IS MEMORY RELIABLE???

@infinidream,

infinidream;15382 wrote:

So in other words you do define knowledge subjectively.

(as we all define our worlds, but) I define 'knowledge' as 'believed' (to one extent or another) memory. The content of one's mind at any moment of which you are aware, memory, if 'believed' to be some reflection of some 'ultimate Truth', I would call 'knowledge'. I don't 'know', I think. I view/am memory.)

Quote:

We each just know what we know based on our own, unique perspective. I may be color blind and see green as red, and I might be a brain in a vat, and it all might be the matrix.

Therefore, you are writing to yourself on this forum.

Of course. What an excellent tool for 'self understanding and 'thought' honing and clarification.

Quote:

You aren't responding to what people write, you are resonding to what you read and how your unique consciousness interprets it. Under these circumstances do you think it would be possible for you to change my mind?

No. I do not think it is possible to 'do' anything.
But, even if so, why would i ever want to do that?
The only thing that comes to mind is as a prop for a weak 'ego'; "look what "I" can do; look how powerful "I" am!!"
I find pleasure in finding someone that won't choke on the food for thought that I offer. A good conversation provides uplifting fruit for 'all'.

Quote:

Interesting. I can't really refute your point of view, but I think it does discredit the word 'know'.

'Know' is a perfectly fine word, like holocaust or daffodil or genocide or butt... I would never attempt to 'discredit' it, just offer a critical examination (this Perspective) as, perhaps, some food for thought.

Quote:

a) What distinguishes the word 'know' from word 'belief'?
b) What would be the value in telling somebody I know something?

a) After a certain point, nothing.
b) Ego.
b) The value would be to the 'hearer'. Were I the hearer, for instance, you would be telling me that this is an area of 'belief' (to one extent or another) for you; that you are egoically/emotionally identifying with the 'belief'; that you will, therefore, defend your 'belief/knowledge', rather than be open to any 'critical updates' or abandoning the 'belief' altogether. New data is unnecessary when one already knows the 'truth' about something.

Quote:

I did not post this topic to establish an objective view of reality. It was to invite someone to establish the credibility of the concept of knowledge in the face of my proposed unreliability of memory.

I find the "concept of knowledge" (as I described it) incredible in any face.
Whether 'memory' can be relied upon, for what, when and in what context would, for me, be another question.
Thats how I see it.
Peace

@infinidream,

infinidream;20574 wrote:

Thanks for the interesting and thoughtful points.

I'm pretty much on the same page as you. The problem I see with redefining knowledge is that it becomes useless as a word. Most people define knowledge as the awareness and understanding of objective facts. If the knowledge of lip diddler in an insane asylum holds equal validity to the knowledge of a prominant astrophysicist, then we might as well not even use the word anymore because no one will know what the hell we are talking about. :sarcastic:

With understanding, language must also change. We definitely need to get rid of much of this medieval language/world-view that we religiously lug around... It will change, is changing. Are you a messenger of the future or a defender of the past? It is tough having to define the common words used because you have a deeper understanding then the 'common' word can possibly indicate. Language evolves at a great lumbering speed compared to the evolution of a particular 'speaker'.

@nameless,

a) What distinguishes the word 'know' from word 'belief'?
b) What would be the value in telling somebody I know something?

(1) If I believe a proposition, the proposition may be either true or it may be false, but if I know a proposition, then it must be that proposition is true.
(2) If I believe a proposition, then I may or may not have justification for it, or I may have only little justification for it. But if I know a proposition, then I must have adequate justification for it.

One value of telling someone that you know something rather than that you merely believe it is that in telling him you know you are guaranteeing to him that you have (at least in your view) adequate justification for the proposition so that he can rely on it. If, what you claim to know turns out to be false, then the person can ask you what your justification was for claiming to know, and if the justification turns out to have been inadequate, then he can blame you for having misled you. Claiming to know is very like promising to do something. When you claim to know, you are giving your word that you have adequate justification for what you claim to know; and when you promise to do something, you are also giving your word that you have every reason to suppose you will be able to do what you promised to do: so that just as when you have promised, you are saying that the other person can rely on your promise, so, when you claim to know, you are saying that the other person can rely on your having adequate justification for what you claim to know. "You didn't say you believed it; you said you knew it. You should not have said you knew it with only that kind of justification".

@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

What is supposed to be arbitrary about the scientific method? Suppose you want to know what is the capital of Ecuador. Would it be arbitrary to look it up in The World Almanac of Facts? Or, suppose that you wanted to know whether your car battery was dead. Would it be arbitrary to try to turn on your headlights, and conclude that if the headlights would not turn on, the battery was probably dead? What do you mean by "arbitrary"?

