Gradient of knowledge

[Speakpigeon]

Psychology cares about beliefs and beliefs are notions of what is true. Psychology (and all of science) cares about epistemic methods by which believes are arrived at because it is assumed that methods of justification for belief determine the probable accuracy of those beliefs, with the acknowledgement that complete accuracy (capital T truth) is not possible.

This suggests a view of science as capable of getting ever closer to the truth without ever reaching it ("asymptotic con-vergence"). This of course reflects our experience of science, for example from epicycles to Newton to General Relativity. However, by itself this view also asserts the independent existence of some reality, which in turns suggests that it is at least conceivable in theory that there would somehow be potential scientific truths out there for us to discover. Possibly you mean that we will never discover them so they will never become actual truths. However, do you know no one will ever discover them? Well, that too would be a truth. So, if you believed you know that truth then you would be contradicting yourself. So, do you?

Alternatively, you could fall back on claiming that you merely don't believe, rather than know, that such truths will ever be discovered.

Or you could also have a sort of purely logical argument about knowledge and truth that would preclude potential scien-tific truths from being actually discoverable. Although this doesn't seem to be your argument.

This is another way of saying what I already said, which is that psychology and science care about parts i and iii of the JTB theory. Part ii is an abstract goal that can never be obtained and we cannot have direct knowledge of how close we are to it, only how much we've satisfied part iii (justification).

So here you seem to be contradicting yourself merely by suggesting you know the truth that truths cannot be known (whatever the actual reason for that).

only how much we've satisfied part iii (justification).

There are different possible views on justification. Maybe justification is just a pragmatic process, much like science itself. Or it is a metaphysical concept whereby you are justified if somehow your belief happens to be supported to something real outside your belief system. If the former, then justification itself is a belief and we would be none the wiser for having one more belief to accrue our ever expending system of belief. If the latter (metaphysical) then we go back to the idea that there has to be something real out there that should be potentially the object of a belief of ours, which is just the notion of truth revisited.
At the very least, you're not clear which way you lean.

IOW, it is just a waste of time to talk about whether something is true independent of the level of justification for believing that it is. We should acknowledge that the most justified belief possible still falls short of Truth, and then pretty much never bother talking about that kind of Truth again. From a pragmatic standpoint in deciding upon actions, there is no difference between whether an idea is actually true versus it is the epistemicly most justified and supported idea we can reach. Thus, I am fine with the word "true" being used in discourse, so long as we acknowledge it means the latter. IOW, truth is what we have justification to believe is true.

Maybe it’s a waste of time for us now but maybe not for the next generations in the future. We’ve managed to survive so far on the basis of an approximate representation of reality but maybe the future will require us to have an exact representation of reality if we or our descendants are to survive. Truths would then become very useful to know.
EB

 

[ontological_realist]

One never knows that he is actually holding a true belief about the world.

This may or may not be coherent depending on what one means exactly by "belief", "world" and "knows". We cannot just assume a priori that we all happen to mean the same things. And this would effectively imply that we know something about the world, which would constitute a contradiction to your claim.

There is no way to know that some of our beliefs about the world are actually true of it.

Maybe there is. It's just that no one seems to have ever explained what that would be.

As ronburgundy said, "Because awareness of whether something is actually true is a psychological state."

Again this may or may not be coherent. If you conceive of psychological states as part of the world then how do you know that awareness of whether something is actually true is a psychological state?

If some one is certain of the truth of some thing about the world, it does not mean that it is certainly true about the world.

It has to depend on what precisely you include in what you call "the world" here.
EB

Interesting! I will think and reply to this later.

 

[fromderinside]

Psychological statements cannot be true. Truth requires all knowledge which humans are incapable of possessing simply by the observation they can't be everywhere. At best they are representations that hold with current understanding of a topic which in turn is only current if it is not falsified. Obviously it is not truth, but, observed consistency of materially verified statements that ae rather crucial to psychology.

