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

[saviourmachine]

1) A physical body remains at rest or in uniform motion, unless acted upon another body.
2) Experience is the smallest unit of mental activity that is what we call awareness.

I am not sure of that. You put statements as if they are the truth and the truth only.

Physics
You seem to know much about physics. What did apply force to virtual particles? What did apply force that collapsed the probability wave that accompanied a particle? What did apply force to the first cause?
Pretty common to believe that every event must have a cause, but why should that be the case? Why would (real) random events be impossible?
My thoughts are representations of circumstances, circumstances of which you think that are completely described by cause-effect relations. IMHO the complex systems and mutually relationships in physiological, sociological, biological, cosmical and physical evolution are perfectly able to hide new forms of relationships.

Awareness
If awareness* is physically exerted then you're right, but it doesn't have to be the case. I don't think that you explained awareness if you're merely saying that it's a sum of experiences. Don't you have to tell me "why consciousness is in the way experienced as it is experienced"?
I'm not very critical towards the physical stance, for example: I think that if you would copy me, there would exist two entities who had the same personality (combination of body, mind, whatever). I see clearly that consciousness and mental activity correlate, but I don't know what consciousness makes it the way it is. I don't know what 'it' is that makes me more than a zombie.

*I use awareness and consciousness interchangeable.

 

[omin]

Hey I tried to say it simple. I'll say it in one sentence again: Your repsonse was caused by the reading of my response and your circumstantial mental state.

BTW, the truth is what we sense, and it's the only ultimate truth we know. Why? I'll say it again. All that we know is what we sense (5 of them). What we sense is caused by something physical in the environment. Everything in the environment is physical. This is all we know. This is the what the word "truth" represents! Don't get it confused with change of senses. That's another concept.

 

[cogito]

All that we know is what we sense (5 of them). What we sense is caused by something physical in the environment. Everything in the environment is physical. This is all we know. This is the what the word "truth" represents! Don't get it confused with change of senses. That's another concept.

Actually, this is false. There are all sorts of things we know that are justified independently of sense experience. Further, we can know all sorts of things about objects we have never (and could never) sense. For instance, I know with absolute certainty that every object, even objects I have never sensed, are each identical with themself. I know abstract truths of logic, like that the rules of first-order logic are necessarily truth preserving, completely independently of my senses. Now, I may know about logic party because I have used vision and so on, but my senses don't (and can't) sense the necessity of logical or mathematical truths. Yet I still know that logical and mathematical truths are necessarily true. See, you empiricists have it all wrong...

 

[omin]

Actually, this is false. There are all sorts of things we know that are justified independently of sense experience.

No, because human conscious units only occur because of a physical interaction, which is a force upon our awareness. Otherwise, our consciouness would remain in an unchanged velocity senseing nothing, thus no conscious units. An object stays at rest or in uniform motion unless acted upon by some outside force.

Further, we can know all sorts of things about objects we have never (and could never) sense.For instance, I know with absolute certainty that every object, even objects I have never sensed, are each identical with themself.

To know this requires a physical force upon your consciousness. To know something requires that is directly or indirectly physically touched your mind.

I know abstract truths of logic, like that the rules of first-order logic are necessarily truth preserving, completely independently of my senses.

You said the key word, know. Knowledge is awareness, and awarness comes only because of forces exerted upon our consciousness creating the notion of knowing anything. Abstract doesn't mean non-physical. Otherwise, abstract wouldn't be sensed and you couldn't speak of it, because it wouldn't arrive as a thought, induced by physical force upon the consicousness.

Now, I may know about logic party because I have used vision and so on, but my senses don't (and can't) sense the necessity of logical or mathematical truths.

You are talking about physcal deduction and physica induction properties. Circumstantial changing states of mind all represent physica states, which imply the properties deduction and induction which we see in math and logic. The change in physical states is like a change in velocity, which is a significant principle that gives of sense of deduction and induciton in math and logic. Without the circumstatial physics sensed in the patterns they present to our consciousness, we'd have no physical mental representations of deduction and induction.

They Yet I still know that logical and mathematical truths are necessarily true. See, you empiricists have it all wrong...

Again, these truths are based upon states of physics as they pass through the consciousness, which are all incomming from the five senses. To have mental ordering mechanisms, we require instantaneous physical states of mind rolling through to know differentiation of sensed states.

 

[cogito]

No, because human conscious units only occur because of a physical interaction, which is a force upon our awareness. Otherwise, our consciouness would remain in an unchanged velocity senseing nothing, thus no conscious units. An object stays at rest or in uniform motion unless acted upon by some outside force.


To know this requires a physical force upon your consciousness. To know something requires that is directly or indirectly physically touched your mind.



You said the key word, know. Knowledge is awareness, and awarness comes only because of forces exerted upon our consciousness creating the notion of knowing anything. Abstract doesn't mean non-physical. Otherwise, abstract wouldn't be sensed and you couldn't speak of it, because it wouldn't arrive as a thought, induced by physical force upon the consicousness.



You are talking about physcal deduction and physica induction properties. Circumstantial changing states of mind all represent physica states, which imply the properties deduction and induction which we see in math and logic. The change in physical states is like a change in velocity, which is a significant principle that gives of sense of deduction and induciton in math and logic. Without the circumstatial physics sensed in the patterns they present to our consciousness, we'd have no physical mental representations of deduction and induction.