Interesting examples. I'd say the questions "What is the capital of Equador?" is a loaded question that only gets a scientific answer because it demands one. The assumptions the question implies are arbitrary, Countries and capitals are all defined by arbitrary, imaginary lines and would not exist without our insistence that they do.

The battery example is arbitrary on a much deeper level. It speaks to the primary premise of the scientific method: That the future will be like the past.

Granted, on a fundimental level we as a society operate and think
using the scientific method, but imagine a time at the beginning of humanity before the scientific method took root. Consider two groups of cavemen, one group believing that the future will be like the past while the other group doesn't. There existed a particularly taisty looking, poisonous berry. The pre-scientists would eventually learn that eating the berry is deadly and avoid it in the future, while the others
would continue to eat the berries whenever they passed the taisty looking bush. In this case, the scientists survive.

consider another two groups, neither of which believe the future will be like the past. One group thinks the poisonous berries look taisty and the other doesn't. The latter group survives.

My point is that the scientific method began as an arbitrary survival method, and in that sense our entire society and way of life is arbitrary, in that there is nothing necessary or objective about it.

@midas77,

midas77 wrote:

I don't see the point of contention here infinidream. I intimated that actual immediate experience of the object seeks to be explained by the subject. Besides from this I also explained that the subject must be prepared to receive the object otherwise, their experience of the object will be inherently flawed.

I guess I got confused by your name transplant. :surrender:

Is it possible to be fully prepared to receive an object?

@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

a) You should not have said you knew it with only that kind of justification".

Thank you for that explanation, I think that clearly states the common understanding of the word 'Knowledge'.

The problem exists in defining what constitutes sufficient justification for knowledge.

For one, how do you avoid infinite regression? To know I am justified in knowing that the sky is blue, I have to 'know' what will suffice as adequate justification. how do I 'know' what constitutes adequate justification? I further need justification for the knowledge that my justification is sufficient for knowing the sky is blue. And so on and so on....

Another problem is circularity. How do I know the sky is blue? well, for one i know what blue is. Oh, how do I know what blue is you ask? I've seen it in the sky.

@infinidream,

infinidream wrote:

Interesting examples. I'd say the questions "What is the capital of Equador?" is a loaded question that only gets a scientific answer because it demands one. The assumptions the question implies are arbitrary, Countries and capitals are all defined by arbitrary, imaginary lines and would not exist without our insistence that they do.

The battery example is arbitrary on a much deeper level. It speaks to the primary premise of the scientific method: That the future will be like the past.

consider another two groups, neither of which believe the future will be like the past. One group thinks the poisonous berries look taisty and the other doesn't. The latter group survives.

My point is that the scientific method began as an arbitrary survival method, and in that sense our entire society and way of life is arbitrary, in that there is nothing necessary or objective about it.

However Quito got to be the capital, it is the capital of Ecuador. Now, do you know of a better way of finding out what is the capital of Ecuador then looking it up in an authorative source (or even going there to find out)?

The same question about the dead battery.

The fact that thre are assumptions being made does not show arbiltrariness. For that, you would have to show that it would make no difference what assumptions you made. The rules for driving on the left or the right side of the street are arbitrary. In America, on the right, but in Britain and Japan, on the left. But it is not arbitrary that there be a rule about what side of the street cars should drive on.

It certainly makes a difference to finding out what is the likely weather tomorrow whether you use modern forcasting methods, or whether you use a crystal ball. I suggest to you that the results will be better with the modern forecasting methods than with a crystal ball, and that the choice is not arbitrary.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

However Quito got to be the capital, it is the capital of Ecuador. Now, do you know of a better way of finding out what is the capital of Ecuador then looking it up in an authorative source (or even going there to find out)?.

I agree with you that using the scientific method to find the capital of Equador is not arbitrary.

It is the question that is arbitrary. It is arbitrary to call a particular part of the earth's surface Ecuador, and another part its capital. The lines you use to define it are arbitrary.

kennethamy wrote:

The same question about the dead battery. The fact that thre are assumptions being made does not show arbiltrariness.

Our society as a whole (which functions largargely according to the scientific method) is arbitrary. I pointed to the animal kingdom to show that there are alternatives to building a society based on the scientific method. The hive mind of ants is one example. Is there anything intrinsically better or more "objectively correct" about being a human than being an ant?

@infinidream,

infinidream wrote:

I agree with you that using the scientific method to find the capital of Equador is not arbitrary.

It is the question that is arbitrary. It is arbitrary to call a particular part of the earth's surface Ecuador, and another part its capital. The lines you use to define it are arbitrary.

That you could have called Quito by some other name does not mean that calling that city, "Quito" is "arbitrary". There might have been good reasons for calling it "Quito".

But regardless, what you said was that the scientific method was arbitrary, and I now see that you believe that is wrong.

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IS MEMORY RELIABLE???

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