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.

[balrog666]

I have the hat for it:

The poop-head accessory.
For the man who feels like he thinks he knows it all through personal revelation.

[JWinNC]

bookmark

[lafroste]

Interesting thread. I'll play...

I start by defining a few things. I define REALITY as that which is independent of what I believe it to be. In other words, if it doesn't itself change with my changing opinion of it, then it is real. This also implies that I need not be aware of a particular thing for it to be real.

Next I define TRUTH as the accurate representation of REALITY. Implicit in this arguement is that there is only one TRUTH, not a multiplicity of truths. So when someone says "Well, that's your truth, but its not the same as my truth", they are wrong. What they mean is that the little piece of truth they perceive is a different little piece of truth than what I perceive, but both are little pieces of the TRUTH.

With those in mind, one can define KNOWLEDGE as the set of FACTS that accurately represent the TRUTH, as far as those facts are concerned. Of course, "facts" that do not accurately represent the truth cannot be facts.

The most fundamental point of this philosophy is that reality is never, ever incorrect. If your theory (a defined association of facts) does not accurately represent what happens in reality, there are only two possibilities: First the theory has a flaw in it; second, the observer has an artificially narrow perception of reality.

Of course, the above is just an outline...

[PatrickHenry]

I supppose we should post this link: Knowledge. (From Wikipedia)

[KC Burke]

Russell Kirk about knowing on a practical level:

Awake to all the mystery of human character, interested in those complex psychological impulses which associationist theories cannot account for, Burke implicitly rejected Locke's tabula rasa concept as inadequate to explain the individuation of character and imaginative powers which distinguish man from the animals. Human beings, said Burke, participate in the accumulated experience of their innumerable ancestors; very little is totally forgotten. Only a small part of this knowledge, however, is formalized in literature and deliberate instruction; the greater part remains embedded in instinct, common custom, prejudice, and ancient usage. Ignore this enormous bulk of racial knowledge, or tinker impudently with it, and man is left awfully afloat in a sea of emotions and ambitions, with only the scanty stock of formal learning and the puny resources of individual reason to sustain him. 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.
(The Conservative Mind, p. 38)

[FredZarguna]

It seems to me the distinction (and either elevation or denigration, depending on perspective) between the theological knowledge categories and the others is altogether arbitrary and incorrect. Is there really such a thing as a direct revelation which bypasses either the senses or the logical faculties? Faith is to be informed by reason; fedeism is a heresy.

Paul saw a vision on the road to Damascus. Perhaps it was a revelation, perhaps he was merely insane. But in either case it was a sensual experience. Does anyone know which it was? No. We accept the former or the latter on the basis of various proofs adumbrated in these other categories. And the acceptance of this (or any) knowledge is predicated on a belief in free will--which we cannot even rigorously prove we posses.

As for Platonism, for Jews and Christians (and some Deists, like me) there cannot ever really be any such thing: either these concepts exist in the mind of God, or, they precede him. Since the latter is impossible (for Jews and Christians), ideals have no independent existence not even as concepts. This applies to logic, mathematics, and physics, or course, but also to as metalogic, and metaphysics; and even to the concept of truth itself. For example: I was once asked did the law of the excluded middle (that a proposition must be either true or not true) have an existence independent of God? In other words, in a Godless universe would this concept exist? The answer must be: no. The law of the excluded middle exists because this is the way God's mind works. Independent of Him there is no Truth, and the question about what a "Godless universe" would be like is nonsensical: it would contain no concepts, and would--literally--be unthinkable.

[furball4paws]

Must be a slow day, but this is important stuff.

I think in PH's and js's list there must be a bold and all cap treatment of "provisionally"

I know of Nobel prize winners that have been flat wrong. They have also been "big" enough to admit it. Accepting something from "X", provisionally is an important part of how we build our knowledge bases, because it's just not possible to do or know everything. But, as "X" may not purposely lead you into a dark alley, we should always have our eyes open, even with the most trustworthy sources, and that includes theological sources (maybe even more so since their history is long, and suspect in some cases, and their early oral traditions leave a lot of doors open). Every man is capable of making mistakes. I know I have made many and expect to make many more.

(As you all might guess, I have trouble with authority figures, no matter how BIG they are) 8^)

[furball4paws]

Definitely worth reading.

[hosepipe]

Hosepipe's types of “knowledge” and valuation of certainties:
Types of knowledge..

1) Primates inspecting a Rolex watch trying to determine what it is...positing theorys.
2) Other primates watching the first primates wondering whats so interesting.. listening to their theorys..
3) Me watching both groups being grateful for the time to do it..

Disclaimer;
Any certainies from group one are variable, group two is certain that the first group is very busy with something, group three, well, there is no group three.. its a lonely and thankless job, watching primates..

[furball4paws]

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.

[betty boop]

Oy, so much work!!!! :^)

I'll have to give the matter some thought, and get back when I can.

[StJacques]

For any type of knowledge to exist, there must also exist some correlation to a systemic manner in which propositions or an understanding of phenomena which can be grouped under the heading of that particular "type" of knowledge, can be submitted to "testing" or "proof" of their validity, otherwise it is not "knowledge" because it is not something that can be understood. Knowledge is therefore something distinct from perception in and of itself (I did not say "experience" here), or feeling, or a purely mental construct, or emotion, because knowledge implies comprehension.