I'm just so PROUD o' you, maaan!


Ok, enough with civilities, let me quibble some, ya' know how I am.

So, first, psychological statements cannot be true only to the extent that no statement about the material world could be true. So, this apply to all of science as well as anything else.

Second, if they are not true, they must be false, assuming they are meaningful and I will assume so but maybe you don't. Although, since your post suggests you accept the notion of falsifiability and therefore falsehood, I would expect you to take psychology's statements as possibily meaningful (i.e. some are, some aren't).

I also disagree with your view that knowledge of anything requires knowledge of everything, if that's what you meant. That might be true regarding the material world, but it does depend on the material world, and since you seem to accept you don't know it, you can't logically pretend to know that it is such that knowledge of anything requires knowledge of everything. I accept however that your view seems consistent with your other beliefs about the unity of the material world.

Finally, my post wasn't asserting the truth of any psychological statements contrary to what your reply seems to suggest. I was questionning the logical consistency of ronburgundy's post.

Keep up the good work!
EB

How can there be logical consistency re: psychological statements if the status of those statements, other than they were presented, is unknown?

I'm not getting into whether presenting a statement has any relevance with respect to whether it is true or false. It is true that it was presented is the best I can guess about the statement. My quibble is with whether a psychological statement can be evaluated in terms of truth which presents a problem similar to that of its presentation. It may or may not be based on any material understanding relating to one's understanding of psychology and statements. If there are additional statements upon which the statement is based they need to be evaluated. This goes down to the point of initial statements which I presume for the lack of evidence to be just human uttering. As I hope the above mishmash illustrates psychological statements are, at base, no different from statements which I have already decided. The truth is unknowable , thus irrelevant beyond the fact that the statement was presented which, I suppose we can both agree is true.

The question then reverts to whether the fact that a statement was presented being true has any truth value relating to psychological truth. By the test I just presented we agree the statement was presented is true. It come to our agreement that the psychological statement is true. Truth by that standard would become chaotic when more than one statement is contained in the psychological statement or there were several witnessed presentations made which included different pairs, trios, or multitudes of witnesses. It is chaotic because some would agree, having witnessed all statement presented in a given setting, that the statement was true while others, not privy to the presentation of all statements made would consider the status of the statements unknown (see above). We can, by extension com to the general conclusion that since not everyone will have heard every statement made that the truth of all the statements is unknown. A single person missing a single statement falsifies the presumtion of agreement among observers so the ttruth presumption from that is falsified.

Extending this to all statements made for all time is becomes obvious that the truth cannot be known by other than one who has witnessed all statement, events, conditions, situations, etc, and that if he is the only one the status of all statements must be judged unknown. It requires two observers to establish truth even under conditions of all knowing. If there are two then one doesn't completely know the other so truth is impossible to establish by an agreement among witnesses.

Having sawed off every branch of agreement establishing truth leaves us with a problem. There may be truth but it cannot be known, it may only be guessed or presumed based on a preponderance of agreement among observers. I call this situation the situation of understanding which I believe is all we can establish about statements.

 

[fast]

Truth isn't unknowable.

 

[ontological_realist]

One never knows that he is actually holding a true belief about the world.

This may or may not be coherent depending on what one means exactly by "belief", "world" and "knows". We cannot just assume a priori that we all happen to mean the same things. And this would effectively imply that we know something about the world, which would constitute a contradiction to your claim.

By what exact meanings of "belief", "world" and "knows" it is coherent?

 

[fromderinside]

Truth isn't unknowable.

Yet it is.

 

[fast]

Truth isn't unknowable.

Yet it is.

Then you must be operating from a distorted sense of what it means to know something. Of all the things we think we know, you think we're missing the mark in every case? Non-sense.

 

[Speakpigeon]

How can there be logical consistency re: psychological statements if the status of those statements, other than they were presented, is unknown?

