Depending on how you define knowledge you could even say you know it.
But that's just my point, We could sit around for hours/days discussing exactly how
you define knowledge, and still not agree at the end.
But if you accept that part of the definition must include belief. As you can't know
something to be true if you don't believe it to be true.
Then it doesn't necessarily matter exactly wh ...[text shortened]... belief.
I also believe it is wrong to commit murder, think I should stop believing that?[/b]
Originally posted by googlefudge
depends how you define belief and knowledge.
well, that's the gist of it.
Any sensible definition of knowledge includes belief.
In fact you can class knowledge as particularly strongly held and justified belief.
any definition that includes belief is not sensible. 'knowledge,' or the state of knowing is inherently insensible since such a state is an illusion.
While I don't agree with that definition entirely, you can certainly place knowledge
on a sliding scale of belief.
you could place it on a sliding scale of acceptance instead, where acceptance is concluding that according to the ability of your brain to perceive and analyze information, it is the best possible explanation at this time.
So I can make the statement that I believe there is no god, but don't know there
is no god.
Where knowledge here would implicitly be a particularly well justified belief.
then your belief is a fallacy and you have contradicted yourself. you have made a statement of belief based on a state of not-knowing, or ignorance. if you can justify that belief, the religious person can just as easily justify their belief in the existence of their god...and that would make them knowledgeable!
keep in mind that judgements are subjective. when you say justified beliefs, what you really mean are self-justified beliefs.
Plus you have things like, believing in being kind and polite to strangers.
It can be reasonably argued this is a good thing, but not to a certainty for all cases and possibly not to the point where you could say you know it's best to be kind and polite to strangers.
once again, you have demonstrated a belief that is a fallacy since you have again based it on a state of not-knowing, or ignorance.
it would be more reasonable to accept that in general, it appears that being kind and polite to strangers is a good thing, since they may return that kindness to someone else in need, but do so cautiously and watch out for liers in wait.
I can also believe that we all live in a common reality and that the scientific method
is the best possible way of determining how it works....
again, you don't have to believe that. the scientific method is not based on belief, it's based on a technique of investigation for acquiring and correcting knowledge. at once revealing the unreliability of belief in knowledge.
Good luck proving to an absolute certainty that is true.
But it is demonstrably helpful to believe it.
no, a conviction of knowledge is never helpful, especially in the scientific community.
...I also believe it is wrong to commit murder, think I should stop believing that?
absolutely.
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Originally posted by VoidSpiritRight... Well it couldn't be clearer that we disagree on what the terms and words we are using mean.Originally posted by googlefudge
depends how you define belief and knowledge.
well, that's the gist of it.
Any sensible definition of knowledge includes belief.
In fact you can class knowledge as particularly strongly held and justified belief.
any definition that includes belief is not sensible. 'knowledge ...[text shortened]... it is wrong to commit murder, think I should stop believing that?[/quote]
absolutely.
We are arguing without a common reference frame.
As far as I can tell your definition of knowledge and belief make those words almost totally useless for all practical purposes.
One of the (straw man) arguments against atheism is to define atheism as 'the knowledge (absolute certainty) of the non-existence of god/s'
and then, having defined atheism to mean this they then logically demonstrate that this position can't be rationally sustained they claim that
atheism is a faith based position with an equal footing to religion.
Many people, including some who would otherwise call themselves atheist, have been bullied into accepting this definition, mainly by various
theists.
It is however completely useless as a definition.
Atheist is a label, it is a way of identifying a particular position.
Defining it to mean something almost no one believes and can't ever be logically justified means it is now a label for a group of people who don't exist.
This is why most/many atheist groups, and me as well, use a definition for the position of atheism that is logically sound and does apply to a large group
of people who can now use the label.
Atheism then becomes a word it is useful to have because it is a label people can actually use and justify (if not necessarily like, but that's a different story).
My point here is that you seem to be defining knowledge to be something absolute, perfect and immutable.... which works for some areas we would use the
word for, but no others.
It basically restricts the use of the word knowledge to a very limited field, mathematics and logic, where rules and results can be 'known' with certainty.
