Re: David Grossmann/David Mooney

On Tue, July 3, 2007 9:52 am, Steven Goldfarb wrote:
:>: That statement is simply saying "knowledge = knowledge" and the
:>: only
:>: reasonable inference is that knowledge is impossible

:> No it doesn't reduce to a tautology. Plato wasn't that stupid.

: I wouldn't know, I never met the guy :-)

:> It says that knowledge is a sum of three things: a belief, reason
:> for that belief, and the (perhaps unprovable) fact that the belief is
:> true.

: I don't understand how you can define "knowledge" to include an
: unprovable component. To me that renders the definition meaningless.
: You're saying a nuclear reactor is "safe" if the primary cooling
: system is functioning, the current external radiation level is zero,
: and the core isn't going to melt down. But how do we know if the core
: isn't going to melt down? Well, that's unprovable. OK, then, so how
: can we declare the reactor "safe?" It's begging the question.

You're blending the safety of the reactor with our ability to declare
the reactor safe. The definition of safety is a true one, but useless
because it can't be translated into action.

However, the same is not true of knowledge. Plato's definition of
knowledge (which has flaws, but not IMHO this one) may not be usable
in distinguishing between knowledge and other justified beliefs. But
they are justified beliefs -- if I didn't think they were true, and
thus knowledge, I wouldn't really be believing them. I don't need
criteria for declaring them knowledge.

:>: More specifically, knowledge might exist, but there's no way in your
:>: formulation to distinguish knowledge from non-knowledge, but
:>: without that ability, the knowledge isn't really knowledge, is it?

:> Nope. Knowing something and knowing you know it are different. Just
:> as being aware and taking a moment to think about (and thus be aware)
:> of my being aware.

: I agree that knowing something and knowing you know it are different,
: but I didn't think that was what we were talking about. The question
: at hand is "can we know if f(x) =true" and you seem to be saying "of
: course we can know if f(x) is true, as long as f(x) is true" which
: doesn't advance the discussion IMO.

Plato's definition says that we can know that "f(x) is true" if we
believe f(x), we have reason to believe f(x), and f(x) happens to be
true. Regardless of whether we know whether f(x) is indeed true.

Another difference between us is the notion of "beyond reasonable
doubt". You seem to treat all things as unknown, since we can never be
100% certain. I am saying that anything we must accept if sane
(meaning: accepting reality as we're forced to confront it) is certain
in any meaningful sense of the word. If we do not treat justified
belief as knowledge then we're questioning our justification, our
ability to gather data and reason about it. Give that up, and one is
headed for paranoia and schizoid disconnection from reality.

:> : For example, take the statements "God exists" and "God does not
:> : exist."
:> : Since (so far as we know) only one of them can be true, therefore
:> only
:> : one of them can be knowledge. However, since we can't know which
:> one,
:> : we cannot say that we have any knowledge about whether or not God
:> : exists.

:> Justification exists for one and not the other. Someone who has
:> equal
:> reason to believe either has justification for neither.

: But how do you judge the quality of the justification without starting
: with your conclusion?

Yes, the fundamental religious question is epistomology -- the nature
of proving, arguing for, or some other justification of belief. (Note
my used of jargon is followed by explanation.) I have been arguing
(across a number of threads now) that ...

I see no justification for valuing
justification by empirical sensory input, and in the case of science,
generalization by inductive reasoning (not mathematical induction)
from that input
in favor of
justification by experience of the non-empirical (justice, love, etc...(
particularly in a domain where the non-empirical is central, such as
the central point of religion -- addressing questions of values and
meaning.

:> But the real problem in your claim is that you conflate my knowledge
:> of a truth, and my knowledge that my justified belief is knowledge.
:> IOW, I know I have a justified belief. I can not know whether I have
:> knowledge. But, if the content of the belief happens to be true, I
:> do know something.

: I'm not sure I follow this, but what I object to is your definition
: includes the word "true," and I think you're working backwards to say
: since it's knowledge and it's justified therefore it must be true. But
: that's not what your original formula allows you to do, it doesn't go
: in both directions.

Again, it's justified to the point where I would have to question my
sanity or ability to reason in order to question it. Thus, focusing on
the possibility of being wrong is pointless.

: "If it happens to be true then I'll know something" doesn't make any
: sense to me. If I have a belief that a certain stock will go up, so I
: put my money on that stock and it then does indeed go up, can I then
: in retrospect say that I knew the stock would go up? But if the stock
: goes down, well then I guess I didn't know it? That makes the word
: "know" meaningless IMO.

No, it means that (1) your justification for thinking the stock will
go up was imperfect, and you were wrong in thinking otherwise; and (2)
even if the stock had gone up, you knew it would -- you just couldn't
say you knew whether you knew it, or had good reason to believe it.

And if the justification really were so strong that it would take
questioning your entire ability to reach conclusions altogether to
doubt it, then you would be making all your decisions based on its
truth anyway. But who ever has that kind of justification about a
future event?

:> It's of the same piece as your earlier conflation of something being
:> more provable to others and something being more real.

