Posted on 04/06/2005 11:36:46 AM PDT by Alamo-Girl
I disagree. I can define knowledge as the set of facts, without the need to know those facts a priori. There is nothing in here that demands perfection, and I don't mean to say that one cannot have knowledge unless one has all and perfect knowledge. I believe that many of the "facts" we know now aren't really facts, simply because they do not accurately reflect truth or reality. That doesn't mean that people don't regard them as facts.
I was simply trying to posit some definitions.
Much of what people think they "know" is not actually based on the acquisition of information about reality, but instead on various sorts of poorly-grounded beliefs. And I think it's a huge oversight to neglect these categories in your overview.
There has been a large amount of study on these topics in the "skeptic" literature, such as:
Skeptical Inquirer magazine, published by the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. Main focus is on skeptical examination of the "paranormal", but covers many other topics as well including superstitions, pseudoscience, etc.As a wise man once said, "it's not what you don't know that gets you into trouble, it's what you know that ain't so".Skeptic magazine, published by the Skeptics Society ("Dedicated to the promotion of science and critical thinking, and to the investigation of extraordinary claims and revolutionary ideas")
"Everyday Irrationality: How Pseudo-Scientists, Lunatics, and the Rest of Us Systematically Fail to Think Rationally", by Robyn M. Dawes
"How We Know What Isn't So", by Thomas Gilovich
"The New Skepticism: Inquiry and Reliable Knowledge", by Paul Kurtz
"How Do You Know It's True?: Discovering the Difference Between Science and Superstition", by Hyman Ruchlis
As such, understanding how people (including ourselves) "know what ain't so" is a critically important subject, and yet few disciplines actually pay much attention to it (except to exploit it, as by advertisers, magicians, con men, and propagandists). So the "skeptic" community came together to study that topic and provide information to the public about how not to get snookered (by yourself, even, not just by others).
Skeptics are often disliked by just about every group, because they usually act as "party poopers" pointing out the flaws in various comfortable presumptions, but they're the experts on how and why people believe various things that "ain't so" -- and how to learn to think more critically (about other people's claims, as well as about your own beliefs) and how to use more reliable methods of learning and understanding.
The skeptic literature also has frequent articles on how con men, hucksters, and other charlatans work their trades, so that you can learn how not to fall for them. There's also a whole sub-genre on how "psychics" appear to know more than they do, so as to sucker in clients and followers. For example: Hyman, Ray. "'Cold Reading': How to Convince Strangers that You Know All About Them", The Skeptical Inquirer, Spring/Sumer 1977.
Agreed. You may mentally append that to everything I claim to know. Well, almost everything. I exist, that's for sure. And A is A. Always will be.
Old joke:
Holmes and Watson are traveling by train through the countryside, passing the time gazing out the window at the passing scenery, when the following conversation ensues:Watson: "I say, Holmes, all the sheep in that field have been recently shorn."
Holmes squints at the sheep a moment and replies, "well, on the sides facing us, anyway..."
Dammach, this very fact is the age-old start of inquiry into how we know and whether what we know is really there.
And if I understand StJaques, he says that because of this possibility of untruth, we need a systematic correlation for validity.
There are two basic kinds of correlations for validity and both like to be called true:
(a) order (part to the whole or series to an end) of items within a set among other sets.And now I have to go on an errand, but more later. It is enough to say that most of the "isms" are when a certain set from (a) is raised to (b).
(b) order (part to the whole or series to an end) of items to an absolute singular reference point.
I always like to point out that it is our natural aversion to truth that causes the most trouble.
Plastics.
This was the insight in Decartes, "I think, therefore I am". It's more profound than most people give it credit for.
Decartes realized that almost everything else is open to error -- even the things you directly see and touch might be illusions, or the result of hallucination (or "fakes" in the manner of the simulated world of "The Matrix", etc.)
But Decartes also realized that no matter how much of the perceived world might be illusory or understood in error, one primal fact is inarguable -- if you're pondering your perceptions and thoughts and wondering about their accuracy, you provably EXIST, even if all else might be hallucination. Because you couldn't be questioning your perceptions if you didn't exist in the first place. Your *existence* is real, *has* to be real; it can not be illusory.
Thus, the fundamental observation: "I think, therefore I am [exist]".
All else may be open to question, but that is not.
And A is A. Always will be.
And that brings up the other kind of unquestionable truth -- "true by definition".
;)
.....Not to mention that its wonderfully appropriate that my lame attempt at humor is post #69.......
Mere coincidence that your post turned up where it did in the sequence?
I'd prefer to say, in this instance, "true by identity." I think it's more than a quibble. A definition isn't an axiom.
So if I get your drift(from the whole post)... Your saying basically ...
There are MORE than one sucker born every minute..
Right.?.
"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened."And what the heck, some other favorites:
--Winston Churchill
"Truth exists; only lies are invented."
--Georges Braque"The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple."
--Oscar Wilde"It's no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense."
--Mark Twain"Memory is often less about the truth than about what we want it to be."
--David Halberstam"Explanations exist; they have existed for all times, for there is always an easy solution to every human problem - neat, plausible, and wrong."
-- H. L. Mencken
Unfortunately, yes, mere coincidence. If I had that kind of internet clairvoyance for real, I could make an absolute killing on Ebay, though.
Ah, but are there ever truly "mere" coincidences in the world?
You know, the good Lord just might of had his finger on my mouse button for y'alls amusement.
bump to find this later
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