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.
Maybe. Or maybe, a fortnight of all Schiavo, all the time, succeeded by a week of all dead Pope, all the time, has made most of America pretty darn sick of 150 proof religiosity.
But w.r.t the forum, you're likely right. I'm inclined to cede the forum, and for that matter the GOP, to the Christian right. I suspect the result will be a reprise of the previous heyday of the Christian right; the illustrious career of their darling, William Jennings Bryan, four times failed candidate for President.
But hey, ride the hubris.
Indeed, Patrick. But only I know when and how to do that. Speaking only for myself, of course.
I'm, not folding, and I'm not running. I figure I've got a pretty strong hand.
Got any questions for me?
BTW, I notice that whenever an inconvenient question is posed to "your side of the debate," I don't get answers to specific questions that I have asked. Instead, I get "why don't we change the subject?" And the best way to do that is to freaking inventory the problem. Ad infinitum. Ad nauseam.
Just noticing what is by now, for me, an "ancient habit" in these precints. FWIW.
I expect he will survive.
I love Yeats, too. But when he wrote that poem, I expect he had folks like you in mind. FWIW.
I.e., people who don't give a rat's *ss about any putative "center" that can hold.
But to me, my dear friend, time is the "mother of Truth." And we will be subject to Truth's finding, at the end of the day.
May God bless you, dude. You need it - as do we all.
May God bless you always.
Possible, I suppose. Doubt it, though. He lived in an Ireland where militant, revanchist Catholicism was at war with militant Presbyterianism. See the second stanza:
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Some Christian, Catholic authors apparently disagree with that characterization.
For example, try reading G.K. Chesterton's biography of St. Thomas Aquinas...
Cheers!
I do empathize with the pain you are feeling about Pope John Paul II and of course, I pray for you – always!!!
The anti-values left-wing cabal will no doubt try to influence the cardinals to elect a pope who will set aside Scripture in favor of their social preferences – but of a truth, John Paul II personally appointed most of the cardinals. This adds to our hope in prayer that they will not be led astray by the allure of the rich European and American left wingers and will instead stick with the Gospel no matter how “inconvenient” it might be. Truly, every church or organization which has stayed with the Gospel has grown while those who have accommodated political correctness, such as for homosexual bishops, have diminished. Under John Paul II's strict adherence to the commandments, the Catholic church has grown and spread particularly in Africa, Asia and South America!
But either way, whether the new Pope is of same cloth as John Paul II – or whether he is a horror – we can be sure that God attends and it will all unfold according to His will.
betty boop, when you used the term ”nabal”, the entire passage of I Samuel 25 came to mind. There, the name itself brings many concepts to bear. Nabal, who was a rich and powerful man, received David’s protection but wouldn’t so much as entertain the words of David’s servants who were seeking some wool or meat at David’s request. Among the lessons of the passage is that we ought to never seek vengeance against one with whom we cannot have a dialogue, but leave that up to God (Nabal was killed by God for this slight to David). For another, it is good to intercede both for the ones with whom we cannot converse and for the one who would seek vengeance for the slight. In the Scripture, Abigail (Nabal’s wife become widow) interceded and was blessed by becoming David’s wife.
So, following I Samuel 25 there is a blessing to be had in not taking offense at someone who refuses to communicate and another blessing for interceding in their behalf! I join with you in your prayers for anyone on the forum who is being a nabal and stand with you so that we can gain strength from one another to resist the urge to strike back.
Thank you, PatrickHenry, for your summary recap at post 467. By your analysis it would appear I have inadvertently escalated a dialogue by making a response at all.
It was my intention only to say what must be said. And in this case what must be said is that those who rely only on their own minds to grasp an image of reality will be limited in their pursuit by the boundaries of their mind. And many people are quite satisfied with that.
I am not. Those of us who are indwelled by the Spirit have the mind of Christ – we can indeed go “beyond” the boundaries of our own minds. It is quite wonderful, illuminating, peaceful and of course, I want to share that Good News!
Concerning the angst, please understand that betty boop and I are sisters in the truest sense – we share the same mind, are on the same wavelength. For instance, it is easy for me to completely disregard offenses to my person but I cannot and will not stand idly by when anyone is attacking betty boop. Evidently, she feels the same way about me.
