. It is certainly more easily conformed to modern physics.

[PGalt]

Thanks for the post AG. I saw your discussion on that other thread and thought it was interesting. Looking forward to reading through this thread on the weekend. Thanks for all that you have done.

[js1138]

Although I am not sure what you mean by "in a major way" I am sure you would have to admit all of Newtonian Physics have "failed" when you move down to a subatomic level.

Since I wrote the sentence you are responding to, let me explain. I was actually thinking of Newton when I inserted the phrase "major way." My writing isn't always clear when I'm in a hurry, but I was thinking that Newton still works perfectly well within a wide range of parameters. It certainly works perfectly within the range of what we can experience without instruments.

Good theories do not get proven wrong. They just get assigned or limited to a range of conditions.