2+2 will always be 4, I can be absolutely certain about this.
But this means that knowledge can't ever be used for real world ideas, concepts and objects, and their properties.
This is an unhelpful definition of knowledge because now you have to invent new words to do what we traditionally use the word knowledge for.
I will argue, that there is more than one kind of knowledge, and thus definition for it, and that it is inexorably linked with the concept of belief.
A lot of the confusion with this comes from the use of knowledge and belief in religion and superstition.
People talking about 'belief' often mean religious belief and possibly interchangeably with religious faith.
For my purposes I am talking about the words more generally, and I will specify, if I ever mean religious belief or faith by explicitly saying religious belief
or religious faith. The reason being that in those contexts the words are generally being used differently from normal usage and allot of arguments and
discussions get sidetracked by people trying to win arguments with different meanings of those words (which is where i suspect you get your viewpoint from)
I understand that there is much philosophical debate that has been, and still is had, on this subject, and I wont claim to have a final answer to it.
But I do have a working definition of the concepts that I use when making arguments.
These definitions are open for debate themselves, But given those definitions I hold that my arguments based on them (which you are disagreeing with :-) )
Are right.
I hope and intend to convince you through logical argument and reasoning that my definitions are reasonable and thus the arguments stemming from them
are also.
I expect and welcome your challenges to this :-)
This thread is entitled "belief", And thus I feel this is a fitting and appropriate place for this discussion.
I made the statement (as part of a longer post) that
"The only sensible position is to believe things for which there is evidence."
VoidSpirit responded
"nay, even that is not sensible. the only sensible position is to have no beliefs."
I intend to show that of the two statements... Mine is the better and more correct :-)
So let us delve into the realms of Epistemology, and see where the rabbit hole leads.
I will start in a new post with A discussion about how we know things...
Originally posted by googlefudgeIf there's any room for doubt, why choose to believe? What is gained?
well that was entertaining.... but not very helpful....
Would I be correct in summarising your position as...
Truth and knowledge are absolutes...
We can't know anything absolutely...
We should only believe things that are known to be absolutely true....
But as nothing can be known with absolute certainty...
We shouldn't believe anything ...[text shortened]... in it in, perhaps a less entertaining, but easier
to interpret and understand, plain English.
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First, I do not claim, no do I need, a perfect definition that works in all possible circumstances and is logically totally unchallengeable.
Philosophers have been arguing the subject for aeons, and still don't agree... Waiting for a perfect definition is potentially not only a long but
perhaps an infinitely long wait.
I am by nature reasonably pragmatic, and I don't need the definition to be perfect, it just has to work well enough for the use I intend it for.
In the same way as you don't need General relativity to plot a course to the moon, Newtonian gravity works perfectly well in this situation and
is much simpler to use.
My first axiom, We [humans] all inhabit a common universe/reality that we can observe and experiment on.
Reason, I don't buy Solipsism. I don't buy Descartes ["I think therefore I am" I have no issue with, it's how he then justifies believing everything else exists
I don't buy].
We might be in the matrix, or be the products of a hyper detailed computer simulation, or the whole of reality could be a fiction fed to us by evil demons,
but as it appears to be self constant reality where actions have consequences, until such a time as any experiment can be made that would be able to
differentiate between the options (and even then, you may be getting into distinction without a difference territory) there is no practical or rational reason
to not act and even rely on the above axiom being true.
You can hold the possibility that it might all be an illusion in the back of your mind if you like, but for all practical purposes, the reality we live in is real and should
be treated as such.
If your argument (for anything) comes down to the universe might not exist, it could all be an illusion, I dismiss it as silly and impractical.
This is relevant as the universe, our reality, is the thing against which I hold that knowledge and ideas should be tested.
If you say "well the universe might not be real, heck I can't even prove you exist" then everything built on the idea the universe exists falls down.
My response, as stated, is that if the universe acts in a way indistinguishable from being real then it IS for all practical purposes, real.
If and when this stops being true I'll change my mind.
Note I don't have absolute certainty about my first axiom. And thus I can't have absolute certainty about anything I build on it.
My point is that I don't need Absolute certainty, and I don't think that for certain types of knowledge it is ever possible.