One final point, for Right Wing Professor and any others who are concerned that the Republican party’s attention to value issues will diminish our hold on government: (a) it doesn’t matter anyway, God is on our side and He trumps all goverments, (b) there are more believers in the U.S. than not – for every atheist who leaves in a huff, several Christians are apt to join in, (c) it is more important to be right than powerful and (d) the general election of 2004 was won by Republicans because of the party’s stand "for" values.
Or they feel that even though one cannot PROVE causality for the (correct) reasons you stated below, for most of our experience, things generally act "close enough" to how we would expect them to act if causality could be proven.
Close enough, in fact, to take to the bank. See also technology, engineering, large corporations.
I would label the scientists who act on these beliefs "pragmatists" (*) Others might call them "rich". :-)
(*)(if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck OR an AFLAC commercial)
Cheers!
Well, though late to the game, I've decided to make a honest effort at answsering your query.
Not being a scientist nor a philosopher, I feel quite inadequate in even begining to talk about classifying and valuing knowledge. However, disregarding how fools rush in where angels fear to tread, I will accept your challenge. And, since I can only speak for myself, I'm speaking for myself...
There are only two kinds of "knowledge" for me personally:
1. Realized knowledge | the information which I've gained throughout all the experiences of my life, through whatever means: sensory, intuition, etc.
2. Potential knowledge | all that I have yet to experience.
Estimated ratio of potential to realized knowledge in Ronzo's life: 99.999999 : 0.000001
Notice that I don't give any valuations at all for either group. That's because I automatically consider almost all information/experience to be basically true, good & beautiful. (The exception would be when the source is a liberal…but then we're talking knowledge here…) Of course not all information/experience is ultimately true, good and beautiful.
So how do I know what in this great mess of information/experiences needs to be valued, and what needs to be discarded? Well, to be quite honest, it really depends upon how I feel about the information/experience.
At this point let me state that for me there is a significant difference between emotions and feelings. I would define emotions as they would be commonly understood, the agitations of our being that often have physical manifestations like crying, laughing, and so on. But feelings I define more like awareness or consciousness; there is a definite link to emotions, but from my perspective, emotions proceed forth out of feelings, not vice versa.
I cannot help but notice that almost all information/experiences have an impact on my feelings. The impact is either positive (pleasurable), neutral, or negative (painful).
Information/experiences that I value are those that bring forth pleasure of some sort. Information/experiences that I would rather forget have brought forth feelings of pain or suffering. And then there's a whole lot of stuff that is somewhere in between, neither all that painful nor pleasurable.
Of course, this is all entirely subjective. I can communicate my feelings to someone else, but I certainly can't force someone to feel the way I do. Nor can I prove my feelings using math, logic, or anything else. They just are. Whether or not anyone else perceives my particular feelings is ultimately meaningless; for I can certainly perceive my own feelings, and to a certain extent even measure their intensity. But don't ask me to explain it to your understanding or prove it to you, it's simply not possible. At best I can communicate my feelings, often imperfectly, and hope that the receptor has the ability to properly interpret what it is I'm communicating. (Amazingly enough, this isn't so hard as it seems, assuming the receptor also has feelings!)
So I can communicate my information/experiences to someone else, perhaps even "prove" them to a certain extent, but so what? Some people will believe anything with no proofs what-so-ever, other won't believe anything no matter how many "proofs" you give them. It's not that people are irrational, it's just that if someone feels good about your explanation, they'll buy it. If they don't feel good about it, then they aren't going to be convinced no matter what. We are not just a bunch of ultra-rational computers testing each and every bit of data that comes are way: our feelings often seem to be the only real test that we actually use.
Another problem is that my feelings may or may not lead me to ultimate truth. Yet, I don't really believe that I'm going to find ultimate truth in this life anyway. I can easily settle for approximate truth for a vast majority of my purposes (apologies to Kierkegaard). I don't need to know the biology of the coffee plant or the inner workings of the coffee industry to enjoy my cup of java in the morning.
RATIONAL THOUGHT
As for rational thought, I find it to be most useful as a means of categorizing all my various information/experiences. My rational thought process (what little there is of it) simply makes some quick little logical determinations about the knowledge/experience, then stores them away for later processing. Most of this happens in the background, unconsciously. Again, for a vast majority of my purposes, this background processing is all that is needed.