I'm not getting into whether presenting a statement has any relevance with respect to whether it is true or false. It is true that it was presented is the best I can guess about the statement. My quibble is with whether a psychological statement can be evaluated in terms of truth which presents a problem similar to that of its presentation. It may or may not be based on any material understanding relating to one's understanding of psychology and statements. If there are additional statements upon which the statement is based they need to be evaluated. This goes down to the point of initial statements which I presume for the lack of evidence to be just human uttering. As I hope the above mishmash illustrates psychological statements are, at base, no different from statements which I have already decided. The truth is unknowable , thus irrelevant beyond the fact that the statement was presented which, I suppose we can both agree is true.

I don't see why a statement couldn't be true of the world if that's what you are trying to say. I tried to understand your argument here but failed. I underlined the bits I don't get at all. A problem similar to that of its presentation? Initial statements which are just human uttering?What mishmash? What are the statements you say you have already decided?

The question then reverts to whether the fact that a statement was presented being true has any truth value relating to psychological truth.

I think it should be "relating to psychological fact". Can you confirm?

By the test I just presented we agree the statement was presented is true. It come to our agreement that the psychological statement is true.

What's a "psychological statement"?

Truth by that standard would become chaotic when more than one statement is contained in the psychological statement or there were several witnessed presentations made which included different pairs, trios, or multitudes of witnesses. It is chaotic because some would agree, having witnessed all statement presented in a given setting, that the statement was true while others, not privy to the presentation of all statements made would consider the status of the statements unknown (see above). We can, by extension com to the general conclusion that since not everyone will have heard every statement made that the truth of all the statements is unknown. A single person missing a single statement falsifies the presumtion of agreement among observers so the ttruth presumption from that is falsified.

Why do we need to go into the question of agreement between different people? I agree it's a problem but it's a different one. Truth is not conventionally defined as agreement between different people. Let's see first if a statement (or anything representational) could be true of the world for one person. The fact that people don't know the truth of a statement isn't conventionally regarded as problematic and I don't understand you explanation that it would be.

Extending this to all statements made for all time is becomes obvious that the truth cannot be known by other than one who has witnessed all statement, events, conditions, situations, etc, and that if he is the only one the status of all statements must be judged unknown.

You seem to be confusing the question of whether we agree that a statement is true and the question of whether one can know that a statement is true. If a statement is true and I know it is, it is completely irrelevant that other people should disagree with me. That's the conventional view of truth. If you have a different view, you should start by explaining what it is.

It requires two observers to establish truth even under conditions of all knowing. If there are two then one doesn't completely know the other so truth is impossible to establish by an agreement among witnesses.

Having sawed off every branch of agreement establishing truth leaves us with a problem. There may be truth but it cannot be known, it may only be guessed or presumed based on a preponderance of agreement among observers. I call this situation the situation of understanding which I believe is all we can establish about statements.

If I understand you at all here, I guess my main objection is that you have a different, and very objectionable, view of truth. A truth to you seems to be something agreed on by at least two observers (you say, "It requires two observers to establish truth even under conditions of all knowing"). Well, why two? Why not one billion? And obviously there are beliefs regarded as true by millions of people, and therefore more than two, with which I presume you would not agree is a truth. So, the question of how many observers are required to make a truth is very dodgy at the very least.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

This may or may not be coherent depending on what one means exactly by "belief", "world" and "knows". We cannot just assume a priori that we all happen to mean the same things. And this would effectively imply that we know something about the world, which would constitute a contradiction to your claim.

By what exact meanings of "belief", "world" and "knows" it is coherent?

You made the claim using these words so you should know.

You should also be able to explain why it's coherent.

May be it's coherent to you but to me you are part of the world, which you say I don't know. So, according to you I don't know what you mean by these words. So, you shouldn't presume that me or other people know what you mean.
EB

 

[fromderinside]

Look at your distinction between seeing a shape and feeling pain. There is no difference between what getting to awareness for seeing shape or feeling pain goes through when you accomplish each. Nervous impulses are initiated and transmitted to destinations that carry through to awareness. So coming to a conclusion that one can know pain and one can only believe seeing a shape has no basis. Within body is no threshold for knowing.

