Belief is an article of faith requiring no evidence or reason to justify it though it may have some
Knowledge is factual information that is non falsifiable and so the two are not actually the same
To respond to this I have to repeat things I wrote, which means you are being rude. Belief in English has several meanings, one of them the one you mention. It also refers to anything we believe. It is the noun to that verb. If we think something is true we believe it and it forms one of our beliefs. In philosophy, and this is philosophy forum, knowledge is considered, generally a justified true belief or some other form of belief. I give some reasons in other posts for why this is a very effective and smart way to look at and discuss beliefs and knowledge, the latter being a rigorously arrived at subset of the former.P
a subset of beliefs. A subcategory.
Further you are confused about non-falsifiable.
Your statement here contradicts your earlier one about science dealing in probable truths. This means precisely that scientific knowledge is generally falsifiable. In fact this comes from Popper’s epistemology of science and is consider one of the characteristics of scientific knowledge that it must be falsifiable. That one can test it in the negative.
I am sure you think you are representing rationality posting like this, but here’s what you are actually doing…
- being rude because you haven’t read what you are responding to.
- don’t know much philosophy, while representing, in your own mind, rationality in a philosophy forum
- presenting precisely incorrect ideas about science and the epistemology of science
- using straw men, since I never said belief and knowledge were the same, but rather that knowledge is a subset of beliefs. Beliefs that have gone through a more rigorous methodology than other beliefs. I explain this in much more detail above.
Poor reading, poor knowledge, rudeness.
For my part I will now ignore you on all subjects. But please consider the fact that you act as noise in forums like this because of your behavior and lack of knowledge. You will make threads less useful.
To believe something is taken to mean the same as to think something but I myself make a distinction between the two for reasons
of clarity. To believe something requires no evidence or reason whereas to think something requires some evidence or reason. This
distinction eliminates the ambiguity between these words. That mean different things when they are separated. But unfortunately
believe and think are often taken to be synonymous which only serves to maintain the ambiguity. That is not something which I do
Isn’t that a compliment? Without noise, you can’t hear things. I think white noise is the term you’re looking for.
I have yet to see anything useful or profound from you. You are litterally the most mundane member here (except for iambiguous).
My problem with surrepman, is that he seems to hammer on the same ideas, even when they are questionable, which is kind of rude. Like, when I prove to him that he can’t prove there is nothingness when he dies, he keeps on hammering on that he is content with nothingness when he dies. Or, when I tell him he is passive, he says he is passive because he doesnt want to be angry, which does not logically follow, etc.
If you want to treat knowledge as certainty, which isn’t at all realistic, your distinction would make a bit more sense. However, as long as we can be wrong about what we claim to know, and we often are, knowledge will be a subset of belief. I believe Moreno has already explained this in more detail, albeit in different words, but that’s the long and short of it.
No sir, I do not believe in absolute certainty nor do I know about absolute certainty. I don’t think I ever experienced absolute certainty.
I do not want to insist that belief is probably wrong at all. I think that believing something to be true without knowing it to be true, essentially is of no value in our minds. It is best, and wisest, to instead not believe and know that you do not know. Knowledge is definitely not absolutely certain. If an individual wants to think that knowledge is absolute that is on them. “The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt”… comes to mind. However, knowledge is justifiable, reasonable, understanding. Belief, is not justifiable, not reasonable and it is not able to be verified. Its best to know you don’t know, keep your options open. Assuming knowledge is also a belief, has no value as well. They ought to be separated in classification.
We know that some knowledge, is true knowledge, and absolutely certain.
Like if we see a cup, we know that the form of the cup exists, at least for a brief moment. When we remember things, we know those things exist in our minds, but we are not absolutely certain those things exist or did exist for others.
So, we can be absolutely certain that things exist for us, and that is true knowledge.
We believe, that the same things exist for others, but we cannot be absolutely certain it does.
I don’t think “we know” about anything is “absolutely” certain. I don’t like the qualifier “absolutely”. If your attitude on the matter is “absolute” then I think you should state “I know that some knowledge is absolutely certain”.
My point, A state of absolute certainty is an individual subjective feeling or attitude.
We know, absolutely, that a can is a can. Thus, it can be known, with absolute precision, that a can exists, as long as we can access memories of what cans are.
You are right, it is subjective, but only subjective in the sense of a multiplayer online game is subjective. The data being recieved to us, is most certainly a can, but we cannot be sure that the same data is being sent to other players, it might have lagged or sent bad packets, and they might be seeing nothing at all.
Consider that we ask “how do you know that?”, but “why do you believe that?”
We each have our own mental understanding/map/model of the real world. We can explain that to others using (among other things) statements. I think often we use “believe” when we’re describing our mental models and explaining how we think of things, and “know” when we’re talking about the real world. I believe deep down that everyone’s good, I believe that someone is watching over me, I believe we’re not alone in the universe, versus I know the capital of Vietnam, I know how much a loaf of bread costs, I know the way to San José.
But it’s a vague difference, because we can’t believe something and not believe it applies to reality, and we can’t know something without it being a belief as well. The difference is more in the use of the language than in the subjects and relations it describes.
There is no can: (spoon)
Spoon Boy: “Do not try and bend the spoon; that is impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth.”
Let us consider a world in which existence manifests in three distinct aspects:
Property ~ some measurable and defining character present in some entities and not others.
Entity ~ some unique coexistence of properties identifiable by its unique relations with other entities.
Relation ~ some conceptual linkage between properties and entities, or between entities alone.