My rational mind also serves to test & process particular types of information/experience depending upon my feeling that further analysis is necessary. The rational mind then works the problem until it feels right. Then the problem & solution gets placed back in their little pigeon-hole somewhere in my memory, often only to be eventually forgotten--erased from memory. So the very core of my being is nothing more than a lump of feelings, or awareness. All the rational-minded stuff is actually in service to my feelings, not vice-versa. And I have a feeling that this is true for more people than just me, no matter how much they trumpet their superior rationality, as if they were the very incarnation of Mr. Spock.
And speaking of Star Trek analogies, I find my rational thought process is often most fully engaged when having to deal with other people; whether it is through personal contact, books, lectures, or whatever. Then I use my rational processes like the shields on the starship Enterprise: they guard my feelings by filtering all the garbage that often comes forth from human beings, and categorizing it a priori, before it gets to the core feeling level. The information/experiences deemed worthy is then passed on to my feeling mechanism (believe it or not, I have read such a thing does actually exist in the brain!) and then it's my feelings which ultimately decide what to do with the information/experience. Of course, there are times when I don't want my rational mind to get involved with my experiences at all, because the experiences might be bringing me quite a bit of pleasure! At that point, logical analysis only gets in the way.
Come to think of it, a huge chunk of my daily living needs little to no rational analysis. Normally it only comes into play when another of my fellow human being says they've found THE TRUTH, and that's when the real fun begins...
THE BIG QUANDRY
Now here is the biggest problem I face: the information/experience that I find the most valuable of all, that which I'm willing to die for, is almost entirely subjective. I cannot "prove" it to someone else. Of course I've proven the value of this information to myself, and have no doubts about it what-so-ever. I can even say I'm completely certain that it's true, good, wonderful, etc. Yet, because it is somewhat beyond the scope of the five senses to study and observe, regular, physical proofs are impossible.
It's like going to Florida, and then explaining to your friend in North Dakota what Florida is like. You can tell him everything about it in great detail, but you cannot really "prove" there is a Florida until your friend has experienced the place for himself.
That brings up the interesting problem of just how much of our "knowledge" is really just the belief in other's testimonies. How can we really "know" something until we ourselves have experienced it? Just how much of that which we hold dear is just what "feels" right? I think many people would be very embarrassed at how much of their "knowledge" is based on nothing more than good feelings, or even bad feelings!
Well, since there are no right or wrong answers, there you have it! And of course you can neither prove or disprove anything I've just posted, since it's all just Ronzo's subjective musings anyway…
as betty boop often says: FWIW.
In this connection it might be well to remember John Donne...
Batter my heart, three-personed God; for, you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurped town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but, oh, to no end,
Reason your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue,
Yet dearly'I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betrothed unto your enemy,
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I
Except you enthral me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
There are echoes here of everything from St. Paul's
Romans 7:14-25 ("...For I have the desire to do what is
good, but I cannot carry it out...Who will rescue me from
this body of death?...")
to Shakespeare's The Tempest: (*)
And now my charms are all o'erthrown
And what strength I have's mine own
Which is most faint; now t'is true
I must here be released by you
But release me from my bands
With the help of your good hands
Gentle breath of yours my sails
Must fill, or else my project fails,
Which was to please. Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant
And my ending is despair,
Unless I be relieved by prayer
Which pierces so that it assaults
Mercy itself and frees all faults
As you from your crimes would pardon'd be
Let your indulgence set me free
There is the constant theme of insufficiency,
whether of the heart or of the mind,
such that we can see an ideal, a goal, a promise of completeness,
which aside from external assistance, must remain forever unconsumated.
Cheers!
(*) Oddly enough, I came across this in the liner notes to a Loreena McKennit CD...
I think you need another shot of whiskey, RWP. :-)
Or go read about spin-orbit coupling till you calm down...
Cheers!
Don't forget Nabal's wife got to marry King David.
Let's not forget Bose-Einstein statisics, either. What about lasers? :-)
Not to mention all the people calling each other bozos on these threads :-)
Cheers!
What brings you out with the frustrated Evolutionist crowd all of a sudden--this thread has been more civil and productive than many I've seen!
Cheers!
A relevant metaphor: behold the turtle, he only makes progress when he sticks his neck out.
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