This doesn't mean they are not useful, or shouldn't be called knowledge.
That out of the way.
There are different kinds of knowledge, some of which can be known with certainty.
If you make a flawless logical argument, and the premises of that argument are true and valid, then the outcome, the result, MUST be true.
In cases where you get to define the properties of something then your premises are valid by definition.
The classic case of this is mathematics, and my earlier statement that 2+2=4 is, always has been, and always will be true.
Thus if you learn and understand the laws of mathematics you can know with certainty the outcomes are true.
This is the basis of mathematical proofs. (This does not mean that all consequences of the premises can be known, but that all logical arguments correctly
built from them lead to true outcomes)
Also building on Descartes, you can claim knowledge of your own thoughts and memories.
I know I have memories for example, of reading the harry potter books.
I also have memories of being frightened, looking out my room down a corridor, seeing a figure made entirely of blue sky with clouds floating across it walking
down it towards me, of trying to push it away.... and then waking up (it felt unbelievably real at the time, and makes for a really embarrassing nightmare....).
I know with certainty I have those memories, but that unhelpfully, does not mean I can implicitly know the memories themselves are of true or real things.
Thus far the knowledge has been of things for which I don't need any reference to the world outside of my mind.
However you can also hold knowledge about things in the world.
All knowledge also requires belief, I'll get to this....
I once was at a summer school where one of the lecturers/teachers/leaders did a philosophy/debating day.
One of the things he covered was knowledge.
We sat down in a rough circle of chairs in one of the main rooms, with a table in the middle.
The lecturer then asked how do we know that that is a table? (indicating the table in the middle of the circle)
This is (sort of) what followed.
breaking it down...
First we need to know what the word table refers to, we have to have a concept of table, in order to compare the object in front of us with....
This proved harder than expected....
A; ok so how about an object with a large flat surface with four legs supporting it. one at each corner...
B; So having three legs, or having a central column in the middle would disqualify it?
A; ah no, so ok, lets have a large flat surface supported by a number of legs.
B; how about a large flat surface cantilevered out of the wall with no other supports?
A; erm ok, well its a large flat surface....
B; you mean like a tea tray?
A; argh, er no, ok its a large flat surface suspended somehow either free standing on legs or built into a structure some how.
B: does it matter what height, or size, or what its made of? for example can I have a central support 3 m high with a large flat octagon of steel supported fabric on
top and call it a table?
A; no, that's a sun shade... erm ok, it has to be at a hight at which you can sit under it...
B; you men like the 1 foot high coffee table in front of us?
At which point A beats B to death with a portable cooking stove.....
The eventual agreement, was that while a precise definition of a table was (didn't seem to be, certainly given the time constraints) possible, but that we could have
some sort of working definition that would enable us to identify an object as a table or not. Even without being able to define precisely what one was.
(also insert existential arguments as to whether a collapsible table that was currently stood on its end in a stack was still at that point a table....)
So we had a working concept of what a table was... now how do you tell if the object in front of you qualifies as a table.
This was simple, observation, we could see, touch, smell? and even if we so wished taste, the table. Identify its properties, and thus check them against our working
definition of a table.
So we had a concept of a table, and an object in-front of us that met the criteria. But did we 'know' the object was a table.
The final bit was that we had to also believe that the object was a table, and not for example a hologram, strangely boring and disappointing mass delusion/hallucination
ect ect.
If you didn't believe that it was a table, you couldn't claim to know it was a table, even if you had all the information about what a table was and the sensory information
about what the objects properties were.
You could only 'know' the table was there with belief that the information was true.
This would come under Plato's 'justified true belief' definition of knowledge.
To quote wikipedia
" In a notion derived from Plato's dialogue Theaetetus, philosophy has traditionally defined knowledge as "justified true belief". The relationship between belief and knowledge is that a belief is knowledge if the belief is true, and if the believer has a justification (reasonable and necessarily plausible assertions/evidence/guidance) for believing it is true.
A false belief is not considered to be knowledge, even if it is sincere. A sincere believer in the flat earth theory does not know that the Earth is flat "
There are objections to this definition, and counter objections, but for my purposes here it will do for now.
