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Information is bogus.

Val said:
Your Cartesianism is a bit annoying. :)
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We all are Cartesian but sometimes we find it just too annoying to follow our own rules.
EB
 
fromderinside said:
So what we 'we" before Descartes? How annoying is that thought?
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Even now, the most Cartesian among us may not know they are Cartesian. And that's just one example. There are all sorts of things we are without us knowing we are.

Some people are just lucky to be born at the right time to be the first to explain things to the rest of us and give their name to what we are.

Awesome.
EB
 
Remember I'm French, so most of what people say here just escapes me, especially you. Especially when time's up and you should be in bed.
EB
 
Speakpigeon said:
fast said:
suppose a girl believes that her name is Ann. Suppose she is 16 years old and has never thought otherwise. She is called Ann. She's went by that name all her life. Her drivers license and social security card is in accordinance with what she's believed her whole life to be. The point thus far is merely to point out that there is overwhelming evidence and no countervailing evidence to think she is not mistaken. That should satisfy the justification condition.

So, moving forward, let's consider that her belief is not just a belief but instead a justified belief. I don't think you have any feisty qualms with this so far.
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That's where I disagree. That kind of justification doesn't do the heavy-lifting job necessary to achieve knowledge.

You may think you're justified. So what? You believe X is true; X is in fact true; and you have some very convincing justification accepted as very good by all the right people. And yet, your justification is wrong or irrelevant. It's crap. Then what? You and the JTB crowd all claim you have knowledge. Well, no, definitely not.

That's also exactly why previously accepted "knowledge" can get degraded to junk status as soon as enough of the right people decide that the previously accepted justification is wrong, something that happens once in a while in science in particular, but also in justice, but also in any scholarly domain. And we may in fact all do it once in a while. You've done it. I've done it. The best among equal also do it.

What would be needed would be a metaphysically superior kind of justification, something "undefeasible", but then you'd have a new problem. You'd need to know it to begin with. And, obviously, you'd have the problem that you'd need a second-level justification to guaranty your knowledge of your first-level justification. And that's where you'd get an infinite regress. QED.

Well, no quite. There's a way out of this conundrum. I'll let everybody make suggestions in that direction.
EB
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It's reasonable to claim knowledge when our beliefs are strongly justified.
 
Five pages of, if you'll pardon my Swahili, absolute rubbish. This thread is not about belief.
 
Go ahead, make an argument.

If there is no information about the tree how does the brain make a representation of one?
 
fast said:
It's reasonable to claim knowledge when our beliefs are strongly justified.
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Sure. Absolutely. I'm all for it. I do it myself, all the time.
EB
 
fast said:
And if it turns out that my strongly justified belief is false, my belief will change, and I'll admit to having been mistaken about knowing what I thought I did.
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Yes, that's a perfectly legitimate course of action, especially in the difficult world in which we live. We better be pragmatic, plastic and resilient. If you decided as a matter of principle to admit to not knowing anything of the world, you'd never get any reasonably well-paying job. I suspect that kind of people couldn't go through natural selection.
EB
 
Speakpigeon said:
fast said:
And if it turns out that my strongly justified belief is false, my belief will change, and I'll admit to having been mistaken about knowing what I thought I did.
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Yes, that's a perfectly legitimate course of action, especially in the difficult world in which we live. We better be pragmatic, plastic and resilient. If you decided as a matter of principle to admit to not knowing anything of the world, you'd never get any reasonably well-paying job. I suspect that kind of people couldn't go through natural selection.
EB
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Admit? I do know things. My justification doesn't guarantee that I know, but a guarantee isn't necessary. What is necessary is that the belief be true. That I might possibly be wrong doesn't imply that I'm actually wrong. The rendition of knowledge that I'm putting forward doesn't require infallibility. Might be wrong implies actually wrong not one bit. What's important isn't impossibility of error. What's important is actuality of no error.
 