So how many types of knowledge are there? The question is essentially subjective, because you cannot separate the perspective of the observer from the answer that is given -- yes, I'm a closet Existentialist coming out on this thread. You could perhaps say there were only two; a priori (knowledge before the fact or of the mind) and a posteriori (knowledge after the fact or of the world). But separating knowledge into these two types, which is mirrored in using the terms intuition (deduction) and experience (induction), implies that one has taken a perspective that knowledge must be defined in terms of whether it relates to the material world or not. Alternatively, you could take Immanuel Kant's approach that you could separate all knowledge into synthetic (new) knowledge in which some experience or idea was synthesized by the rational faculty of the mind and analytical (tautolgoical) knowledge in which it comes from the mind itself. In this perspective you define knowledge by whether it represents the outcome of a process in which the human mind has altered that which was previously known. And as a third example, you could use Sören Kierkegaard's simple distinction of knowledge as the outcome of an approximation process, which groups both deduction and induction together -- and in Kierkegaard's ultimate opinion was not really knowledge at all since truth could never be approximated -- or the outcome of an appropriation process, in which that which is "known" is the result of an act of free will, to "seize" or "appropriate" knowledge in a willful act. But in this perspective you are judging that which is known by whether the human will was exercised in the act of understanding. So; whatever distinctions you make between various types of knowledge, keep in mind that those distinctions are only relevant to your perspective on what is involved in delineating knowledge.

Now; anyone who has paid attention to what I just wrote will note that I have still not yet answered the question, "how many types of knowledge" are there? I agree with Descartes, there are three and from most important to least important they are as follows:

1. Intuition
-- I know that 1 plus 1 equals two because I intuitively grasp the essential relationships between the numbers "1" and "2."

2. Deduction (including scientific demonstration)
-- I know that Q is true because P implies Q and P is a given premise.

or

-- I know that all bodies attract because the thousands of observations I have made of the phenomenon discount the likelihood of any other conclusion.

3. Sensory Experience -- I know that the glass fell from the table because I saw it fall.

Obviously, some of you will ask, "what is StJacques' subjective perspective" in identifying the way StJacques lists the types of knowledge?" Your answer is in my first paragraph, knowledge requires submission of propositions or observations of phenomena to a systemic manner of testing of their "proof" or "validity."

I also believe there is that which is beyond knowledge, by which I refer to faith, because faith is an act of the will and the will, not reason, is primary in human existence.

[betty boop]

Your #52 is a great post, StJacques. I enjoyed it very much -- thank you!

[Pagey]

bttt

[b_sharp]

"So very true. And it appears that understanding more of "where the other guy is coming from" will help us - either in accepting our differences or perhaps in making a more persuasive argument. "

Not to belabor the obvious, but isn't that the purpose behind these discussions? If we don't recognize differences and take pains to work around them all we end up doing is talking past one another.

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.

And yes I know, I tend to babble. But it makes me endearing, just like a puppy.

[Drammach]

The Wiki link is a good one..

Much to think about..
I'm not sure I'm qualified to determine what is "knowledge" or "truth" for others, much less myself..

Many people base their concept of truth on false beliefs purporting to be truth..
Many accept the authority of those claiming to have knowledge of the truth..

I have to go with my personal life experience, what I have learned, those whose opinions I respect, all of which is subjective..
Even though I am sure that what I perceive to be real may in fact be false, or totally beyond my ability to percieve, or my comprehension.

[b_sharp]

" One thing I know above all else: you two guys are poop-heads!"

You've personally observed this? Or do you simply have cites?

[Physicist]

Let me be the first on the thread to say the word "carnal".

And to think that the semblance of decorum lasted this long. <shakes head>

[b_sharp]

"With those in mind, one can define KNOWLEDGE as the set of FACTS that accurately represent the TRUTH, as far as those facts are concerned. Of course, "facts" that do not accurately represent the truth cannot be facts."

The problem I see in this, and it may just need a minor tweak, is that it implies the need for 100% certainty for information to be considered knowledge. This isn't quite what is considered knowledge in science or in inductive logic which are closer to 'True beyond a reasonable doubt' or as some have argued - 999/1000. (I prefer 90%).

It may also be that I just don't quite understand your POV. I can be dumb that way.

[cornelis]

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'.

Certainty is indeed linked to knowledge, but it has broad meaning and is not in all cases essential. One may know something and still doubt it, be uncertain about it, and even suspect that it isn't true.

Nowadays certainty is so much linked with knowledge that it is often confused with truth. I agree with some here that we should note the role of our will. We want to be sure about what we know. Certainty, however, should not be misten for what is true. Certainty is rather a valuation of what we are conscious of, a state or a disposition. However, the less certainty is a psychological state and becomes synomymous with truth, then certainty is simply that which comports with a set of principles as, whether those are ethical, geometrical, or dogmatic. Thoughtomator astutely points out: what we know is true in a particular set of conditions .