9.1 - What exactly is knowledge?

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Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• understanding
• human
• life
• knowledge

[DarkwingScooter]

Say you are asked to measure a room. You are given a measuring rod. However you find that if you break the rod in half you have to make fewer decisions about how to go around corners (simpler) and your measurement is more precise.

Therefore the justified knowledge about the size of the room is that it is infinite, because successively halving the rod yields simpler and more accurate measurements.

Would you agree?

(all definitive statements of knowledge either start from or lead to absurdity)

[UnderstandHumanLife]

DarkwingScooter, you say, "All definitive statements of knowledge either start from or lead to absurdity." That is a statement of knowledge that nullifies itself, so why make it?

[DarkwingScooter]

@UnderstandHumanLife "That is a statement of knowledge that nullifies itself, so why make it?"

The beauty of logic is that as long as you don't ASSUME a contradiction you are fine, you never have to worry about the contingent "truthiness" of your knowledge.

If A then B

Even if we cannot logically express what must be true for A to be true and in one or more sense A is both true or false, B is nevertheless true provided we ASSUME A to be true.

No nullification, that's the beauty of logic.

[UnderstandHumanLife]

DarkwingScooter, logic is a tool for guiding our reasoning process to help us discern knowledge, but you seem to think that it is a tool for making meaningless statements. Aside from that, I don't think that what you say makes any sense.

[DarkwingScooter]

@UnderstandHumanLife Effectively this is an infinite regress argument.

At some level, even if you are not aware, you are making a tacit and unjustifiable decision regarding the optimum rod length for performing a given task.

It is because this decision is ultimately unjustifiable that it cannot be said to be either necessarily or contingently true. If that is the case and you assert its truth you are asserting an ultimately absurd statement (here's the kicker) FOR THE PURPOSE OF SIMPLICITY.

[UnderstandHumanLife]

DarkwingScooter, as I said before, your example applies only to the accuracy criterion, not the simplicity criterion. Your line of reasoning is irrelevant to my theory of knowledge. Aside from that, I don't think that your line of reasoning makes any sense.

[pjnlsn]

@DarkwingScooter You seem to ascribe to some kind of philosophy of unknowing.

Would you agree?

[pjnlsn]

@DarkwingScooter You know, Darkwing, from the comments you've made to me, and what comments youtube has let me search, I have the gotten the impression of you as someone who doesn't really believe that we can "know" anything. And this would certainly explain some of your comments.

Like, for example, how you think that simply saying to me "THEORY is different than REALITY" is somehow the end-all-be-all of arguments.

[DarkwingScooter]

@UnderstandHumanLife "your example applies only to the accuracy criterion; the simplicity criterion is used to break ties in accuracy"

Astute pickup.

But consider that with a longer measuring rod you have to make more decisions about how to go ridges and what surfaces to measure.

If I were to tell you that the technique for measuring the length of a room is to trace along the edge of a wall from point to point for example. In effect there are more and more complex decisions with a longer rod.

[UnderstandHumanLife]

DarkwingScooter, your example applies only to the accuracy criterion; the simplicity criterion is used to break ties in accuracy. You are correct that a measuring device of finer precision will yield a more accurate measurement. Say, for example, a 1" device yields a measurement of 2", a 1/2" device yields a measurement of 2.5", a 1/4" device yields a measurement of 2.75", etc. Your measurement will not approach infinity but the length of the object that you're measuring.