Starting with your proposition I quickly came to the conclusion that one needs confirmation to produce knowing which led to the two through 'n' observers agreeing needed to produce a basis for knowing. I also rejected the idea that saying or uttering a statement has any truth value.

(1)Saying a statement has no truth value and (2) there is no basis for sensing internal states to be different from sensing external states your basis for knowing is (falsified) blasted out of the water. So how does one get to knowing other than by confirmation. the only way I found is that only through agreement with others can one find the statement's truth value.

Its not much of a problem really. The 'cut the grass'* is that even two Gods cannot know.

*^{_{coup de grace}}

 

[fromderinside]

Look at your distinction between seeing a shape and feeling pain. There is no difference between what getting to awareness for seeing shape or feeling pain goes through when you accomplish each. Nervous impulses are initiated and transmitted to destinations that carry through to awareness. So coming to a conclusion that one can know pain and one can only believe seeing a shape has no basis. Within body is no threshold for knowing.

Starting with your proposition I quickly came to the conclusion that one needs confirmation to produce knowing which led to the two through 'n' observers agreeing needed to produce a basis for knowing. Universal knowing requires all observers to agree. Since not all observers are present there can be no universal knowledge. I also rejected the idea that saying or uttering a statement has any truth value.

Saying a statement has no truth value and there is no basis for sensing internal states to be different from sensing external states your basis for knowing is blasted out of the water. So how does one get to knowing other than by confirmation which can only be through agreement with others on the statement's truth value.

Its not much of a problem really. The 'cut the grass'* is that even two Gods cannot know.

*^{_{coup de grace}}

 

[Speakpigeon]

Look at your distinction between seeing a shape and feeling pain. There is no difference between what getting to awareness for seeing shape or feeling pain goes through when you accomplish each. Nervous impulses are initiated and transmitted to destinations that carry through to awareness. So coming to a conclusion that one can know pain and one can only believe seeing a shape has no basis. Within body is no threshold for knowing.

Starting with your proposition I quickly came to the conclusion that one needs confirmation to produce knowing which led to the two through 'n' observers agreeing needed to produce a basis for knowing. I also rejected the idea that saying or uttering a statement has any truth value.

(1)Saying a statement has no truth value and (2) there is no basis for sensing internal states to be different from sensing external states your basis for knowing is (falsified) blasted out of the water. So how does one get to knowing other than by confirmation. the only way I found is that only through agreement with others can one find the statement's truth value.

Its not much of a problem really. The 'cut the grass'* is that even two Gods cannot know.

*^{_{coup de grace}}

I'm starting from the premise that there is a specific semantics distinction between the terms "pain" and "shape". I use the word "pain" as it is usually understood as a subjective thing. Something I experience whenever I am in pain. What I mean by the word "pain" in this context is just whatever I experience. This is no difference here between the thing and the impression I have of this thing, which is why I can conclude that I know it since I know any impression I have. I use the term "shape" as it is usually understood to mean something objective, something that is supposed to exist in the three-dimensional space we think exists. Thus, the way we use the term "shape", we mean something we can perceive by vision or perhaps by touch. I will of course have an impression of this shape and as such I will know this impression. I will not know ,however, the shape itself since it is mediated, as we believe it would be, through my perception organs.

We all believe to some extent that there are shapes out there but I personally don't believe there are any pains out there in the same sense there are maybe shapes. So a pain is not like a shape. While there is no difference whatsoever between pain and the impression of pain, we certainly all believe there is a fundamental difference between a shape and the impression we may have of it. You just choose to ignore the semantics of what people say and still expect us to have some kind of discussion but that's not possible. I may understand what you say to some extent but you certainly fail to understand what I say. And you can keep doing that for the reminder of your life. It's all the same to me.
EB

 

[fromderinside]

Look at your distinction between seeing a shape and feeling pain. There is no difference between what getting to awareness for seeing shape or feeling pain goes through when you accomplish each. Nervous impulses are initiated and transmitted to destinations that carry through to awareness. So coming to a conclusion that one can know pain and one can only believe seeing a shape has no basis. Within body is no threshold for knowing.

