Knowing & Understanding

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

We are all influenced by the information we are raised with.

By the time we reach adolescence we have been inundated with data passed onto us through education, media, popular culture, our family, and peers.
All this influence puts us in conceptual boxes.
Some of the data we take for granted, other data we question.
What we question and what we take for granted is also decided by the data we have been given, determining the extent of our skepticism and willingness to go outside the social boxes.

This is but a preliminary position on what follows.

I already posted my definition of knowledge and understanding, but I will repeat them here, in brief:

Knowledge - Separated into first-hand and second-hand data.
we usually mean the second-hand data, experiences of others, or communal beliefs, when we use the word ‘knowledge’.
This data can also be accompanied with a method of interpreting it, or most of the time with an already made interpretation which we then adopt as another form of knowledge.

First-hand knowledge we also call experiences.
If we understand second-hand knowledge as encoded past, nature, or memetic inheritance, then experiences are the nurturing addition to that which has been determined.
Experiences is how we engage knowledge and integrate it into our own perspective.
Experiences are themselves interpretations of what is sensually perceived.

Emotions are the nexus between mind/body, or automatic reactions to stimuli. They evolve because they serve a survival purpose, one of which is efficiency.
Automatic responses does away with the necessity to analyze.

Understanding - is the recognition or perception of patterns within the knowledge or within sensual perceptions.
When a mind understands the data it can find the underlying logic in its interpretations.
If knowing only requires memory, then understanding requires analytical ability, attention to detail, mental artistry.

Both knowledge and understanding are affected by emotion and by motive.
To be intelligent is only a first step, because acceptance of what is perceived and interpreting with an eye on clarity rather than self-interest, necessitates a detachment which, if not present, may warp the intellect and lead it astray.

In the area of emotional automatism we may include social automatism, or the effects of group-think.

2

When a mind understands the data, whether it be first-hand or second-hand, it can simplify it, rather than make it seem more complex than it really is.
It can apply it within different contexts and express it using his won words.

To find patterns is a way of simplifying the dynamic nature of reality.
Integrating this into a cohesive internally harmonious whole is an indicative of order.

The mind that simply repeats data and its interpretation, has no ability to express it simply and cannot apply it in any context if this is not already done for it.
A superficial understanding cannot defend its own positions against other positions and against questioning.
Because it relies on others to think for it, the mind that does not understand, defers to experts to defend positions it accepts on faith, or because they offer a superficial benefit: emotional appeal, immediate gratification, hope etc.

To exchange opinions with such a mind would require a constant referencing and deference to text.
The world has no part in this, except as a secondary point of reference.
The mind refers to another mind’s abstractions of reality, trying only to remain true to its interpretations, and because these abstractions are not of its own making, it cannot adequately defend them.

To avoid being exposed it uses many ways of evasion.
One is referring continuously back to the text, as if it is biblical.
Christians are notorious for this kind of evasion.
they, like most Judeo-Christian mindsets, cannot define or rationalize god, by they defer and refer to Him constantly.

‘God knows’, and though I may not know, nor fully comprehend, and since I am a follower of the One who is omniscient, I am the one who benefits from this knowledge.
In secular humanistic paradigms the priestly class, who channel the words of God, are replaced by the experts, the specialists.
They know, and therefore deferring and referring to them means we enjoy the power of their knowing.
We may be incapable of understanding or defending what they know, but we can, again, refer and defer, to their counter-arguments, and enjoy the victory from a second-hand perspective.

That said, a clear indication of an absence of understanding is this reluctance and inability to defend a position using your won words, against multiple perspectives.
The mind does not comprehend its own positions, but accepts them either because of an emotional benefit or because they are popular, and widely respected.

To hide this weakness it uses complexity as a shield.
The other is too simplifying, implying that reality is far too complex to be understood, or ‘I am too complex to be categorized,’ or using complicated semantics to allude to an understanding that exceeds the others capacity to appreciate.

3

Until one truly knows how to know, one only knows suspicion.
And one’s understanding is merely the order of one’s suspicions.

4

To suspect is to admit that you can never know for certain. Unless you have found a “way” where certainty is yours, without inebriation and mind-numbing, nihilistic, failosophies.

All theories are approximations.
To theorize is to see from a godly position - to theo-orao.

5

How can one, believing that one cannot know, claim to know that one cannot know?

Knowing doesn’t require a god, merely the right knowledge to begin with… “how to know things”.
After that knowledge, then one can make claims of whether knowing can occur.

6

One uses experiences to justify his conclusions.
Do you know of an absolute truth?
Do you know of an absolute?
Who is absolutely certain, other than the ignoramus and the coward?

If no is the answer, then why do you presume absolute knowledge when you have no example of it?

