There is no requirement and no evidence for a priori.

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

I wrote something of this on another thread, but I thought id expand it and that it deserved its own thread.

There is no requirement and probably no evidence for a priori.

Can knowledge exist prior to our existence? Can there be an all knowing individual as assumed in the context of ‘ubermensch’, or otherwise can we have any innate knowledge e.g. other than what is provided by our DNA?

I don’t think we have a priori if we are thinking of that as some kind of unlearned knowledge. I’d say we have the ability to know; perception + an incredible ‘computer’ as the brain, and that device can interpret collocative information [patterns, signals etc] such that the perception can build an image of a thing.

It starts with an infant feeling shaped objects and building models of that in the mind. I assume its something like fractals going on here, except as the informations are scaled up in the brain they don’t simply repeat the shapes of the initial information. Such that the brain takes the mass of information from the senses, then calibrates it into a collated pattern or image, which is then turned into the holistic shape and info the mind can understand as corresponding to an effective representation of external objects. So the external information is literally turned into language and visualisations of the world, and without that process knowledge initially may not be gained.

Hence no requirement and probably no evidence for a priori.

It may be possible that ‘the listener’ or perceiver, can use the mind to glean informations not from the world as part of the artistic process; intuition and inspiration, but babies don’t do that, nor do they have masses of knowledge.

?

2

I think that information exists in the world, but that knowledge is a result of our perceiving it then processing it against the a priori stuff. You said it yourself, “except what’s there by dna”. I mean, you have to already know how to distinguish one object from another before you start perceiving things or else you wont be able to tell things apart. So there’s some knowledge beforehand, but only the most basic and fundamental stuff, sort of the framework of your perception, then you see and hear shit and then after that, you’ve got a better kind of knowledge. Well, not necessarily better, the abstract tautology is always gonna have a better truth value than the synthesized knowledge, but the synthesized stuff is always gonna be more useful in the practical world.

3

True but I think that is happening aside from you, in other words that it’s a process ~ as I say somewhat like a fractal except it changes as it moves from electrical signals into patterns and shapes in the brain. This could occur without consciousness having any intervention perhaps? At least the process is not consciously recognised until it arrives at the holistic level. …> the abstract tautology?

I agree that will always have a better truth value “than the synthesized knowledge, but the synthesized stuff is always gonna be more useful in the practical world“.

I am unconvinced that foreknowledge exists or is needed, you just need the tool. Like when you first switch on a computer ~ if that’s a worthy analogy. In other words I think there is/must be a complete semi-fractal process.

_

4

Well think about it this way. If your brain was completely empty, like didn’t even have and shelves or boxes or compartments or anything, a truly blank slate, then when you had your first experience, how would you interpret it? I’m not saying there’s a priori knowledge of the world outside one’s self necessarily, or that one could even be aware of the a priori principles by which the interpretive means function at that particular time, but there’s something in there that’s categorizing that data coming in, and it knows what it’s doing to some extent, and if we have that means as a possession, then we have knowledge before experience. Truth is, these kinds of convos always result in a going back and fourth about semantics until we decide what counts as knowledge and experience, then we all end up basically agreeing with each others, “if/then’s”, but none of us can really respond to all the questions of the other. Good workout for the brain…maybe.

5

When I was a baby I would have no idea of how to interpret things ~ we struggle now don’t we lol
Point is that we don’t begin with that emptiness, we have fully working brain that works everything out for us, we are like a passive consciousness receiving its input, but not just that, the interpretation is being done for us ~ as if the infant child is merely observing.

You don’t know what knowledge is as an infant, there is a process kinda like a mixture of fractals and scrolling out from Google earth. At the base you have billions of basic informations and as you scroll out you get the big picture, the holistic world.

Where would you assume knowledge comes from otherwise?

Sure the brain calibrates sensory info in the above process, no? the brain apparently has thirteen ‘maps’, which represents the mass of informations.

I’d say knowledge after processing, and that is what we experience. Subjectivity of the brains instrumentation n all that.

Well yes, but knowledge and experience are subjective, thus they arise after the instrumentation of the brain processes external information. Equally we have to arrive at being the kind of thinking creature that considers the “if/then’s”, the infant being does not.

Unless we can state where a priory knowledge comes from apart from the physical systems, then we have to assume it to be a given thing by that.

-this is me saying that lol I am usually the one making arguments for the existence of the soul!