: Ah, but I'm not interested in what is or isn't real, I've accepted
: that I cannot actually know - I can only work with what I've got.
: You're the one who asserts the real, who asserts knowledge, that's
: why I'm saying the burden is on you to show how those terms have
: meaning.

IOW, you are willing to buy into my use of the word "true" for this
discussion, but not my use of the word "knowledge"? It's okay to say
something happens to be true even if I don't know it, but it's not
okay to say that I can know something, even if I don't know that I
know something?

:> As to our own responses to our beliefs... Either I assume every
:> justified belief is true, or I start questioning my system of
:> justification. And that way lies madness. You can't live with
:> questioning your senses or your self-awareness.

: That's not true at all. First, I question my senses all the time and I
: would imagine you do too. It's obvious to me that our mental models
: strongly shape our perceptions - we see what we want to see. In terms
: of working with "reality," I strive to look at everything as a working
: hypothesis. Regarding self-awareness, there are layers to that too. I
: recognize that sometimes I'm crabby, for example, and that my sense of
: self on those days is different from my sense of self on days when I'm
: happy. My very "me" is different. I suspect yours is too.

You pretend such theoretical questioning has pragmatic impact. The
truth is, it's only of sensory input we have reason to be unsure of.

And yet, you manage to use your beliefs about the universe to get
toothpaste onto your toothbrush. It took me two tries this morning; my
depth perception is so bad, the first time I missed! For similar
reasons, I do not drive (my last 2 years driving, I had 5 accidents).
However, think how many life-and-death decisions you make every moment
based on beliefs justified by things you might not even consciously
realize you're observing!

Now, why should religious people treat their experiences any less?

:> Or in English: Either you assume your justified beliefs are
:> knowledge,
:> or you worry about malevolent deities that are out to mislead you.

: No, not at all. My view is simply that it's not about finding
: "answers,"
: because we can't know the answers. It's about finding better
: questions.

I miss how this is in response.

:> And that's true regardless of topic -- religion, science, personal
:> relationships, political views, etc...

: Once again it depends on what you mean by "knowledge." To me it means
: the
: best working hypothesis I have at the time, always subject to further
: evidence and analysis. That is, I could be wrong. Not only could but I
: almost certainly am "wrong" in some sense, e.g., Newton's laws are
: "wrong"
: in the sense that they're incomplete.

: So back to topic, I'm not suggesting that your experiences aren't real
: to
: you, to the contrary I have to assume that they are absolutely real to
: you. And therefore in my view you ought to act on them.

I am arguing that the experience is real, not just real to me. It is a
fact that at 8:30am I had a particular experience. Whether or not
anyone else could possibly participate in exactly the same experience.
This "real to you" bit is relativism I do not buy into. It's real, but
happens to be only happening to me.

: Maybe we're not actually disagreeing on this key point, I'm not sure,
: but many religious people (not necessarily you I don't know) cross
: the line in my opinion is when you start asserting things like
: knowledge, you're going beyond the idea of this is what I experience
: and therefore this is what's right for me, and into "this is truth."
: Truth is truth - it's true for you and true for me.

And yes, either G-d gave us the Torah at a low mountain in the Sinai
desert, complete with a legal process we call halakhah, or He did not.
There is only one truth.

I had experiences that convinced me they are the product of truth.
They convinced me sufficiently that questions about the Flood or the
Tower of Babel -- side-issues compared to the core of religion anyway
-- don't outweigh the power of repeated experience.

: So when I'm saying it's "true" that if you jump off a bridge you'll
: fall, that's an objective statement, that is, we can each observe
: ourselves whether or not that in fact happens. Still, I'm not
: asserting that as "reality" but as an observation -- this is what
: SEEMS to happen.

Objective statement or one person's observation?

: What gets my goat is when people like Lisa make assertions about what
: I "know to be true," because she is so resistant to the idea of belief
: she must insist that I experience what she experiences. Lisa is
: extreme, but what she's saying is consistent with her beliefs.

: So we're in a situation where my view is "live and let live" but the
: religious person can't do that, because it violates the truth. Or
: something.

No one can do it. Everyone has beliefs they take for granted are true,
and thus knowledge. "Live and let live" is far too often a lack of
commitment masked as a noble ideal.

OTOH, it is on a rarity an ideal -- to value people's autonomy more
than valuing their knowing something you consider true. I could even
see that being a religious principle.

Judaism is a religion where the body most empowered to impose truth
disabled that power when they saw that the masses would not willingly
accept it. When the number of capital offenses grew too commonplace,
the Sanhedrin left its seat of authority, the Chamber of Hewn Wood
(Lishkas haGazis) in the Temple, for the sole purpose of not being
forced into an murderous inquisition. And that's after all the
limitations that exist that make capital punishment nearly impossible.

We might not agree on where to place the line between promoting things
we believe to be true and allowing people the right to be independent
even when wrong, but Judaism is better designed at avoiding
totalitarianism than other religions I can think of. Let's not
generalize.

Tir'u baTov!
-mi

--
Micha Berger Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten
micha@xxxxxxxxxxx your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip,
http://www.aishdas.org and it flies away.
Fax: (270) 514-1507 - Rav Yisrael Salanter

.

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