Epistemology being a bitch

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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One of the things I wonder about is the nature of
knowledge in terms of what an alien species might think of it…

What does epistemology look like to aliens?
Human beings have several different types of epistemologies
depending… for example, in religion, we have revelation…
where the vision of one determines its understanding… for example,
do we give the revelation of Jesus more importance than the
revelation of Sam? Sam, who is Sam, one might ask? doesn’t
matter as we have totally ignored the book of Sam…
but why do we accept some revelations and not others?
And does revelation involve one or more people? and how would
two separate people be able to share one revelation?

Does the ‘‘truth’’ demand that we only accept the revelation of
one, instead do we need to have more than one person to
believe in any sort of revelation?

So, does epistemology require the ‘‘truth’’ from more than one person,
or can we trust the ‘‘truth’’ of one, as in revelation?

What kind of proof do we need to be sure of our knowledge?
and does the number of people who believe in that truth, does
that change our own understanding/knowledge of the ‘‘truth’’..
is the ‘‘truth’’ majority based or can it be minority based?
even if the minority is one?.. can I/we trust in any sort of
‘‘truth’’ even if it comes from one person? or does the ‘‘truth’’
require assent from multiple people?
Do we trust any ‘‘truths’’ from a computer? or does it need
to be from a human being? or many human beings?
Many people believe in god, so, what if aliens tell us there
is no such thing as god, do we trust the word of these aliens
that there is no god or do we reject that belief because we have
human beings, our own species, telling us that there is a god?
and how would we go about discovering what is the ‘‘truth’’ in
this situation? Do we trust aliens, very advance aliens, or do we
trust human beings, who are, in virtually every way compared to
an alien, thousands of years behind these aliens…
and what if these aliens, claim to be as honest as Vulcans,
who are reputed in Star Trek, to be the most honest species in
space… who do we trust and why? Humans or these aliens.
I read once that science that is extremely advance, is so advance
as to be treated as magic…

so, what would happen if these aliens were to say, that life,
all life in the universe, was the result of another, even way more
advance aliens, who planted life all over the galaxy…
that we human beings and all life in Earth, was planted a billion
years ago by other life? Perhaps leading us to believe that
panspermia, life exists all over the universe and was spread
not by dust or meteoroids, or comets, but by aliens, what does
that do, to the entire belief system of the human race?

As we have no evidence, for or against this theory, we must
hold off judgement on this particular theory… but it must not
be denied as false or true until we can judge this theory by
some facts or evidence we can uncover…Frankly, this
theory has as much merit as any religious theory…
and in some ways, I can get behind this theory more
than I can get behind some bible base theory…or
perhaps these two theories are really one and the same…
that what we call god, in the bible, was really the cleaned up
version of aliens planting life on Earth… we cannot say,
one way or another, at least not yet…

the acceptance of the god as alien theory is not a new one,
and in fact, quite a bit of science-fiction depends on this particular
trope… but we return the question that lays at the center of this
entire idea, do we have any proof or evidence that this is true?

the question, as I usually do, is this, we have this theory,
now what?

Kropotkin

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If aliens are persons, and they’re able to navigate the universe, they will have the exact same insights available to them that are available to us. God is the source of all of those insights. Imagine being the source of all insights. Weird, eh? And we are made in their image.

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Ichthus77:
If aliens are persons, and they’re able to navigate the universe, they will have the exact same insights available to them that are available to us. God is the source of all of those insights. Imagine being the source of all insights. Weird, eh? And we are made in their image.

K: A whole series of assumptions are in your post…
for example, how do we know that they have the ‘‘exact same
insights’’ as we do? vastly different environments will have, demand
that each different environment will a different response to it…
Even in the same environments, we have vastly different responses…
see how human beings react to cities or population or even god…

The second assumption is that god is the source of ‘‘all insights’’
there is no evidence of a god, little less that he may be the source of
‘‘all insights’’… there is no evidence that there is even one source of
insights… we can state that ‘‘insights’’ however one defines them,
could come from many vastly different sources…

for example, a tribe in Africa can have insights, but are they
the same insights as the political tribe we know as MAGA,
do they have the exact same insights and those insights
come from the exact same place, god?
That stretches credibility to the point of absurity…
but then religion is about the absurdity of existence…
we use the idea of religion to escape actual accountability
of existence…if there is a god, then I am not accountable for
the existence of evil… and evil, as we know it, is the
real problem with the belief in god… for if god is good,
then how does that explain evil? Well, man created it,
now we run into the problem of, if god is omnipotent,
then god is responsible for evil… there cannot be any
other choice for who created evil if god is what he is
said to be… omnipotent…if he is not omnipotent, then
he is not god… simple enough…

Which leads back to the point of epistemology?
How are we to know if god is the creator of evil,
or do we just do as most religious people do, which
is ignore this major problem in religion, the existence
of evil… the bitch that is epistemology… how do we know
what we know?