So
Justification of belief...
This is where I spend most of my time on these forums.
There can be many justifications for beliefs, and beliefs can be held with greater or lesser force, depending on the applicable justification.
I have already ruled out a definition of knowledge as requiring (but not necessarily of having) 'absolute certainty' to qualify on practical grounds.
So on a sliding scale of justification of belief then, knowledge is at one far end, but is not a point at the end, there is a spectrum of knowledge.
This then can obviously be argued about, where the line is drawn.
But this doesn't mean we can't use the word, you don't need to know exactly where the line is, just on which side of it you are currently on.
This is the same for all 'grey area' issues.
You stated in your response what I meant was 'self-justified' beliefs....
Which I reject. it is not what I mean.
You can have standards for justification that are external and agreed upon.
for example, to claim the discovery of a new particle requires the probability that the observed phenomena be due to the theorised particle and not to random noise
reach and exceed a pre defined level (known as 5 sigma) to be accepted as true.
The scientific method itself is a method of justification. (the method as far as I am concerned)
Thus when someone claims knowledge you ask them what their justification is.
The justification needs to meet a certain standard for the claim of knowledge to be upheld. (sorry theists, this standard precludes 'knowing' god exists on current
evidence)
However knowledge isn't the be all and end all of everything.
avalanchethecat asked
"If there's any room for doubt, why choose to believe? What is gained?"
ran out of space, continues next post....
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Continued from last post...
However knowledge isn't the be all and end all of everything.
avalanchethecat asked
"If there's any room for doubt, why choose to believe? What is gained?"
In a perfect idealised world, we would all make every decision and judgement on perfect information and reasoning.
This is not an idealised world.
We have to make decisions and judgements on incomplete and imperfect information, and seldom have perfect reasoning.
We also don't have the time to fact/logic check everything.
If you were at a conference/lecture and someone stands up at the front and says, Hi my name's jo bloggs, you are likely (and justified) in believing this to be true.
You might, or might not claim to 'know' what this guys name is, but the claim is very ordinary, and doesn't require much justification to believe.
Claiming there is a god who created everything in the universe including individually making each and every one of us is an extraordinary claim.
that needs a LOT of evidence and proof of the highest calibre to justify, if it can be justified at all.
My point is that trying to operate without ANY beliefs, (or only those proven absolutely) is not practically possible.
I am not, necessarily, talking here about belief in god, or any big metaphysical view point....
I am talking about the everyday things that we need to believe, to actually function in the world.
I ended an earlier bash at this with the question
"I also believe it is wrong to commit murder, think I should stop believing that?"
to which the answer given I believe (hah) was
"Absolutely"
I hold that I have sound logical reasoning for why it is wrong to commit murder, and so believe (quite strongly) that this is so.
This is part of why I don't run around killing people.
This makes the belief I hold valuable to society, and valuable to me, because it stops me getting arrested and thrown in jail. (and depending on the relevant
jurisdiction executed)
It makes sense to believe it is wrong to commit murder.
SO...
I come back to. (and clarified for less pith and more detail)
"The only sensible position is to believe things for which there is strong enough justification in the form of evidence and sound reason."
Those beliefs can by definition be adjusted for new and improved reasons and evidence as required.
It may not be a completely philosophically satisfying or built proof position.
But it's practically useful, and beneficial.
I apologise in retrospect for the length of the post....
I struggle with brevity.
Originally posted by googlefudgeJust a few quick points: 1) Descartes raises the possibility that we could be wrong even about basic mathematical truths (in Meditation 1), 2) Descartes doesn't think that memories are incorrigible, but rather that we can't be mistaken about the content of present, occurrent sense-data, 3) I'm sure you've heard of the Gettier counterexamples to the JTB account of knowledge. So what do you take the 4th condition to be (that condition that is supposed to connect justification with truth...)?
Continued from last post...
However knowledge isn't the be all and end all of everything.
avalanchethecat asked
[b]"If there's any room for doubt, why choose to believe? What is gained?"
In a perfect idealised world, we would all make every decision and judgement on perfect information and reasoning.