Starting with your proposition I quickly came to the conclusion that one needs confirmation to produce knowing which led to the two through 'n' observers agreeing needed to produce a basis for knowing. I also rejected the idea that saying or uttering a statement has any truth value.

(1)Saying a statement has no truth value and (2) there is no basis for sensing internal states to be different from sensing external states your basis for knowing is (falsified) blasted out of the water. So how does one get to knowing other than by confirmation. the only way I found is that only through agreement with others can one find the statement's truth value.

Its not much of a problem really. The 'cut the grass'* is that even two Gods cannot know.

*^{_{coup de grace}}

I'm starting from the premise that there is a specific semantics distinction between the terms "pain" and "shape". I use the word "pain" as it is usually understood as a subjective thing. Something I experience whenever I am in pain. What I mean by the word "pain" in this context is just whatever I experience. This is no difference here between the thing and the impression I have of this thing, which is why I can conclude that I know it since I know any impression I have. I use the term "shape" as it is usually understood to mean something objective, something that is supposed to exist in the three-dimensional space we think exists. Thus, the way we use the term "shape", we mean something we can perceive by vision or perhaps by touch. I will of course have an impression of this shape and as such I will know this impression. I will not know ,however, the shape itself since it is mediated, as we believe it would be, through my perception organs.

We all believe to some extent that there are shapes out there but I personally don't believe there are any pains out there in the same sense there are maybe shapes. So a pain is not like a shape. While there is no difference whatsoever between pain and the impression of pain, we certainly all believe there is a fundamental difference between a shape and the impression we may have of it. You just choose to ignore the semantics of what people say and still expect us to have some kind of discussion but that's not possible. I may understand what you say to some extent but you certainly fail to understand what I say. And you can keep doing that for the reminder of your life. It's all the same to me.
EB

The point is, dear one, that there are material connections between pain sense and shape sense as part of the class senses. You may use whatever construction you wish, but, when your construction comes apart with respect to sensation there must be something wrong with your construction. For instance the idea that pain is pain. Its joint pain, sinus pain, muscle pain, etc, just as are different buildings produce different structural perceptions. Interesting you include touch, a two dimensional sense, well three if one includes time as part of the 'sensation', produces three dimensional impressions, perceptions.

An example of where your reference notion may dissolve comes from experiments by George von Bekesy who used mechanical stimulators applied to the skin the skin to produce produces sensations of shape. Now both pain and shape are self referenced. What does that do the the semantic reference argument? My construction works just fine. I'm afraid your construction will last as long as the lexicon exists which supports it. I'm pretty sure time is short for that.

 

[Speakpigeon]

The point is, dear one, that there are material connections between pain sense and shape sense as part of the class senses. You may use whatever construction you wish, but, when your construction comes apart with respect to sensation there must be something wrong with your construction.

My "construction" does not come apart because I didn't make any. I'm just stating the obvious that you elect to disregard the usual meaning of words we use, which isn't helping communication.

For instance the idea that pain is pain. Its joint pain, sinus pain, muscle pain, etc, just as are different buildings produce different structural perceptions. Interesting you include touch, a two dimensional sense, well three if one includes time as part of the 'sensation', produces three dimensional impressions, perceptions.

I can't see how the fact that there are different kinds of pain invalidate what I said. Whatever pain I experience is a particular type of pain but then so what? I doesn't change the fact that what people refer to when they speak of pain is whatever they experience subjectively as pain and not, say, some imagery of their brain at the moment they are in pain.

