Belief vs. Knowledge: Understanding the Difference and How We Attain Them

[Mahler765]

Delayed Answers

Phenomena as opposed to noumena?
Do you think noumena (plural), unknowable, 'exist'? Why do you speak in plural about these ### (I don't know how to call them )? I don't think it's a useful concept. So phenomena, just in contemporary sense (an observable event).

Why can't the noumena exist? I refer to them in plural because if one exists why can't another.

Law and theory
Yes, does it? So: "Newton's law" and "Einstein's theory", because I'm able to check up Newton's law as often as I want and can't continously observe evidence for Einstein's theory.

It has nothing to do with what can or can not be observed with the naked eye. It is simply a matter of a statement being supported by different amounts of evidence. A law has a substantially larger amount of evidence to support it because it has undergone a substantially larger amount of tests. I don't know the exact line where a theory becomes a law and such, but that is the difference.

Mahler's definition
Yes, I didn't know that by your definition of knowledge you actually meant "absolute knowledge". Your definition:

• knowledge is an absolute belief
• belief is a statement supported by evidence

Do you think 'absolute knowledge' is 'the' () noumenon, unknowable, undescribable? It's possible to make things that abstract, that it becomes meaningless.

Yes, in a way. If the noumena exists then it exists, no one made it.

'Knowledge' = 'belief'?
To equate knowledge to belief would neglect the (beit subjective) value we assign to these different terms. In some way I can sympathise with the idea of a 'noumenal world', but in the sense that our 'physical' and 'mental world' are 'representations' of this world. I would like to define 'knowledge' in regard to the match with this (in several ways knowable) 'ontological world'.

I believe that you are confusing the definitions again. The very fact that humans are able to conceive of the idea of absolute 'knowledge' proves that absolute knowledge exists. That is ontological. It's the same deal with a concept like perfection. Words and language in general are only representations of the experience of an object, idea, etc. When we use the verb 'to know' we are referring to our concept of absolute knowledge with the boundaries of human ability.

Eternal truths
To be and not to be. That's a question about 'existence'. You formulate the concept of an 'eternal' 'truth'. If you do so, you get involved with questions about the 'existence' of such truths. Is a 'mental truth' eternal? Does it 'exist'? Does the object you imagined 'exist' in your 'mental world'? Does an abstraction of 'mental concepts' 'exist'?
f the 'truth' don't 'exist', if the 'reality' nothing has to do with what is 'true', than you've an opposite world view. I am interested.

Define 'mental truth' and i will attempt to answer your question.

Triangle example
What kind of example do you want? The Pinkel triangle? It depends how you define tri-angle. The letter V does have three angles and two sides, the letter M has three angles and 4 sides. It depends of your kind of timespace, Euclidian? Certainly, it doesn't seem like something 'eternal'. Or do you still want to say 'triangle = triangle'? Was you statement analytic or synthetic [Kant]? If it's analytic it's as "'truth = truth' = eternal truth". If it's synthetic than it has to do with 'reality' IMHO.

The Pinkel Triangle is false simple because it contradicts it's own definition. See <http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~ursa/philos/phinow3.htm>. From my perspective, the letter V has one angle as it is formed by two rays starting at the same point. In order for it to have sides, it must be an inclosed geometric figure. I apoligize for the delayed response but the junior year of a high school IB program can get fairly intense. I suggest that we agree to disagree as nothing substantial is coming from either one of our arguments.

 

[Chronos]

Mental truth? To say there are concepts we are incapable of comprehending means nothing. You have created an argument that assumes there are things we cannot possibly understand. How is that meaningful?

 

[Mahler765]

It's no less meaningful than basing an argument on the assumption that we can understand everything. Both arguments have the same possibility of being false and if it's false, it has no meaning whatsoever. That's what philosophy is, isn't?

 

[Philocrat]

What Is 'Absolute Knowledge'?

As I have defined it eslewhere, the purpose of the human Consciousness is:

To Inquire and Acquire to Avoid.

