Knowledge
My questions arose during a Greek Drama course I’m taking – CL316 – when the professor was mocking filmmakers for their heinous mispronunciation of a classical Grecian character. He laughed arrogantly and remarked with complete certainty that it was “Priam” (pree-am not pry-am).
Before he continued on his tirade on the defilement of Ancient Greece by Hollywood, I asked him how he knew the proper pronunciation.
“Well, it’s underst…and some writings refer to…I don’t know…”
Granted it was only a minor oversight, but it bothered me for the rest of the day. Perhaps it wasn’t the only class where I was being taught something that was false or unproven.
And thus, it began, I examined each class intently, trying to find proof of their content’s validity…and to my surprise, (another example of my tremendous naivte) I found none.
For example, Evolutionary Biology, is almost entirely unreasonable, as our introduction to the theory included the admission that numerous other hypotheses fit better in terms of theory validation (Although evolution is clearly the most plausible).
What is true? What can I see, touch, or understand that I can know is fact. Is matter? No, it could disappear as abruptly as it began. What about my senses? Can I trust my eyes? If I were blind, and suddenly regained my sight, would everything look be the same?
The only thing that I have been able to find that most regularly resembles fact is instinct. By this, I am not referring to the romanticized definition, but to its psychological explanation as an innate behavior that can be in response to a specific stimulus. This inborn information, such as the senses themselves and motor control, is completely true, unique, but fact.
The reason that I believe innate information to be unquestionably true is because it has not been affected, and the original information must be true because it is what, essentially, controls our biological functions.
This truth is most likely not stored within the brain itself, and is therefore much less dynamic. One interesting paper even suggests that instincts may be stored genetically in the excised portions of the human genome called introns. These introns are not expressed in protein synthesis, but they are believed to have alternate purposes since they comprise the largest part (over 90%) of the organism’s genetic information.
Since this information is entirely factual (and therefore functional), we can begin to look at other related areas that maintain the same factual basis, but go beyond simple biological instincts.
This is where the line between truth and untruth disappears. For the knowledge to be of any use, it must be learned and not inherited. Growing and gaining wisdom is dependant on the information and the process.
As a result, any knowledge that was gained comes from the outside, where it could have easily become false. This information cannot be verified by the senses, because as I stated earlier, only the process of sensing can be guaranteed as truthful. I am not saying that everything around us is an illusion, I am simply stating that very little is unconditionally true. Hopefully, I will be able to expand on these most basic truths in future articles.
I am sure this will spark a long and heated debate, and that is what philosophy is about. So go ahead, what is Knowledge to you?
Jon
Sep 21, 07:57 PM
Firstly in response to the article, just for clarification, are you referring to epistemology, the aqcuisition of knowledge, or knowledge itself in general, Truth in essence? Because I otherwise fully agree with you in the context of human aqcuisition of knowledge. I like to think of Plato’s cave, from the beginning of The Republic (book VII), as good analogy of things that we perceive, light shining on the objects and creating shadows in the cave that we can only see, rather than being able to see the objects as they are while we are chained in the cave. It doesn’t mean that the things we see don’t exist, but our own perception of them could also be flawed, that is the shapes we’d make the shadows to be as they are may in fact be quite different from the real thing because of the bend of light.
So what am I saying? I think that there may be many things that might be unconditionally true, in and of themselves, but we may not see them (at least all of them) simply because we cannot be all over history at once and see the origin of things and also we aren’t outside of the system to see the world, the universe, and everything in them for what they are. That doesn’t mean that they might not be there, they might. But I think it all goes to show that something or someone outside the system is needed to show the Truth of the things or objects as they are. Otherwise we really would be just as lost as the prisoner’s in Plato’s cave.
And in answer to your question at the end, I believe and understand that Knowledge is learning and acknowledging the Truth that is outside of us, outside of our perception and understanding. That is what it is to me.
Thame
Sep 22, 12:46 AM
“Firstly in response to the article, just for clarification, are you referring to epistemology, the acquisition of knowledge, or knowledge itself in general, Truth in essence?”
Both, and I believe you alluded to my description of each in your comment.
“I like to think of Plato’s cave”
Yes, it is one of the most helpful and popular examples of knowledge and truth and our perception of them.
“I think that there may be many things that might be unconditionally true [...], but we may not see them...”
While that is certainly a possibility, I believe that there is no unconditionally true information other than the most basic, unique, innate knowledge. As soon as truth travels beyond our bodies, it is subjected to our rough intellectual environment.