An example of where your reference notion may dissolve comes from experiments by George von Bekesy who used mechanical stimulators applied to the skin the skin to produce produces sensations of shape. Now both pain and shape are self referenced. What does that do the the semantic reference argument? My construction works just fine. I'm afraid your construction will last as long as the lexicon exists which supports it. I'm pretty sure time is short for that.

I only maintain that I know whatever subjective impressions I may have, like pain, when I have them. The usual semantic of the word "pain" is that it refers to the impression I have when I am in pain so I can meaningfuly say that I know pain whenever I experience pain. I didn't say however that I knew shapes. I believe but don't know that there are somehow shapes beyond the impressions I have of them. This of course leaves all the room needed for being deluded about shapes, as Bekesy may have shown. I fail to see how one could be similarly deluded about being in pain.

The objective phenomenon associated with pain that would be the equivalent of shapes would be the fact that somebody else is in pain, something that one can easily be deluded about. The subjective phenomenon associated with shapes that would be the equivalent of pain would be the impression I have of a shape. I may be deluded about an actual, three-dimensional shape, but I cannot be deluded about the impression I may have of it when I have it. It's just that we don't usually want to talk about our impressions of shapes, preferring to talk instead about the shapes themselves even though we may be deluded about them. We do talk however about other people being in pain and sure we are on occasion fooled. We may even deny that somebody is in pain even when he is, something we wouldn't do about ourselves.
EB

 

[fromderinside]

My "construction" does not come apart because I didn't make any. I'm just stating the obvious that you elect to disregard the usual meaning of words we use, which isn't helping communication.

For instance the idea that pain is pain. Its joint pain, sinus pain, muscle pain, etc, just as are different buildings produce different structural perceptions. Interesting you include touch, a two dimensional sense, well three if one includes time as part of the 'sensation', produces three dimensional impressions, perceptions.

I can't see how the fact that there are different kinds of pain invalidate what I said. Whatever pain I experience is a particular type of pain but then so what? I doesn't change the fact that what people refer to when they speak of pain is whatever they experience subjectively as pain and not, say, some imagery of their brain at the moment they are in pain.

An example of where your reference notion may dissolve comes from experiments by George von Bekesy who used mechanical stimulators applied to the skin the skin to produce produces sensations of shape. Now both pain and shape are self referenced. What does that do the the semantic reference argument? My construction works just fine. I'm afraid your construction will last as long as the lexicon exists which supports it. I'm pretty sure time is short for that.

I only maintain that I know whatever subjective impressions I may have, like pain, when I have them. The usual semantic of the word "pain" is that it refers to the impression I have when I am in pain so I can meaningfuly say that I know pain whenever I experience pain. I didn't say however that I knew shapes. I believe but don't know that there are somehow shapes beyond the impressions I have of them. This of course leaves all the room needed for being deluded about shapes, as Bekesy may have shown. I fail to see how one could be similarly deluded about being in pain.

The objective phenomenon associated with pain that would be the equivalent of shapes would be the fact that somebody else is in pain, something that one can easily be deluded about. The subjective phenomenon associated with shapes that would be the equivalent of pain would be the impression I have of a shape. I may be deluded about an actual, three-dimensional shape, but I cannot be deluded about the impression I may have of it when I have it. It's just that we don't usually want to talk about our impressions of shapes, preferring to talk instead about the shapes themselves even though we may be deluded about them. We do talk however about other people being in pain and sure we are on occasion fooled. We may even deny that somebody is in pain even when he is, something we wouldn't do about ourselves.
EB

And to all within your context you are correct. However as for having a discussion it isn't possible for what is yours and yours only. We're not talking about that. Rather we are talking about pain, perhaps even the common experience of pain.. Whether we share common subjective impressions of pain are not at issue. That is not the same thing. I try to point to common ground which, by necessity, needs to be objective, seen and agreed to by both of us and others too. The problem of uniqueness of subjective experience has never been the issue. Your reversion to Greek understanding is lamentable. You have my sympathy on that/