This is not an ideali ...[text shortened]... logise in retrospect for the length of the post....
I struggle with brevity.[/b]
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Originally posted by bbarrWell as my demonstration of a memory of something that clearly didn't happen,
Just a few quick points: 1) Descartes raises the possibility that we could be wrong even about basic mathematical truths (in Meditation 1), 2) Descartes doesn't think that memories are incorrigible, but rather that we can't be mistaken about the content of present, occurrent sense-data, 3) I'm sure you've heard of the Gettier counterexamples to the JTB accoun ...[text shortened]... th condition to be (that condition that is supposed to connect justification with truth...)?
I wasn't claiming memories are incorruptible (assuming that's what you meant)
However I do know that I presently have that memory, not saying anything about
the veracity of the memory its self.
I am not going to post much more on the topic tonight having gone slightly square
eyed writing the above. but...
not saying I don't have one [referring to the 4th condition] but I don't necessarily
need one.
Gettier challenged the JTB model by producing specific examples where it doesn't work...
This does not mean that JTB doesn't work everywhere...
by analogy, General Relativity doesn't work inside black holes, at the big bang, or
in the replicas of the conditions of the big bang in particle accelerators.
This doesn't mean it is thus useless or untrustworthy anywhere else.
One can operate with JTB, knowing where it breaks down, and have special
cases for those instances.
Essentially what philosophers are trying to do is the equivalent of a grand unified theory
of knowledge. It may or may not be possible, and might be hugely enlightening if we ever
got one, but in the mean time we can do quite well with a hodge-podge of different theories
covering their own specific domains.
Originally posted by googlefudgeRight, but what distinguishes an actual memory from an occurrent phenomenal state with the same intrinsic character is that the former is caused by a prior experience. And causal relationships are precisely the sort of thing an Evil Demon could deceive us about. So, on Descartes' view, we don't have clear and distinct perceptions of some state being a memory. We just have direct acquaintance with the phenomenal content of occurrent states. In order to get to justified beliefs about some states being memories, Descartes requires a proof that God exists and is not a deceiver (via his infamous ontological argument) and thereby falls prey to the Cartesian Circle.
Well as my demonstration of a memory of something that clearly didn't happen,
I wasn't claiming memories are incorruptible (assuming that's what you meant)
However I do know that I presently have that memory, not saying anything about
the veracity of the memory its self.
I am not going to post much more on the topic tonight having gone slightly ...[text shortened]... ite well with a hodge-podge of different theories
covering their own specific domains.
The JTB account doesn't work, period. That's what the counterexamples show. But everybody thinks that knowledge requires at least J, T, & B. We don't need to belabor the point, but what do you take the justification condition to be? For instance, are you an internalist or an externalist about epistemic justification? This is a basic question, not nit-picking.
Originally posted by googlefudge"..reality could be a fiction to us by evil demons."
First, I do not claim, no do I need, a perfect definition that works in all possible circumstances and is logically totally unchallengeable.
Philosophers have been arguing the subject for aeons, and still don't agree... Waiting for a perfect definition is potentially not only a long but
perhaps an infinitely long wait.
I am by nature reasonably pr ...[text shortened]...
ran out of space, continues next post....
(Thats as far as I got. You're doing my head in, it's still too early.)
Is reality a fiction fed to us be evil demons?
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Originally posted by bbarrI think that it is possible to use elements of both where applicable,. but if your going to be picky, I would tend towards Infallibilism and indefesability,
Right, but what distinguishes an actual memory from an occurrent phenomenal state with the same intrinsic character is that the former is caused by a prior experience. And causal relationships are precisely the sort of thing an Evil Demon could deceive us about. So, on Descartes' view, we don't have clear and distinct perceptions of some state being a memory r an externalist about epistemic justification? This is a basic question, not nit-picking.
with a little reliabilism thrown in.... not helpful? ;-) sorry, but my criterion is what works for the situation at hand.
I am a pragmatist, more than a philosopher. the point gettier was making is there are situations where JTB didn't work.
this doesn't mean that it doesn't work in all situations.