Imagine a tree whose roots are within us, while the branches (acquired knowledge) are far from the protection of the earth. The leaves at the extremities are still crucial, but they face the worst of the weathering.
This suggestion also leads to an interesting relationship between simplicity (If we judge the innate core to be the most basic/simple) and truth. If there is, in fact, a positive correlation between the two, it could be a very useful connection in a number of fields.
Jon
Sep 22, 05:29 AM
Be willing to elaborate on the analogy if possible, or was the analogy another way of saying what you already said?
Mike
Sep 22, 12:22 PM
do you have to sign up?
Thame
Sep 22, 03:05 PM
”[...] Was the analogy another way of saying what you already said?”
Yes, it helps me to visualize things whenever I can.
“do you have to sign up?”
I don’t think there’s anything on this website that requires a signup.
Life Feel
Sep 25, 04:43 PM
Knowledge is not realization
Jon
Sep 25, 08:40 PM
Actually I’m sorry to say the original theory you presented in the article was easier to follow for myself rather than the analogy, but thanks for using it anyway. ;)
So are you saying basically that the only thing that we can safely assume to be fact and unconditionally true would be instinct, the innate senses? Is this the same as or different to Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am”?
Also, are you saying that in essence we define what truth is by our instinct, or is it possible that truth lies beyond us and that we may try to sense what is true with our senses, that maybe we have an idea of what the truth is in ourselves? The difference being that former is with the assumption that there isn’t universal truth beyond ourselves, the latter there is.
Thame
Sep 27, 05:24 AM
“Knowledge is not realization."
True, but come back and elaborate :)
“Actually I’m sorry to say the original theory you presented in the article was easier to follow for myself rather than the analogy, but thanks for using it anyway. ;)”
Sorry about that, it helps me when I visualize what I’m thinking.
“So are you saying basically that the only thing that we can safely assume to be fact and unconditionally true would be instinct, the innate senses? Is this the same as or different to Descartes’ ‘I think, therefore I am’?”
Yes, I believe that the only thing we can trust as entirely true is that basic information which we have upon birth. I suppose it is a little different than Decartes statement, because in this case, the knowledge does not confer identity, simply truth. Whether or not truth confers identity is another question entirely.
“Also, are you saying that in essence we define what truth is by our instinct, or is it possible that truth lies beyond us and that we may try to sense what is true with our senses”
I believe that we can trust instinct as true because it originates entirely from within ourselves, and we can trust our knowledge because we can trust function. The knowledge that controls our bodies is unconditionally functional and true, therefore it is likely that other information that originates within ourselves (not tainted by outside information) will also be true.
Jon
Sep 27, 09:10 AM
"Yes, I believe that the only thing we can trust as entirely true is that basic information which we have upon birth. I suppose it is a little different than Decartes statement, because in this case, the knowledge does not confer identity, simply truth. Whether or not truth confers identity is another question entirely."
The context in which Descartes said what he said was a question of what undeniably exists, for himself. And he concluded that because he was thinking, he existed. And therefore his thinking was fact, unconditionally true. This is my understanding of the text. Identity was part of it, but Descartes tries to answer what he can identify as being unconditionally true through doubting everything else that could be doubted.
"I believe that we can trust instinct as true because it originates entirely from within ourselves, and we can trust our knowledge because we can trust function. The knowledge that controls our bodies is unconditionally functional and true, therefore it is likely that other information that originates within ourselves (not tainted by outside information) will also be true."
True it might be for the most part, but what about the instances of Plato’s cave, again? How does that work out in your framework?
And actually I was asking was more of a foundational question, just so I could understand what you were trying to say. I probably should have asked it like this: would you say that truth is subjective or objective?
Jon
Sep 28, 03:43 AM
Haha, wow that all read as is sounds rather contradictory, a day later emabarassingly, sorry. :
D Forgot I had to use Textile; I was using the html tag -blockquotefor quotes. So just to clarify, the first and third paragraphs are quoting Thame’s previous comment (#8). Sorry again about that, hope that clarifies.sounya
Sep 30, 03:15 PM
If there is One thing I know, It’s that I don’t know anything.
Thame
Sep 30, 03:22 PM
Jon, I fixed up your comment...I didn’t change any of the content but I made it a little more distinct as to who said what.
“I probably should have asked it like this: would you say that truth is subjective or objective?”
In the broader sense of what can be true, I believe that truth is subjective; however, using the system above for that which is unconditionally true, it is neither...truth in this case is unique.