fast said:
Admit? I do know things. My justification doesn't guarantee that I know, but a guarantee isn't necessary. What is necessary is that the belief be true. That I might possibly be wrong doesn't imply that I'm actually wrong. The rendition of knowledge that I'm putting forward doesn't require infallibility. Might be wrong implies actually wrong not one bit. What's important isn't impossibility of error. What's important is actuality of no error.
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That's your angle. As I see it, knowledge implies true, i.e. if one knows that X, then it is true that X. You have admitted that it is possible that one claim knowledge only to retract that claim later. And you've made no distinction in that respect as to the object of knowledge. So you're as good as saying that if one knows that X, then it is not necessarily true that X, just like for beliefs. Further, the role of justification in your conception makes knowledge nothing but a kind of belief. You will say you know as long as you believe your justification for your belief is "strong" enough and you will stop claiming knowledge as soon as you come to believe that the same justification isn't strong enough anymore. According to this, there would be no difference between knowledge and beliefs. All beliefs are justified in the eyes of the beholder and even beliefs with poor justification may in fact be true. Your position is just hopeless.

Still, like Voltaire, I will fight for your right to claim that you know even though I know you're wrong.
EB
 
Speakpigeon said:
That's your angle. As I see it, knowledge implies true, i.e. if one knows that X, then it is true that X.
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That's my position. Knowledge implies truth. That doesn't mean what you might think. If I do in fact know something (not just believe but in fact know), then what I believe is (is, is, is, is, is) true. That's my position. And, that's essentially what you just wrote: "if one knows that X, then it is true that X." But, that's not really your position. I'll say it again: if I know P, then P is true. That's my position. MY position. Your position is different. Substantively different. Your view is: if I know P, then P must be true. That's not my position. Not mine. Nope nope. That's yours, not mine. Mine is (is is is) and yours is must (must must must). Necessary truth? No, not my perspective at all.

You have admitted that it is possible that one claim knowledge only to retract that claim later.
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To err is human. When I believe something, I may be wrong, but if I know something, then I am not wrong. If I claim to know, the claim doesn't imply truth. Still, if (if!) I do in fact actually know, then what I believe is (there's that 'is' again) without a shadow of doubt indeed true.

Not all strongly justified beliefs have the same truth value. Some are true while some are false. I think I know them both, but only the ones I'm not mistaken about count as actual knowledge.

And you've made no distinction in that respect as to the object of knowledge. So you're as good as saying that if one knows that X, then it is not necessarily true that X, just like for beliefs.
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Again, if I know P, then P is true, so you're right, I do not hold that if I know P, then necessarily, P is true.

Further, the role of justification in your conception makes knowledge nothing but a kind of belief. You will say you know as long as you believe your justification for your belief is "strong" enough and you will stop claiming knowledge as soon as you come to believe that the same justification isn't strong enough anymore. According to this, there would be no difference between knowledge and beliefs. All beliefs are justified in the eyes of the beholder and even beliefs with poor justification may in fact be true. Your position is just hopeless.

Still, like Voltaire, I will fight for your right to claim that you know even though I know you're wrong.
EB
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You hold knowledge to a standard that only an infallible person can obtain. The bar is not supposed to be so unattainable. People (non philosophers) don't typically go around saying and believing they know nothing. I don't claim to know my username on this board is "fast" for pragmatic reasons, and even if a justified belief is a kind of belief, most of those strongly justified kind of beliefs ARE true even when the truth isn't a necessary truth.
 
untermensche said:
Go ahead, make an argument.

If there is no information about the tree how does the brain make a representation of one?
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Oh for fuck's sake. Please don't tell me you've got your head in Schrodinger's arsehole.

Do you think that aliens exist?
Do you think that undiscovered organisms exist in the deep ocean trenches?

More to the point, do aliens start existing the moment we know about them?

I'm holding up a certain number of fingers. Can you guess which one(s)? Or am I not doing it because you can't see it?

Do you think the world existed before you were born, or did it start existing when you crawled outta momma's unmentionable?
 
fast said:
Speakpigeon said:
That's your angle. As I see it, knowledge implies true, i.e. if one knows that X, then it is true that X.
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That's my position. Knowledge implies truth. That doesn't mean what you might think. If I do in fact know something (not just believe but in fact know), then what I believe is (is, is, is, is, is) true. That's my position. And, that's essentially what you just wrote: "if one knows that X, then it is true that X." But, that's not really your position. I'll say it again: if I know P, then P is true. That's my position. MY position. Your position is different. Substantively different. Your view is: if I know P, then P must be true. That's not my position. Not mine. Nope nope. That's yours, not mine. Mine is (is is is) and yours is must (must must must). Necessary truth? No, not my perspective at all.

