“Give me one example of knowledge that you consider certain (other than “death” and “taxes” — LOL!), and then tell me how you know it’s certain; i.e., What is the basis or criterion on which your “certainty” rests?”
I can give you hundreds of examples, but for starters:
Heavier than air human flight is possible is certainly known. Until the Wright brothers proved it, academics and “scientists” were writing “scholarly” papers proving it was impossible.
How about anesthesia. Not possible and “evil” according to a number of religious people. I believe the truth that anesthesia is not only possible, but practiced regularly has been proven by experience.
Another is wireless communication. I think that has been proven beyond doubt. Don’t you? It was certainly doubted before Tesla (and Marconi, though Tesla is now given the well deserved credit for first having demonstrated it).
There are no end of things we know with certainty. As for how I know them, if anyone does not know them it is because they suffer some kind of extreme retardation or are in some other way mentally deficient.
Here are some examples of why the “uncertainty” principle is in doubt:
The Uncertainty Principle Is Untenable
http://theoryandscience.icaap.org/content/vol004.002/13_letter_gong.html
http://www.aip.org/history/heisenberg/p08b.htm
The Dark Age of the Uncertainty Principle
http://knol.google.com/k/claes-johnson/the-dark-age-of-the-uncertainty/yvfu3xg7d7wt/69#
Why Schrödinger Hated His Equation
http://knol.google.com/k/claes-johnson/why-schrdinger-hated-his-equation/yvfu3xg7d7wt/38#
It amazes me that some people believe nothing is certain, and base it on their credulity about the “uncertainty” principle. If nothing is certain, how can the uncertainty principle be certain.
By the way, I’m not trying to convince you, just answering your questions. Have a pleasant evening, friend. I know it’s eveing for you, since I live in N.H.
Hank
You give me examples, but not the "how" involved.
That's not an evasion. I'll "guess" at the "how" since you didn't disclose it: Newtonian mechanics predicts heavier-than-air flight is possible, and this has been confirmed by repeated observations.
Yet Newtonian mechanics itself is not universally "exact" in all situations such that its predictions can be expected to be 100% correct all the time. In our 4D world, it's "good enuf for scratch" in applications involving mechanical systems. There is, however, an emerging skepticism regarding its universal applicability, especially to such important questions as consciousness and life itself.
But without universality, it can afford no certainty. The only "certainty" regarding heavier-than-air flight ultimately rests, not on the Newtonian formalism, but on consensus in observation. Which ultimately puts the burden of proof on the reliability and trustworthiness of human perception. How trustworthy is that? It may be "good enuf for scratch," but that is not sufficient to establish certainty.
How certain can we really be that our perceptions of the world actually directly and truthfully "map" to the world external to our own minds? Both Hume and Kant pointed out that this is something human beings simply cannot know. So if observation (perception) is your standand criterion for establishing "certainty," that criterion rests on something which is fundamentally unknowable in principle, simply because there is no way for us to ascertain how close a match there is between the manner in which we perceive and the object that we perceive. We take it on faith that there is a match, and that it is strong enough to constitute useful knowledge of the world. But "strong enough" and "certainty" are clearly not the same things.
IOW, we could say that most of the time, perception gets it right. But that is hardly enough to assert complete certainty.