What is the Nature of Knowledge

[Overdog]

Well, I had thought that my previous post would have elicited some response. In the past, assertions that that we are inherently religious animals has always been met with strenuous argument. Perhaps for the first time, on this forum, I have had the liesure of stating my case clearly enough that I have somehow managed to avoid the controversy.

So, since no one is arguing with me, I will proceed to the next items I would like to discuss.

These items are Reason and Logic. Why, from an evolutionary standpoint, do these faculties exist? What exactly is the distinction between the two, and how does perception (the senses) figure in to all of this?

[freeztar]

Originally Posted by Overdog

Well, I had thought that my previous post would have elicited some response. In the past, assertions that that we are inherently religious animals has always been met with strenuous argument. Perhaps for the first time, on this forum, I have had the liesure of stating my case clearly enough that I have somehow managed to avoid the controversy.

It has not gone unnoticed. Perhaps the collective of Hypography that was previously involved in this discussion has lost the momentum because of the time lapse.

Maybe a rehash/summary of what we've discussed so far and where we are now might help invite more discussion from varied sources.

So, since no one is arguing with me, I will proceed to the next items I would like to discuss.

Ok, I'll jump in here. (btw, you didn't happen to do that raindance on the weekend did you )

These items are Reason and Logic. Why, from an evolutionary standpoint, do these faculties exist? What exactly is the distinction between the two, and how does perception (the senses) figure in to all of this?

Those are very good questions.

I can't specifically tell you why those traits dominated, but it's quite obvious to me that these traits were beneficial evolutionarily.

As far as the separation of logic and reason is concerned, it might be a false premise to begin with. Can one exist without the other? Or, to what extent are they interchangeable?

[Overdog]

Originally Posted by freeztar

It has not gone unnoticed. Perhaps the collective of Hypography that was previously involved in this discussion has lost the momentum because of the time lapse.

Thanks for your response, Freez, I was beginning to think I was talking to myself.

Maybe a rehash/summary of what we've discussed so far and where we are now might help invite more discussion from varied sources.

I will try to do this in my next post. It will take me a little time to summarize it.

Ok, I'll jump in here. (btw, you didn't happen to do that raindance on the weekend did you )

I did the raindance on monday, june 16th. Didn't name my boat that for nothin...

Those are very good questions.

I can't specifically tell you why those traits dominated, but it's quite obvious to me that these traits were beneficial evolutionarily.

Yes, it seems obvious, but I would like to explore this further. I'm thinking these traits were essential...need more time to elaborate.

As far as the separation of logic and reason is concerned, it might be a false premise to begin with. Can one exist without the other? Or, to what extent are they interchangeable?

I agree this may be a false premise. At the moment I can't fathom the distinction between the two.

[modest]

Originally Posted by Overdog

Well, I had thought that my previous post would have elicited some response.

I had lost where we were, but I've taken a look back and reminded myself. Now, were we saying emotion was a kind of knowledge? I was thinking emotion would be a kind of thought for sure, but knowledge would be a bit different from that. Let me bump my list thing I did:

• Our link to the natural world is the 5 senses.
• Those five senses lead to experience.
• Experience leads to all thought of any form (emotion, reason, knowledge, ect.)
• Ignorance can be a lack of experience (placing it outside the realm of thought all together) or a failure to understand an experience (an experience that failed to connect to knowledge or wisdom)
• Knowledge is the structured organization of experience into something useful - Not a useful action, just a useful understanding.
• Reason is the process of doing the above (organizing experience into knowledge) or a method of doing the the same.
• Belief is maybe nothing more than the confidence that the previous step worked and will lead to the next step. I'm not too sure of this.
• Wisdom is applying Knowledge to “life” which by all our definitions so far requires reason, knowledge, and experience.

[jedaisoul]

Originally Posted by modest

...Knowledge is the structured organization of experience into something useful - Not a useful action, just a useful understanding.

I think that essential elements of knowledge are testability and consensus. Observations become fact (and hence knowledge) by a process of testing and confirmation by a number of, preferably independent, observers.

Thus a group of believers may concur that god exists, but does this constitute knowledge? I think not, because there is no way to test and verify this belief. Whereas if a group of scientists concur after a series of independent tests that the Earth is roughly spherical and orbits the sun, then that constitutes knowledge.