You have admitted that it is possible that one claim knowledge only to retract that claim later.
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To err is human. When I believe something, I may be wrong, but if I know something, then I am not wrong. If I claim to know, the claim doesn't imply truth. Still, if (if!) I do in fact actually know, then what I believe is (there's that 'is' again) without a shadow of doubt indeed true.

Not all strongly justified beliefs have the same truth value. Some are true while some are false. I think I know them both, but only the ones I'm not mistaken about count as actual knowledge.

And you've made no distinction in that respect as to the object of knowledge. So you're as good as saying that if one knows that X, then it is not necessarily true that X, just like for beliefs.
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Again, if I know P, then P is true, so you're right, I do not hold that if I know P, then necessarily, P is true.
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To say that if one knows that X, then it is true that X means the same as saying that if one knows that X, then it is necessarily true that X. "Necessarily" here is only used for emphasis, not at all in any absolute, metaphysical sense. What would be different would be to say that if one knows that X, then it is true necessarily that X. "Necessarily true" and "true necessarily" don't mean the same at all. And this should be obvious to you of all people.

In fact, personally, I don't even understand what it would mean to say that if one knows that X, then it is true necessarily that X. I certainly understand "if one knew that X, then it would be true necessarily that X", but that would be something else entirely.

So, no, you're just plain wrong, my view of knowledge doesn't include any idea of anything being true necessarily.

So, in any case, we seem to agree on the basic property of knowledge, i.e. that if one knows that X, then it is true that X. So, for example, if I know that God exists, then it is true that God exists. Now, please look carefully here. Once we've all agreed on that, can we claim that anybody knows that Gods exists? No, obviously, we couldn't.

So, now your position is to claim you may have some justification. As I understand your position, you can claim to know just because you have what you believe to be sufficient justification. So, clearly, now your problem is whether you know that your justification is really good enough. You may believe is but so what? So, me, I don't see any difference between your view of knowledge with the ordinary view of belief. Again, all beliefs can be justified if you put your mind to it and yet they're just beliefs. Your view of knowledge is not different from the ordinary notion of belief because each of your claims to knowledge relies on a belief, the belief that you have some proper justification to believe. So, you have one nice little piece of infinite regress which makes sure that you don't know that you know. You start from claiming knowledge, which requires justification, which you have not only to believe but claim to know is true, so now you need another level of justification, and so on ad infinitum. So, in effect, all you can really claim, even if it were true that you knew, is not that you know, but that you believe you know. You would be unable to prove conclusively that you know. Maybe you know, but maybe God exists, and if God exists, well, it's true that God exist. Big deal.

fast said:
You hold knowledge to a standard that only an infallible person can obtain. The bar is not supposed to be so unattainable. People (non philosophers) don't typically go around saying and believing they know nothing.
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Yes, and I've already explained why that is. This is because we human beings have an objective interest in lying, or even in deceiving ourselves that we know stuff, and it does in fact looks like we sometimes do. So, we keep pretending. And when we pretend to know, who is going to be so bold as to claim we don't? It's easy to get away with it, not least because we all claim we know when we don't. We are even comforted when our initially little justified belief gathers support from other people, which seems to increase our justification, although it couldn't possibly increase the truth of our belief.

You're confusing usage of the word "knowledge", which should tell us what we mean by it, and our behaviour when we use it. People can behave badly but that doesn't affect what we mean by knowledge, just like the fact that most of us have probably stolen something at some point in their lives doesn't affect what we mean by "honesty".

But, hey, you believe what you please.
EB
 
fromderinside said:
I believe we can't do otherwise. So that leaves me wondering why must we know that we know when it's evident we don't.
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Believe it or not, that must be because whatever we must "we can't do otherwise".

And if not, it's OK too.

Must be.
EB
 
If I know P, then P is true.

We agree on that.

If I know P, then P must be true.

We don't agree on that.

Must implies is, but not inversely.
 
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