Again, these truths are based upon states of physics as they pass through the consciousness, which are all incomming from the five senses. To have mental ordering mechanisms, we require instantaneous physical states of mind rolling through to know differentiation of sensed states.

This reply is irrelevant. I'm not claiming that some physical change isn't always causally responsible for each state of knowing. I'm claiming that not all knowledge is derived through the senses. These are two radically different claims. Some knowledge, like knowledge of necessary and abstract truths, doesn't rely on sensation. I know not only that 2 + 2 =4, but also that this is necessarily so . The property of logical necessity is not a physical property, hence it exerts no phsysical force, hence it is not able to be sensed, hence any knowledge of it can't be sensory in nature. QED

 

[omin]

These are two radically different claims. Some knowledge, like knowledge of necessary and abstract truths, doesn't rely on sensation. I know not only that 2 + 2 =4, but also that this is necessarily so . The property of logical necessity is not a physical property, hence it exerts no phsysical force, hence it is not able to be sensed, hence any knowledge of it can't be sensory in nature. QED

Properties are physical. Property is a trait that is noticed from a change between two or more sensed physical states.

Neccesity is a principle of density. For example, state-one has always been sensed before state-two. When our knowledge (sense of the enviroment) shows that state-one has never been sensed (known) prior to other anyother-states, we can say it has the property necessary, meaning significantly prior.

You sense what a principle is because of knowledge states (that represent physics) that change.

Your sense of order is comparing memory of physical states to other memories of physical states, or memory of physical states to present physical states represented in the consciousness.

Neccessary shares the same property with because.

 

[Philocrat]

I would like to discuss the difference between belief and knowledge. How do we come to know? And how do we come to believe?

There are two fundamental things about knowing:

a) knowing that something (or anything) exists at all.

b) knowing what actually exists or is the case.

From the point of view of epistemology and proper conduct of the human reason, very often (a) and (b) are mixed up and confused. From the point of view of the perceiver or knower, who is also the believer, (a) is always beyond doubt, regardless of whether you were hallucinating, dreaming, a brain in the vat, or under the control of an ingenious evil demon. Therefore, any proposition that makes claims under (a) is never at dispute. And this is where the cartesian Corgito formula holds a solid epistemolgical ground. And since beliefs share the same syntactical, symantical and logical structures as propositions, they too must share the same epistemolgical outcome of the propositions under (a).

However, when it comes to propositions under (b) this is usually where the epistemolgical nightmares begin. The truth values of propositions under (b) are usually contingent and uncertain, and any beliefs that result from them consequently share the same epistemological fate. The LAW OF RATIONALITY greatly suffers from this when it comes to enumirating and knowing the outcomes of humnan interactions in an environment that we purportedly share.

 

[omin]

I think I agree, in general, but I'm not sure.

If I say I know I am having a thought, that's about as true as anything gets.

I call that knowing. I call that existence. About as pure as existence gets is consciousness itself.

Since all things that I think must be a sensed first, I know they exist. There is a wave of energy that is guaranteed to pass between things that exist and my consciousness every time a thought occurs, no matter how many transformations in that distance occur.

When I make a proposition about things I've sensed, it's the order I must test with others to know if I represented existence orderly or less orderly.

But every thought unit, as well as what inspired it, are directly connected and I claim they do exist.

I don't think I could say something doesn't exist. Negation and zero concept mean very little or extreme distance.

A proposition always represents someones thoughts, because someone must think it before they can say it. A proposition has elements that all exist. The order is the key thing. The thought units that make up the proposition either represent:

a subjective order, created by the circumstance of the mind, which have very little relation to the outside world

or, an order that does represent the world more.

 

[Philocrat]

I think I agree, in general, but I'm not sure.

If I say I know I am having a thought, that's about as true as anything gets.

I call that knowing. I call that existence. About as pure as existence gets is consciousness itself.

Since all things that I think must be a sensed first, I know they exist. There is a wave of energy that is guaranteed to pass between things that exist and my consciousness every time a thought occurs, no matter how many transformations in that distance occur.

When I make a proposition about things I've sensed, it's the order I must test with others to know if I represented existence orderly or less orderly.

But every thought unit, as well as what inspired it, are directly connected and I claim they do exist.

I don't think I could say something doesn't exist. Negation and zero concept mean very little or extreme distance.

A proposition always represents someones thoughts, because someone must think it before they can say it. A proposition has elements that all exist. The order is the key thing. The thought units that make up the proposition either represent:

a subjective order, created by the circumstance of the mind, which have very little relation to the outside world

or, an order that does represent the world more.

I made the distinction between type 'a-propositions' and type 'b-propostions' as a personal device for countering 'Hardcore Scepticism' that usually lures some philosophers into denying everything. Yes, I accept that there are many epistemological problems with type b-propositions. But type a-propositions are frankly self-defeating, since any attempt to deny everything with them quantitatively and logically declares the speaker non-existent too.

 

[Philocrat]

What do you think of the following sentences?

1) Nothing exists!

2) I believe that nothing exists

3) It is possible that nothing may exist afterall.

3) I see, hear, smell and feel nothing, I believe that this is the case, therefore, I know that nothing exists.

Spooky...aren't they? Well, these are all class a-propositions and don't be surprised if you come across them in some wacky philosophical texts. For me, this is frankly an abuse of logic.

Strange claims like these ones were the very things that kick-started Decartes on the project of restoring certainty of reality, if not to the world, at least to himself.

 

[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.