Knowledge

Personal anecdotes and conclusions!

Well, after perusing your post, I have to "spew forth a definition" so we can know :rofl: what we are talking about.

But you wanted anecdotes and general conclusions! It seems to me that what you are asking for is an education in epistemology. Now, I am certainly not qualified to serve up such a thing as I do not hold the "anecdotes and conclusions" of professional philosophers in too high a regard. However, I am prepared to serve up my anecdotes and conclusions for your entertainment. (In all honesty, I first caution you that the professional physics community holds that I am a crackpot and has refused to publish almost every paper I have ever written.) :rofl: :rofl: But we can lay that aside as unimportant.

From my perspective, the first problem is that philosophers assume that the human language they use in their studies of knowledge is the fundamental medium within which to express differentiation between those categories of knowledge: i.e., I hold that they are assuming validity of their own knowledge of communication. It makes it difficult to consider the question if you assume you know the answer (even if you argue it is only a small piece of the answer - which it isn't). Now I have a Ph.D. in theoretical physics but left the professional academy because, by the the time I obtained my degree, I had become fully convinced that the physics community had totally dropped the ball on this very issue. They had put no serious thought into how one distinguishes true (adequate) knowledge from false (inadequate) knowledge; they simply presumed they knew. :rofl: :rofl: You don't want to be a Solipsist do you? :rofl: :rofl: (That's an anecdote!)

Now, let's add the definition of Ontology:

And how "pray tell" are we to describe "objects" without a solution to epistemology. Some professional philosophers have told me that these are separate fields of philosophy. Another anecdote!

It is my position that the only starting point in this mess has to be abstract as we must assume we "know" nothing for sure while, on the other hand, our knowledge (valid or invalid) changes all the time. It is my opinion that the only mechanism under which we can discuss things which we have not yet defined involves the idea of sets. So I thought I came up with an excellent way of expressing this start point. That starting point is introduced in the thread "Can Everything be Reduced to Pure Physics?" but I have not seemed to interest anyone except "saviormachine". (You asked for anecdotes didn't you?)

So, from that starting point, I proved that the following equation must be valid.

[tex]
\left\{\sum_i\vec{\alpha_i}\,\cdot\,\vec{\nabla_i}\,+\,
\sum_{i\not=j}\beta_{ij}\delta(\vec{x_i}\,-{\vec{x_j}})\right\}
\vec{\Psi}\,\,=\,\,K\frac{\partial}{\partial t}\vec{\Psi}\,=
\,iKm\vec{\Psi}[/tex]
​

I first proved (if you accept the idea of "proof" :rofl:) the above relationship had to be true sometime in the late sixties, but I couldn't solve it. (An updated version of my proof can be seen in the "Nuts are us" forum.) Not being able to find solutions to it left me somewhat in a quandary (note that the index range has to be infinite which complicates the problem considerably). When I finally did comprehend how to find solutions (1982), the whole thing became almost trivially obvious so I wrote up a paper for publication. I was turned down by every journal I submitted it to. I don't think a referee ever saw it. Everyone of them said it was not within the subject matter of their journal; the physicists told me it was philosophy, the philosophers told me it was mathematics and the mathematicians told me it was physics. :rofl: :rolf: rofl:

In 2002, my son in law suggested I learn HTML and self publish on the world wide web. So the solutions are there if you want to see them. The problem is that I don't think anyone on this forum has either the education or the attention span to follow what is there. And that brings me down to my conclusion: I think I have solved the problem of the fundamental nature of reality and have produced the only valid derivation of Quantum Mechanics extant. And it raises some very interesting issues not even dreamt of by our "great thinkers".

But I am a crackpot and not to be listened to by Novices. When I was a graduate student I brought up some of my observation to the chairman of the Department of Physics. When I showed him some of the relationships I had realized (in coming to the conclusion my equation had to be valid) he said, "What you have done makes sense, but don't show it to any of the other students, it will just confuse them!" That was when I realized I was attending a religious institution. But I have to admit he was right. If you want to see a current version of exactly that same discussion and see the confusion it generates, check out "A Thought Experiment" (also on the "Nuts are us" forum.) And, hypnagogue, if you object to my use of that reference to the forum as uncivil or insulting, I would like to point out that I did not come up with it. It was used by a number of mentors posting to that forum.

Talk to me and I will talk to you.

Have fun -- Dick

 

Apparently it's impossible to discuss some issues without being charged with solipsism now and again. That makes me wonder if even the solipsists are solipsists after all, or if they just appear to be. I guess a true solipsist would never talk to anyone, so anyone engaging in a conversation can't possibly be charged with solipsism. Anyway...

As to knowledge, it's impossible to understand what it is, as the concept is applied to too many different and unrelated phenomena.

 

Knowledge cannot be explained as an agreement on what is true, as you propose. If that were the case, it would be impossible to empirically prove wrong what people have agreed to be a true statement about the world.