How to know tings, is a method of gathering and testing data.
It is not absolute certainty.

If all is changing, and reality is dynamic, then what can be absolute?

The vantage point of god is what is described as omniscient.

One things from the Bottom<>Up, not from the Top<>Down.
One begins from a position of ignorance and then improves upwards, increasing in knowing but never attaining absoluteness.

7

Those who know how to know.
Who but the “ignoramus” claims to know that nothing can be known?

And yes, I happen to know several absolutes, but only because I first learned how to know something.
Of course, you would risk arguing, but then since you already claim that you cannot know otherwise, wouldn’t you merely be arguing with yourself?

That might be Your method in attempting to know things, but by my standard, that can never be more than suspicion.

IF that were the case, then the fact of it would be one absolute.

There is a huge difference between knowing something and knowing all things.

Another of your suspicions? :-k

8

In between no-thing and every-thing we have gradations of knowing.

Name one absolute which is not a human construct?
Not a mental construct, but a phenomenon.

This is an old story.
The linguistic paradox:
“Truth is, there is no truth”
“There are absolutely no absolutes”

To understand why these paradoxes come about you must understand what language is.
That we even posit the concept of an absolute is nonsensical. To negate a nonsensical construct we must negate it with a nonsensical construct.
1 - 0
Both are human abstractions with no reference outside of the human mind.

Language is a code of symbols.
It refers to mental abstractions.
Mental abstractions are simplification/generalizations of sensual data.
The phenomenon perceived is interpreted by cutting away its dimensions. It is placed in a dimensional conceptional box, if you will.
Our sensual acuity prevents us from thoroughly perceiving its entirety. We are left with an incomplete interpretation of sensual data.

We call the phenomenon, thing.
We give it a name. We may give it a numerical symbol.
The name is not the phenomenon. It is a reference to an interpretation of the phenomenon, which we’ve translated using sensual data.
Sensual stimulation interacting with the phenomenon, which is active, and then with our sense organ, then transmitted via the neural network to the neural hub - the brain.

By the time the process completes with a mental image, or a mental abstraction, the phenomenon itself has altered.
This is why Heidegger said that consciousness is a looking back.
We cannot perceive the entire phenomenon’s Becoming, but only a small fraction of its temporal becoming.
This is simplification/generalization.

That’s what I’m saying.
How then can you be absolutely certain about something without knowing everything?
You cannot, not unless you are an insecure fanatic.

We are left with degrees of certainty, based on probability.
Probability is a limitation of possibility.
We establish probability through experience: repetitive, consistency, over time.
Space being a projection of possibility.

But probably so is not certainly so.
Nothing man creates can withstand time. Man must correct his failure to account for time and space, by continuously reaping its effects on what he builds.
In our time Newtonian Physics are under scrutiny, due to Quantum Physics.

Really?
You mean you begin from gnosis?

I stand corrected. I am in the presence of gods.

So far I’ve experienced incivility, ad hom, and arrogance in a forum banning those with these malevolent traits.
I’ve even come across a man who claims that the universe is built for his pleasure.

I must be in the wrong.

Define 1, for me.
Explain what a geometric shape is when the notion of a straight line is a manmade concept.

How Long is a String?
Easy question to answer, right?
One is almost certain of it.

9

When you say the word “circle”, do you not absolutely know what you meant by it when you said it?

And you really believe that after attempting to build billions of nothing but suspicions, one day suddenly absolutely all things become known… seriously?

I’m kind of curious what you suspect would trigger that rather astronomically instantaneous event.

Wouldn’t it seem a bit more sensible that perhaps you discover one truth, and then some time later discover another, and eventually after a great deal of discovery, finally get to the point where it seems that nothing is left?

10

I posted a link above.

you must not be following or I must be doing a terrible job of explaining.

I said absolutes are human simplifications, and only exist in the human mind as ideas.
In a fluid reality how would one achieve absolute knowledge?
When everything, including the forces of nature, are dividing, what is absolute?

I never mentioned any such event. I deny the event is possible.

Who are you reading?

My position is that human knowledge consists in approximations.

11

Get used to it… just advice. :sunglasses:

Being “manmade” hasn’t anything to do with it. Of course it is man made. Who cares?
But if you want a thesis concerning straight lines, I can suggest getting your feet wet in the “RM and VO” thread (just a few posts before the current end, answering zinnat).

…and I’m not really interested in watching some amateurs metaphysics video.

12

And you, nor your link, answered this question;

13

I am. I’ve been reminded of it constantly from good natured, well-meaning, well-informed fellas, like you.

Being “manmade” hasn’t anything to do with it. Of course it is man made. Who cares?
[/quote]
That about sums it up, no?

What chance does reality stand when computer reality is so enticing?

