The Guru Speaks
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.
I understood you. And, IMHO, you made a lot of sense.
Yes, at a news conference.
Bump for Rummy!
You said it.
Scient-ism is that particular group that would keep the monopoly on certainty for its particular set of assumptions. But there are other dogmatists.
I'm glad you posted your response.
That's precious. You have a link?
"So while we are all slightly askew from reality, each perceiving it in an individual way, we have--besides our native intelligence--religion, tradition, education and the law to guide us in interpreting reality. "Knowledge" is the total of all this--our awareness of the world around us plus our intellectual skills that enable us to deal with it."
Francis Bacon, the most underated philosopher of all time, described exactly this 500 years ago. He referred to them as Idols of the Cave, Idols of the Marketplace, etc. in his Novum Organum.
A Rabbi I knew would say "I don't know, I don't need to know, and that's okay".
Rummy should change that to the media and tell them "You don't know, you don't need to know, and that's okay" (it's called National Security in some circles).
One thing I know above all else: you two guys are poop-heads!
NFP
True, but Google doesn't talk.
Fascinating.
I will give my own view of things, based on the categories that you have provided above, in order of certitude:
(1) Direct personal sensation.
I do not distinguish between that which I SEE (the dog at my feet) and that which I FEEL (the taste of a taco, the smell of coffee, the queasiness of fear, the happiness of love, the heat of lust), because I sense that eyesight, taste, smell, touch and other more subtle emotional states that we identify with the head or the heart are all either senses or emotions. In other words, eyesight is an emotion, and love is a sense. Different organs, different pathways, but not fundamentally different at their root.
(2) Indirect personal sensation.
The reproduction in my senses of the recorded impressions of others' senses. The only two normal vectors for absorbing the recorded sense impressions of others are the eyes and ears - we read or hear the others' impressions. I observe that what happens on hearing this is that my own body and mind create a simulacrum of that described experience, in my "mind's eye", so to speak, and I experience what the other has experienced by a refabrication of the emotion within my own experience.
(3) Judgment.
What I sense directly, in the heart and in the eyes, I know. Indeed, that IS knowledge, as I would define it.
What others tell me is also knowledge, but (when it's important) I hold that described knowledge up against my own experience of the world to determine whether I believe it to be true or not.
In other words, if I were standing in the same place that the person describing the event was standing when it actually happened, would I have experienced the same thing?
If not, then either (a) the other person has misinterpreted sense impressions (I do not much allow that my own senses are inaccurate), or is delusional, or is lying.
All second-hand knowledge, including all science, history and theology that I have not personally been involved in, fall into this third category.
An example: the account of the death of Jesus.
The Bible - someone else's recorded impressions, says that the sky went dark, there was an earthquake, the veil in the Temple was torn in twain and the graves opened and the dead walked around.
Now, suppose I had been standing there on Golgotha. Would I have seen the sky go dark? If yes, and I looked up, would I have seen the stars (and looked towards the sun to see an eclipse) or would I have seen nothing but dark clouds making an overcast? Or would I have seen that it was sunny and didn't go dark to my eyes? If the latter, I might conclude that either (a) the author was writing metaphorically, or (b) the author was lying to try and create a sense impression of something supernatural when, in fact, someone actually standing there would have seen nothing supernatural. Or (c): the author himself was writing from second hand, and repeated what he heard.
If I were standing on Golgotha, I would not have been able to see if the Temple veil was torn in two. But if I had been standing in the Temple at that moment, I would observe to see (a) if there WAS a veil at all, (b) if it tore in two out of thin air, (c) if some person or thing tore it in two, or (d) if nothing happened.
Obviously I would know if there was an earthquake or not. Everyone in the city would feel it.
Now, obviously I know that there is no way that I can go back in time to discover if the mental simulacra created in my own senses were accurate or not, so I have to decide whether I believe the supernatural stories or not based on my own experience with the natural and supernatural. I would call "judgment" the capacity to decide what one believes and what one does not believe.
From my perspective those are the three sorts of knowledge.
And the first is the gold standard for the other two. Note that the first includes instincts and inborn knowledge.
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