Kropotkin

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We are communicating because what I said is true. The problem of evil is a problem to be solved by treating every person as a person despite changing circumstances. What is worth living and dying for, and how do you know it if there is no such thing as dying and you don’t risk life for it?

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Ichthus77:
We are communicating because what I said is true. The problem of evil is a problem to be solved by treating every person as a person despite changing circumstances. What is worth living and dying for, and how do you know it if there is no such thing as dying and you don’t risk life for it?

K: there is so much wrong with this, it’s hard to know where to start..

Ok, let us break this down, sentence by sentence:

Ok, what you said is true? What exactly is true in your statement,
and how do we know, epistemologically know it’s true?
how do we know your statement is true?

Next, the question of evil, you say this question of evil,
is best ‘‘solved’’ by ‘‘treating every person as a person, despite
changing circumstance’’… this answer leaves much to be
desired… this answer suggests that evil is by one person
acting in one way, suggesting that evil is not a universal problem,
but an individual one…this answer kicks out the religious question
that says that one individual defying god, is enough to bring
the curse of god upon that city… by one person being gay,
that is enough to curse a city in the eyes of god…
as a parent, I can tell you that one of the real problems with
punishment, is that it is hard to be proportional, is punishing
an entire city for the actions of one, is that proportional
to the allege crime? is punishing everyone for the actions of one,
is that even close to being proportional?

and one of the profound questions of existence, is this question of
what is worth living for and if need be, worth dying for?
is god worth living for or dying for? the quick answer is no…
so, given this answer, what exactly is worth living for
and of course, worth dying for? and of course, which leaves us
with this question, of how do we know, KNOW, what exactly
is worth living for or dying for?
Epistemologically, how do we know this answer?

Kropotkin

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Because we are communicating, we know this answer is true. We are treating each other as persons. This maintains communication rather than leading to communication breakdown. Communication is a whole that requires more than one communicator, and a message to communicate. Communication is worth treating the other person as a person, or we would stop communicating. We are equals, and if we want, we can elevate each other higher just to flip the script of communication breakdown (the problem of evil) — we can build each other up…not just back to wholeness, but overflowing. But it started at wholeness, or breakdown… evil… would not be a real problem. That overflowing wholeness is/are the original personhood in whose image we are made.

Did you hear Renee Good’s song recently released by U2?

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Ichthus77:
Because we are communicating, we know this answer is true. We are treating each other as persons. This maintains communication rather than leading to communication breakdown. Communication is a whole that requires more than one communicator, and a message to communicate. Communication is worth treating the other person as a person, or we would stop communicating. We are equals, and if we want, we can elevate each other higher just to flip the script of communication breakdown (the problem of evil) — we can build each other up…not just back to wholeness, but overflowing. But it started at wholeness, or breakdown… evil… would not be a real problem. That overflowing wholeness is/are the original personhood in whose image we are made.

K: and once again, let us walk through this problem:
You say: ‘‘because we are communicating, we know this answer to be true’’
and I ask, again, what exactly are we talking about here? what is true
because we are communicating?

you seem to think that the question of evil is simply one of communication…
that flies in the face of almost everything I have heard about the question
of evil…how does your answer of communications as being evil,
answer the question of evil, say in regard to the holocaust being
evil… was the entire holocaust simply a question of communication?

as far as I can tell, you can’t really answer the question, so as one is
wanton to do, you simply have gone to the dodge and weave
answer to this question of evil… and ignoring the very real problem
of evil…

Kropotkin

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Persons were not treated as persons.

S’alright, Pete.

We don’t all see it at once.

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Perhaps most true for popular varieties of the Abrahamic religions, but not even all versions of even these religions. Many religions (versions of Hinduism, indigenous/shamanistic religions, Buddhism, for example) have very large empirical practices. And deduction is part of most religions, just as the OP is making claims to knowledge based on deduction.