But it’s a human artifice that may contradict reality itself?
Who cares?
It feels good. It feels solid, certain.
It is comforting.

Wonderful.
Then we’ll assume that you know what you are talking about.
You being a non-amateur.
You know a circle, no? Absolutely so.
What religious fanatic would not say so?

Who cares?

14

All abstractions are simplifications/generalizations.

Ambiguities.

Tools.

Language is a shared ambiguity, where nobody really tries to define concepts precisely.
What is a line?
Who cares?
What is the #1?
Who cares?

Why is a simple string so resistant to absolute measurements?
Who cares?
Tie it up, roll it into a ball, and toss it over. We got a pussy to play with.

Philosophy for the modern.
Who cares?

I’m so happy for you.
You are certain that when you speak you know what you are talking about.
Don’t let skepticism make you doubt yourself. You might begin to question the world around you.
That would be philosophical.

“An unexamined life is a life worth living”, or something like that.
Who cares?

And when I use symbols, like words, numbers, shapes, I know I am using metaphors, artistic devices.
You, perhaps, live in the Platonic realm of ideals.

I care.
You don’t.

15

All concepts are “man made” (mental constructs).
The point is that the fact that man made a mental construct has nothing to do with any truth concerning it one way or another… thus “who cares” that it was man made.

And as far as that question, are you saying that even YOU don’t know what YOU mean when you say “circle”??
Why use the word if you don’t even know what you yourself mean by it???

16

Last one, before I call it a night.

Man abstracts reality to make sense of the world.
He approximates so as to increase his chances for survival.
He doesn’t guarantee them. Only people like you live in world of absolute certainties.
I live in reality.

Language is a method of expressing ideas, and ideals.
Words are useful. Words are art. They are symbols.
Precision using words increases when one understands what language is - including math, and geometry.
Language is not literal, it is figurative.
The #1 is a simplification, a symbol that can be applied to anything, by cutting it away from the dynamic.

I know what I mean by circle because I know that I mean a human construct that does not exist outside the human mind.
I mean a noumenon, not a phenomenon.
The noumenon remains ambiguous.
I draw a circle on a page, knowing that if I look closer the smooth line turns jagged, then disappears.
I look at the moon and it looks circular from the distance I am perceiving it from.
I know this is an illusion, for the moon is not perfectly circular.
It’s outer perimeter is really the outer extent of the matter, participating in its movement, as it interacts with other bodies or with energies.
It’s outer perimeter is only the light, energy, bouncing off matter which then interacts with my eye. Some of the energy passes though. I do not perceive that.

A perfect line is also an illusion produced by distance.
The string looks straight and even, but it is not. I may think I know its length, for certain, but it depends on how precise an instrument I am able to use to measure it.

You think you know what you mean because you’ve never questioned your own definitions.

The secular humanist replaces Biblical certainty with rationalism.
All that is, can be known.
The Alexandrian Age.

17

That is all that was needed.
You now absolutely know something.
You know what YOU meant when you said it… absolutely.

Man, are you kibitzing the wrong guy.
:laughing:

You happened to be talking to the inventor of “Definitional Logic” as a method to come to eventually know truths concerning the objective universe, although I am probably not the first, I really don’t care to research it to find out.

18

Strawmaning?
No, I know that a circle is a human construct because nobody has shown me a perfect circle.

I am also agnostic, because nobody has yet to show me a perfect, absolute Being.
Everything I know is maintained as a theory.
I test my theories against those of others.

If I consider my opinion superior does not mean I consider it absolute.

This is not an either I know absolutely or I do not know absolutely, for this is how people like you think.
I think in higher or lower probabilities - superior and inferior ideas.
You think in binary logic, because you confuse linguistic forms, referring to mental methods of abstracting, for reality itself. You confuse the painting of a horse for the horse, and you are certain that it is two dimensional, and framed in a box.

Games of semantics I know well.
The above is a game of words - dualism, binary logic.
Law of Identity…etc.

Natural selection works because even in thinking the superior overpowers the inferior.
This does not make the superior immortal, because only people like you think in these absolute terms.

I’ve seen this movie before.

Was that a threat?

19

You still didn’t get it. :confused:

Oh well.

So even YOU don’t know for sure what you mean when you say things.
…that could be problematic.

…and just in case… chk the edit to the prior post.

…nighty night.

20

I know it could be.
And it also could be problematic when you know or think you know what you are talking about.
The fundamentalist Muslims are also certain that they know what they are talking about when they say Allah.

The “absolute” part is yours.

As for the edit:
Who cares?

If you claim to have reached the absolute, then I’ll be awaiting the evidence.
Love the posturing.
Very nice.
I like the language games.
The either/or scenario.
Very current.