complete knowledge of a simple thing

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The Voice of Time
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Re: complete knowledge of a simple thing

Post by The Voice of Time »

Sappho wrote:In order to have complete knowledge of any object, it seems one would first have to brake free from the human senses.
Brake free? Please elaborate on that, as the way I see it, one should focus on ones senses and less in the mind. The mind is there to sort out the irregularities the way I see it, from what you observe, thereby allowing for previously sense mining to boost ones understanding of future sense mining.
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Sappho
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Re: complete knowledge of a simple thing

Post by Sappho »

The Voice of Time wrote:
Sappho wrote:In order to have complete knowledge of any object, it seems one would first have to brake free from the human senses.
Brake free? Please elaborate on that, as the way I see it, one should focus on ones senses and less in the mind. The mind is there to sort out the irregularities the way I see it, from what you observe, thereby allowing for previously sense mining to boost ones understanding of future sense mining.
What I mean by "break free of the senses" is that one would have to be capable of sensing the way things actually are, in themselves, in order to have complete knowledge of anything. And in order to sense things the way they actually are, I believe that, one would have to sense things in a different way than by our five senses. What that experience would entail, I am unsure of (and will forever be unsure of, because I cannot experience anything but my human experience). What I can be sure of is that there are other ways to experience the world. To use an ever-so-common example: bats are known to use echo-location to navigate through space, and I assume that a byproduct of this difference in sensing the world is that the world appears, at least subtly, different to them than to us. If I were asked which one of our views, bats or humans, was closer to aligning with the way things actually are, I would find it impossible to come up with an answer. This leads me then to two options. First, I could conclude that in order for us to know a thing as it actually is, I would have to have every possible sense. Or second, I could conclude that in order for us to know a thing as it actually is, I would have to move beyond all sensations. These seem like the only possible ways in which we could ever have complete knowledge of a thing and in both ways one could be seen as "braking free of the senses", at least the human senses (maybe I'm off and have not thought this through enough, but as of now these seem like the only two options...). Thus leading me to conclude that we can never have complete knowledge of anything in itself because neither of these alterations in the senses can be had.

That being said, I still think that one should attempt to find what knowledge there can be had within our five senses. There is still knowledge to be had about what goes on at this level and even though it is not knowledge of things the way they exist independently of us, the questions and answers are still meaningful.
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HexHammer
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Re: complete knowledge of a simple thing

Post by HexHammer »

rantal wrote:Total knowledge of a single thing does indeed presuppose partial knowledge of the world in general. Given that, what are the necessary and sufficient conditions to have such knowledge?
To research, it's really a simple concept which most cosy chatters don't understand.
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