 

That is the intention; however, actual agreement is very hard to achieve. In fact, even when you think you have agreement, it is almost impossible to prove that you do. Understanding a language is exactly the same problem as understanding the universe. You may be throughly convinced you understand something and be wrong. And, yes, the problem verges on "paradoxical" but we all have very convincing personal impressions that we understand some things. Every year, millions of babies come into the world understanding not a single word of any language and yet, in a matter of a few short years they all are convinced that they understand a tremendous volume of their experiences. This must be a consequence of a finite number of steps (by the way, infinite means that, no matter how much has been accomplished, you're not finished).

That's what everyone with any sense says; but, as soon as I pressure them as to how that situation should be handled, they suddenly "know" all kinds of things and have no problem to be handled. Your anecdote is a perfect example: it is chock full of things you "know" and is used to avoid facing the fact that it is all assumed.

But communication requires a language, vague and misunderstood as it may be. In this respect, mathematics is the most agreed upon collection of definitions and procedures known to man. If we assume people understand what we are saying when we put down a mathematical relationship we can certainly be more confident than we can with any other set of symbols.

Absolutely everyone, to the last soul, presumes I am presenting a theory. I am not! I am suggesting a procedure for handling the fact that our starting point must be the very absence of understanding of anything. That is why I define the three sets A, B and C.

You have not thought that out carefully. One does not actually prove any particular agreement is wrong. What every such proof actually proves is that there is an inconsistency in that proposed agreement . An inconsistency is a case where two different results can be obtained from the same axiomatic starting position. The group is thus forced to readjust their supposed agreement. A proof of error is a proof that the supposed agreement does not actually exit.

Have fun -- Dick

 

knowledge not only needs believe, but it is believe. but as we can't be more sure than knowing something, or more sure than with our knowledge, then we can only base our demostrations and proofs and lifes in knowledge. and reality. and truth.

 

when I think of knowledge, other words come to mind like: information, memory, vocabulary, detail, order, efficiency, correlation, coherence, relation, experiance, simultaneity, referance, dependance, stuff, meaning, inferance, and so on. In some way or another, all these words have something to do with the word knowledge in my mind. I see knowledge as a tool that helps us do whatever we want to do.

To be sure of something requires the use of knowledge (i think). Can you be sure of something before you know it?

 

With the greatest respect to Doctordick, in my limited experience it has rather been "talk to me and I will talk DOWN to you"

Doctordick - IMHO if you really want to find more people to listen to what you have to say, you may have more success if you learn a smidgin' of humility.

MF

 

Question : Are you certain that you are absolutely certain, or do you just think that you are absolutely certain? And.... how would you know the difference?

Perhaps this is the only certain knowledge that one can have? But then again, it is a tautology isn't it? ("being oneself gives direct experience of what it is like to be oneself" - it's like saying "experiencing the colour red gives direct experience of what it is like to experience the colour red" - hardly an insight?)

Difficult? I would say impossible. Objective scientific analysis assumes a 3rd person objective perspective (ie an observer which operates independently of the observed), whereas "being onseself" is about as "1st person subjective" as you can get, and simply cannot be described or understood from a 3rd person perspective.

I agree with this idea. It is far too easy to get caught up in the subjectiveness of being, and we can all learn much by "stepping outside of ourselves" and practising to see the world objectively rather than subjectively. IMHO most people take the world far too seriously.

IMHO this "stepping outside of oneself" is then a release of 1st person subjectivity and an acceptance of the greater "objective" world viewpoint - this (again IMHO) ia what spiritualists mean by "one-ness" with the rest of the world (releasing the subjective perspective and accepting the objective perspective) - but this is NOT (again IMHO) a route to "understanding subjectivism via objectivism" - it is instead a "release" of subjectivism.

MF

 

Stepping out of oneself is an interesting phenomena in that i beleive one of its early benefits is that people shall become more responsible for their actions.

The first step is to recognise that oneself is an active consciousness that has got to this exact moment in time by a certain momentum of lifeforce which you as yet may know little about.

Simultaneously you have to recognise that whenever you are reflecting on past or present or potential future experiences, then this is the first spark to stepping out of oneself.

The reason for reflections is that you seek a particular type of knowledge , the reason for this particular type of knowlegde is that it is the key to your own expansion of being - whatever that may be to you.

Therefore , now you have to undertake the transition of creating a new oneself. You step out of yourself and begin a new character that will be a much improved and evolving oneself.
As the new oneself, you look at the old oneself which is still right here with you, violently struggling to overcome this new oneself which it rightly perceives as the prelude to its own extinction.
The old oneself has a huge arsenal of weapons in which to snuff out this new oneself. It has all your previous history of "being" including negative and positive attributes with which to work with and yes my friends, it has all the cunning you yourself could imagine.
But it has one weakness, and this is something that shall become apparent if your newself evolves.

So now you know the stakes are high and it is only those with serious intent that can make this transition.

Begin anytime, but if you dare to, you must do so with firm affirmations, the rewards are indeed great.
Begin by monitoring all your everyday senses and emotional responses , This is the first stage in evolving your newself , you will be amazed at how often the oldself will kick in and overwhelm this newself, but persevere my friends, persevere if you must.

Do not put any timescale on things, as time is the oldselfs weapon, be at ease with time, love it, forget it and remain vigilant to all your senses. In time , you shall sense an inner calmness within you ,