—
Of this world we may state two things:
-
Insofar as the world is objectively real, only property has objective reality. Entity can be seen as a mere conceptualization of property relations that have meaning only in the conceiving mind.
-
Insofar as the world is subjectively real, only relation has subjective reality. We can perceive property only through the filter of entity and comprehend entity only within the measure of relation.
—
There exist those properties necessary in combination to create the subjective impression of a spoon; there exist those relations with other conceptual entities that require us to posit a spoon.
Spoon Boy: “There is no spoon. ”
I agree - but I also agree that this difference has a very real impact on our frame of reference and our understanding of our cognition and our awareness. My thesis, I hope, lays out a strict version of knowledge and belief that calls for us to drop Plato’s theory of knowledge, and I think that my thesis leads to beneficial results in our frame of reference.
It all still appears to be merely a question of confidence.
If you are greatly confident, you say that you “know”. If not so confident, you say that you “believe”. The problem is where to draw the line.
Exactly where is the line between greatly confident knowledge and not so greatly confident belief? How do you distinguish when you know versus when you merely believe?
They once “knew” that the laws of Newton were “fact”. They had scientifically measured them. But a hundred years later… oops…
There may be a question of confidence - but there is also a matter of justification for knowledge and belief.
Can someone have the same confidence of a belief as knowledge? I contest they can.
I would state that Newtonian physics probably were fact, it probably was knowledge. But knowledge does not equal truth. Knowledge is also dynamic, not absolute. In the case of Newtonian physics, that nature of knowledge becomes evident. It was justified at the time - we now know differently. Newtonian physics probably were properly justified for knowledge based on the means of human understanding at the time on the matter. Please note: I am not knowledgeable enough on the matter of Newtonian physics to make the claim that I know Newtonian physics was fact and knowledge, thus why I stated “probably”.
So even if you “know” it, it still might not be true?
If justification is the distinction, then how do you qualify “justification”??
How would that be any different than Judaism?
Moreno - you essentially told me its useful to consider knowledge belief because its belief.
I state, its useful to consider knowledge to be knowledge, because its known. Knowledge does not equal truth, but it is justified through reason, understanding and logic.
I contest that the harm of knowledge becoming “belief” is that belief isn’t justified, and the attitude in the mind have a subtle but worthy impact on our frame of minds. Our minds are healthy when they are logical - and conflation can lead to confusion. I think separation is merited. An attitude of certainty is not worthy enough to consider knowledge a belief, conceptually and in our frame of mind. Because belief’s can be pitfalls. Knowledge is justified - and if it turns out to be wrong then we are not really at fault. However we are at fault if a belief is wrong, because we assumed something to be true.
Newton physics is true, in the sense that it exists. Newton physics exists and can predict some things, so in that sphere it is true. Is is false at the atomic level of things, so Newton physics is not a valid model of the universe.
This is the distinction we must make when a newage hippie says to you “Everyone has their own truths, and everyones truths are valid.”
We must dissect that statement.
Everyone’s truths are valid, in the sense that if they have eyes (I’s), they have existence, and the existence of things in their consciousness is true.
But everyone’s truths are not valid, in the sense of equations or predictions. If sally predicts that a meteor will hit her mother tommorow because a jehovah’s witness on the internet said so, then her truths are not as valid as someone that uses newtons equations to predict a meteor is inbound.
Similarly, Sally’s prediction is true in the sense that meteors exist, and jehovahs witness exist, and a meteor could potentially hit her mom.
So, everyone has their own truths, and everyone’s truths are somewhat valid, but it is really a matter of coherence. Like politicians. You can find truths that politicians say that vibe with you, but yet overall, the overall equation is not as perfect as your equation. So you can find things which are right about a person, but others things which are not right. In that sense, everyone has valid truths, but not every truth that everyone has is valid.
Valid, meaning a mental prediction that will connect to reality outside of their minds.
Now you might say that reality is not outside of the mind, and you’d be right.
So really, you cannot prove that anyone else has a reality but your own (solipism). But you have good faith that at least your best friend is sentient, and on that good faith, you try to make predictions that will connect to what you assume are the two shared realities between minds. People who don’t do this, come off as Sallies and Jehovah’s witnesses.
I say you have a wide spectrum of things you believe in, due to this linguistic subjugation of conflation of knowledge and belief. I say it’s rooted in Plato and overlooked by many, even overlooked by many philosophers.
When you get into “political beliefs” - I state you are getting into opinions. I think those should be separate as well. They are not really belief’s that something is true (although they could be if you want to be irrational - as politics is not an exact science). Its like saying you believe torture is wrong. its based on yoru values, not truth… Therefore its an opinion. Can opinions be reasonable? Of course, but we should be of the matter that opinions also are not knowledge.
If you “believe” your friend Joe is having an affair with your wife, do you really think its true? If so - to what degree of certainty? Do your beliefs have different degrees of certainty? Or do you really even believe it? Perhaps you think it might be true, but don’t know. In that case, do you believe it? If you believe you wife is truly having an affair, do you punish Joe and your wife before you know? Suspecting is an ideal state of mind, knowing that you do not know. A belief leads to pitfalls. We use this concept of belief so loosely and I say that has negative effects on our logical framework. It makes us more emotional, more feeling. It is not intelligent to believe. Again, it is intelligent to not believe, to know you don’t know, and to keep your options open.
Knowledge is dynamic, not equal to truth. Perhaps they weren’t beliefs, perhaps its was justified knowledge