Though I must say I like the freedom this idea gives the reincarnate self, it kinda detaches us from memory etc, gives us a fresh start. - perhaps ignore this. :stuck_out_tongue:
_

6

Like I said, alot of times this just comes down to semantics. There aren’t hard solutions to these kinds of problems. In your scenario, a big difference is whether we are interpreting, based on knowledge of how to distinguish and categorize objects, or whether it’s being “done for us”. I don’t really know what that means.

In the end, if you don’t believe that you have to know something to interpret sensory data, or that the structure of the mind and it’s imposing of itself as a template onto experiences doesn’t count as knowledge somehow, then I guess you can’t believe in a priori truth.

7

One can approach apriori as simple chemistry. Even the most simple cell has ‘receptors’ sensitive to chemicals in it’s environment. Certain chemicals ‘tell’ the cell to absorb (eat) and others tell the cell to reject. All life forms that we know of start with this simple chemical decision making process. That there is a bit more complexity at the level of sentience is a gross understatement, but even humans retain and operate on a comparison/contrast system for much of their activity. This covers instinctual and autonomous activity. But unless I misunderstand, the issue you wish to examine is that giant step where we either ‘find’ meaning, or we create it. The variables possible makes any definite conclusion almost impossible. We simply don’t know enough in enough detail to assign a causal step-by-step blueprint of all the possible inputs and outcomes. Without any positive evidence for or against, I’d say the apriori only exists on the most simple levels. Finding meaning begins with sensate input, and how the brain collects and ‘makes sense’ is not well understood.

8

Smears

I think you have to have perception/ability, but I don’t think an uninformed being/infant can have information without going through the process necessary to acquire it.

Are we meaning mind or brain? If brain then no, if mind then even if it has knowledge of some kind, it wont have knowledge about something it has yet to experience surely ~ logically?

tentative

Indeed. See above also. I think we can create meaning once we have it and mostly in large amounts. Indeed IF there is something we may think of as qualia of mind, or just mind, it possibly has ways to keep info and produce it, given that perception is the very thing understanding sensory and memory based informations.
I don’t know what awareness would be, without a brain to produce the info it can be aware of, nirvana some would say.

Do we need a full blueprint of the brain, in order to know that it is the instrument being used in all our activities [whilst awake at least]. If an Indian has never seen a steamboat do they already have the meaning within, I’d think they have to compose an idea of what it is [big boat, nobody rowing etc]. when a baby first picks up a ball does it feel that object in order to compose ‘ball’ or does it already know. Do we have any examples of people knowing things which are yet to be known? Inventing is a process of composing new ideas, I guess with a priori we wouldn’t have needed them, and we’d have mobile phones as soon as humans existed. :slight_smile:

_

9

I don’t agree with mind/body duality, so if I say one, I mean either one. I think that to the extent that the physical processes of perception are structured, then there is knowledge before experience. When you have your first experience of two distinct objects, you would have to know what it was for something to not be something else, even before you knew what either of them were, or before you knew how to put that concept into a sentence.

You agree that you have to have that ability to synthesize information, but then you refer to someone as possibly being uninformed and not having the ability, or something like that. I’m saying that the person is informed before the experience, by the nature of their cognition. They are informed to categorize and interpret.

10

There is no perception without a perceiver

A claim to any experience presupposes not only an awareness of the experience as an object, but also a recognition of it as an experience. And these conditions are enough to destroy any possibility of there being an experience of unity, because any recognition implies a duality or division between the subject and the object. How can there be an experience of unity where there is a subject left out of the object of experience?
Hence ….

11

Smears

I think that lets say in the case of an infant who first reaches out and picks up a ball, the brain is a pattern recognising machine, it puts that to memory something like as if recording a film, the infant often takes many times to be able to know what a new experience is. Even we as adults can have trouble with that. It seems that the perception has to be trained.

If it knew what a ball was, then it would just pick it up as we would, there would be no need for inspection.

If you don’t believe in my mind-body duality [as you put it], then this is simply one part of the brain being the thing which can recognise information about objects I.e. the perception, then that communicating with the sensory input - well the calibrated part of the brain that is delivering those informations.
If you think the info resides elsewhere then where is it? Why don’t we all know everything.

I still don’t understand how one can know something prior to experience of that thing? except below…*

If you had never met someone you know, then you wouldn’t know anything about them.