If this is true, then absolute knowledge is a state of being where the perceiver, who is also the knower, stops to enquire and acquire. That is, he or she neither INQUIRES nor ACQUIRES, for he or she has finally perceived and known all there is to be knwon to finally and permanently survive destruction. In terms of the humans, I always equate this with the ability to finally survive physical destruction. It is a point where nothing outside the perceiver and knower can affect his or her well being.

--------------------------
To be finally but irreversibly preserved in this way is to be totally FREE!
Absolute knowledge and freedom consist in possessing neither needs that are outwardly fulfillable nor needs that outwardly desirable. For to do so would invite back causal relations...the very original source of all structural and functional errors in the underlying structure of the world.
--------------------------

OUTSTANDING ENGINEERING PROBLEM: On the basis of the above thesis, the oustanding issue, that is purely an engineering one, is how things in the world originally driven by causal relations would finally end. Say for an argument's sake they did attain what may be truly called 'THE PERFECT STATE OF BEING', would they end up as:

a) ONE PERFECT THING?

or;

b) A COLLECTION OF PERFECT THINGS?

Note that what is highlighted here does not affect any other ways in which the term 'PERFECT STATE OF BEING' or 'ABSOLUTE KNOWLEDGE' can be defined.

 

[saviourmachine]

When I've time I'll address the rest also. You don't have to answer if you've no time.

Why can't the noumena exist? I refer to them in plural because if one exists why can't another.

I did ask this, because if noumena are unknowable and undescribable, you don't know if there is one or more:
"Noumena, plural, are sometimes spoken of, though the very notion of individuating items in "the noumenal world" is problematic, since the very notions of number and individuality are among the categories of understanding -- so that individuality itself is a noumenon." (http://open-encyclopedia.com/Noumenon )

I point that out, because you - Philocrat - also seem to believe in a kind of noumenal world and to differ a) & b).

The very fact that humans are able to conceive of the idea of absolute 'knowledge' proves that absolute knowledge exists.

Strange. Does this mean that people don't have the ability to abstract? Or that abstractions are more realistic than the concrete things of which they are derived?

 

[dlgoff]

...Belief is something based on empirical evidence. Faith is only granted to your mind when you have the fullest of belief. Knowledge is something empirical as well.

...

Well, I'm not so sure. Are you saying that one either has faith or not? Can't faith have different intensities? I think Faith and Belief are the same thing.

Regards
Don

 

[DJmaux]

Well what I think is no human can know anything. It is immposible to say anything for 100%. Only god who sees the truth can know 100% without any doubt whatsoever.
All that humans can ever have at best is very very powerful beliefs.
God has absolute knowledge in that god can see the matrix of infinite possibilites which is every infinite combination of binary code possible. I know because I have seen this.

Just in case anyone is interested its a bit like seeing an infinite tree of 0's and 1's going down ward to infinity. 0 or 1
0 1 0 1
0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1
0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1

Sorry if when i posted this that above diagram didnt come out right but that's what I saw on lsd when I saw an infintie number of possibilites except the binary tree goes downward forver. It was like the entire infinitie possibilites are all created from 0 and 1 which is right at the top of the tree. And like I said god sees every possible combination of 0's and 1's within this matrix and that is having absolute knowledge.
Cool huh.

 

[DJmaux]

arghh no it didnt com out right. Its meant to look like 0 1 at the top then you draw an upside down V from the 0 and 1 so 0 connects to another 0 and 1 and 1 conects to another 0 and 1 then those 4 numbers connect to 8 then 16 ect all the way to infinity. I am not alone in seeing this as I have read trip reports of other people seeing the same tree so I am not crazy!
Sorry if what I am saying sounds a little scrwed up as i realize 90% of you will like yea whatever dude but I am just hoping 1 or 2 of you might find interest in knowing what gods infinite knowledge consists of.

 

[dlgoff]

Can't faith have different intensities?

There is the story of Jesus withering the fig tree and when asked how he did it, he said something like... even you could move mountains if you had enough faith.

comments?

 

[DJmaux]

Well I think when jesus says you could move mountains with enough faith he's probably talking about in the afterlife. Meaning if you have enough faith that you are god and when you die you return to heaven with infinite power you will be able to move mountains.