[Overdog]

Originally Posted by jedaisoul

Thus a group of believers may concur that god exists, but does this constitute knowledge? I think not, because there is no way to test and verify this belief. Whereas if a group of scientists concur after a series of independent tests that the Earth is roughly spherical and orbits the sun, then that constitutes knowledge.

Yes, exactly, but it is one kind of knowledge.

[Overdog]

I will try to summarize a bit first, maybe that will help clarify things...

By/In post #57, we had arrived at the idea that, at the individual level, there was no distinction between what we call "Knowledge" and belief, leading to the idea that, as individuals, our world view is a system of beliefs. We had also noted earlier that thought occurs in an emotional context. "We think about how we feel, and we feel about how we think.", "Emotion has a reason of which Reason knows not."

So beliefs then, are one kind of knowledge.

In post #58, I proposed...

...at least one other kind of knowledge, that is not part of our belief system. We know how we feel, don't we? We know when we are hungry... I'm calling this kind of knowledge innate knowledge. Innate knowledge would include instincts and emotion, and like Kant, Nature too "...had therefore to drop knowledge to make room for belief."

and went on to speculate as to how a "believing" information system (our brains) might have evolved from/within a pre-existing framework of hardwired innate knowledge (instinct and emotion).

Post #59 raises some questions about other kinds of hardwired, innate knowledge.

Post #60 introduces Theory of Mind, which suggests that emotion, our ability to emote or empathize, is also innate.

[Overdog]

Originally Posted by modest

I had lost where we were, but I've taken a look back and reminded myself. Now, were we saying emotion was a kind of knowledge? I was thinking emotion would be a kind of thought for sure, but knowledge would be a bit different from that.

So what I'm saying is that Emotion IS a kind of knowledge, but is is more like a medium in which thought occurs. A sort of "waveguide" for thought, if you will.

[modest]

Someone could also argue (though I will not) that on the individual level; all memory is knowledge and all personal knowledge is memory. The two are indistinguishable.

~modest

[Overdog]

Originally Posted by modest

Someone could also argue (though I will not) that on the individual level; all memory is knowledge and all personal knowledge is memory. The two are indistinguishable.
~modest

Perhaps, but then it would depend on how we define "Knowledge". I tend to think of memory as storage.

To me, it seems there are at least two major categories or types of knowledge, Beliefs and Innate. There may be others, I'm not sure. Certainly there are other kinds of innate knowledge we haven't discussed explicitly, such as our capacity for pattern recognition, for example, and language, but so far, I do not see any that would fall outside the major categories of Belief or Innate.

And, with this idea of "knowledge", I think then that we can say there are "ways" of knowing, some of which seem obvious or we have already discussed or alluded to, but perhaps this gets us back on track with discussing Reason and Logic?

Are Reason and Logic the same thing? Or is one innate, and the other a "way" of knowing?

In the context of this discussion, I find this course description particularly insightfull...

Theory of Knowledge

This course discusses how the student is able to know something. The student is described as an "actor of knowledge" who attempts to find knowledge, where knowledge, as defined by Plato, is "justified true belief".

The course teaches that there are four Ways of Knowing (WoK): perception, emotion, reason, and language. (In the new syllabus, "sense perception" has replaced "perception" in order to reduce ambiguity.) Also used are the following seven Areas of Knowledge (AoK), which are put here in the form of a spectrum, the two ends of which are labelled "objective" and "subjective", from left to right respectively: mathematics, natural sciences, social sciences, history, the arts, ethics, and spirituality. Also the course discusses Knowledge Issues, or limitations of knowledge, concerning the WoK and AoK.

The course teaches nine reasons for justification of things one claims to know: logic, sensory perception, revelation, faith, memory, consensus, authority, intuition, and self-awareness.

Also studied are the four supposed truth tests: coherence, correspondence, pragmatism, and consensus.

These nine justifications and four truth tests are key to the introduction of ToK.

The course is formulated and centered around one main question: How do you know? One is supposed to use the Ways of Knowing and the Areas of Knowledge to discuss how one acquires, perceives, and applies knowledge and how reliable it can be. Another question central to the ideas of ToK, relating specifically to the application of knowledge is: What is your obligation as a knower? Questions that may be discussed may include examples such as How do you know that the scientific method is a valid method of gaining knowledge? or What is the reason for having historical knowledge, and how is it applied in life?