If we take my fractal analogy then a process that can read the patterns and info is all that’s required. This also works in substantially lesser life-forms than us, so I assume it’s a very basic thing and that we don’t have ubermensch cats, frogs and dogs etc.

finishedman

The perceiver is within the context of the experiencer, but perception occurs subconsciously also.

Why is the experience of the object and that of the experience not part of the field of objects being viewed? As such a diversity within a unity ~ especially as there is only one experiencer.

I would agree there is subjectivity between an object in the world, and our experience of it after going through the instrumentation of the brain, but not that there is a duality between the subjective object as experienced and the subjective experiencer, that wouldn’t make any sense.

*We may be informed to a degree prior to our experience, because the brain is processing info and using both that and info from our DNA to build a picture of the world. The newborn is not blind as doctors used to assume, it just doesn’t know what to see yet.

_

12

Before you see the ball, you already know how to recognize patterns and put them into memory as if recording a film. That’s knowledge.

13

OK. But that is simply genetic programming. Memory of a pattern isn’t the same as assigning meaning to that pattern. I see all sorts of ‘patterns’ without having the foggiest what they might, or might not, mean. Apriori, at least in the sense it is used, includes meaning. Yes, we all have ‘apriori’ processing capacity, but without attaching meaning, what possible difference would it make?

14

The physical eye does not say anything. There is no way you can separate yourself from what you are looking at. We have only the sensory perceptions. They do not tell anything about that thing - for example, that it is a computer. The moment you recognize that it is a computer, and a Sony computer at that, you have separated yourself from it. So what you are actually doing is translating the sensory perceptions within the framework of the knowledge you have of it. We never look at anything. It is too dangerous to look because that `looking’ destroys the continuity of thinking. We project the knowledge we have of whatever we are looking at. Even if you say that it is an object without giving a name, like, for example, computer, knowledge has already come in. It is good for philosophers to talk about this, separating the object from the word, or separating the word from the thing. But actually, if you say that it is an object, you have already separated yourself from it. Even if you don’t give a name to it, or recognize it as something, or call it a computer, a laptop computer, you have already separated yourself from it.

15

knowledge is one thing, knowledge and understanding is where I think meaning comes from. I worded that poorly. It’s late.

16

Hmm well a ball is a most simple object, but as far as I know it takes a while for an infant to recognise its mothers face, and even longer to recognise its own. I do believe it takes some time to even understand what a ball is, there is a recognition process occurring even in that.

For me knowledge only comes after recognition. Sure we have the facilities to make perceptions which add up to the recognition of a thing, but that’s pattern mapping and not knowledge. The brain works in patterns so I’d expect nothing else from it.

finishedman

What’s staring then? Or being in a trance, or being otherwise distracted such that your conscious focus is entirely upon that other thing? The camcorder is still running but the consciousness is elsewhere. Consider also ‘blind-sight’.
I should add that we don’t see a single thing, the eyes only have a small field of vision, but they flick around and build up the larger vision of the world, which you are seeing from a composition of images. This is where the brain is constantly calibrating sensory data to ‘compose’ our world, and I think this ‘gapiness’ is what indeed stops us from being completely transfixed! It allows the consciousness to roam freely - so to speak.

Hmm I think that response somewhat agreed with some of what you said, and my previous replies somewhat answered your ‘distinction subjectivity’ issue - I hope.

_

17

The camcorder’s mechanical functioning results in direct transfer of information from one place to another. There’s no other purpose being carried out, no activation of another process of which its function would be to tell (take to mean, know, interpret, understand, etc.) what is being recorded, no activation of another (separate) area that stands as a subject that says, ‘I exist here and am operating from a perspective that projects the comprehension on to the thing being detected by the camcorder. ‘

18

There is growing evidence of innnate knowledge…see my post, here…

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=178588&hilit=rationalism&start=25#p2300307

19

Call it pattern mapping, or functional mechanism, or ghost in the machine or whatever you like. Place what you consider knowledge anywhere you like on the timeline, so long as you recognize that knowing how to perceive and categorize data is knowing something.

This debate is like a couple hundred years old. It’s all settled philosophy dude. The strong empiricism, and strong rationalism are both incorrect.

20

I’m not sure if I am ‘dude’ but I am neither a strong rationalist nor a strong empiricist. You may be right that it is settled, but I don’t think the empiricists have remotely acknowledged this.