I would suggest that for a proposition you believe to qualify as knowledge requires the application of the scientific method to the problem.
for example the gettier case included in the wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology is this....
"According to Gettier, there are certain circumstances in which one does not have knowledge, even when all of the above conditions are met. Gettier proposed two thought experiments, which have come to be known as "Gettier cases," as counterexamples to the classical account of knowledge.
One of the cases involves two men, Smith and Jones, who are awaiting the results of their applications for the same job. Each man has ten coins in his pocket. Smith has excellent reasons to believe that Jones will get the job and, furthermore, knows that Jones has ten coins in his pocket (he recently counted them). From this Smith infers, "the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket." However, Smith is unaware that he also has ten coins in his own pocket. Furthermore, Smith, not Jones, is going to get the job. While Smith has strong evidence to believe that Jones will get the job, he is wrong. Smith has a justified true belief that a man with ten coins in his pocket will get the job; however, according to Gettier, Smith does not know that a man with ten coins in his pocket will get the job, because Smith's belief is "...true by virtue of the number of coins in Jones's pocket, while Smith does not know how many coins are in Smith's pocket, and bases his belief...on a count of the coins in Jones's pocket, whom he falsely believes to be the man who will get the job."
(see [4] p. 122.) These cases fail to be knowledge because the subject's belief is justified, but only happens to be true by virtue of luck. In other words, he made the correct choice (in this case predicting an outcome) for the wrong reasons."
My response to which is to say that smith doesn't have a JTB because he fails the J part. his belief isn't justified... not to the standard required for knowledge.
He omitted to check, and thus as uncertain over, the number of coins in his own pocket, which would be required to fully justify his belief.
His reasoning and justification would not meet the standards of the scientific method and thus doesn't qualify as knowledge.
This doesn't mean it was an unreasonable belief to hold at the time, it just didn't qualify as knowledge.
as the last line said he made the choice for the wrong reasons... the reasons are what is important. If they are wrong, you are not justified, and thus don't have knowledge.
Descartes escapes solipsism by invoking god. Which is so flawed I am not even going to go there.
I avoid it by virtue of distinction without a difference.
I don't care if the universe is real or a computer simulation if there is no observable detectable difference between the two from the perspective of someone (me) in it.
if there was a difference then it might matter, but till there is any sign the universe is not what it seems there is no good reason to do anything other than treat it as real.
I realise that memories can (and invariably do) get altered and adjusted, and just plain imagined, all without any outside interference.
But if someone had a device (common in scifi) that could implant memories into my brain that I never had, from other people or just made up.
They would still be memories, and at any given point i could go to those memories and say, yes I know I have this memory.
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Originally posted by karoly aczelprobably not... But my point is that if reality was being fed to (well me cos in this scenario you don't exist,
"..reality could be a fiction to us by evil demons."
(Thats as far as I got. You're doing my head in, it's still too early.)
Is reality a fiction fed to us be evil demons?
but for this thought your going to have lets say) you, by these devils. but they fed you such a self consistent
and reliable universe that you couldn't tell between this and it actually being real...
Then there is for no practical purposes any difference.
It doesn't matter.
Originally posted by googlefudgeBut it does matter. disinformation and misinformation are rife and at the moment and there is still no substitute for personal experience when detecting "the truth"
probably not... But my point is that if reality was being fed to (well me cos in this scenario you don't exist,
but for this thought your going to have lets say) you, by these devils. but they fed you such a self consistent
and reliable universe that you couldn't tell between this and it actually being real...
Then there is for no practical purposes any difference.
It doesn't matter.
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Originally posted by karoly aczelIt doesn't matter which it is because there is no difference from the perspective of the person trying to tell them apart.
But it does matter. disinformation and misinformation are rife and at the moment and there is still no substitute for personal experience when detecting "the truth"
If there were a difference that you could detect then it might matter, but until then it is a distinction without difference.
And 'personal experience' is a lousy way of detecting 'truth'. People make causal links all over the place where they have no business being.
pretty much the entire 'anti-vax' campaign/groups/belief is based on faulty causal chains and 'personal experience'.
the best way of attaining 'truth' is science.