4 kinds of things

Known unknowns and unknown unknowns!

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Terrapin Station
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Re: 4 kinds of things

Post by Terrapin Station »

ken wrote:Do you think it could be possible that if all individuals coincidentally had the exact same preference about interpersonal behavior, then that commonly held shared preference could have come from an inner unconscious knowing of what is actually right and wrong?
Well first I don't think that one can know what's right and wrong (morally). Because propositional knowledge requires that something is true. Moral claims are not, and can not be, true (or false).

Aside from that perhaps more "technical" point, could it contingently be the case that everyone feels the same way on some moral stance? Sure.

What I wouldn't say, though, is that that is evidence of the moral stance existing prior to individuals being aware that they have that moral stance. I don't know how there could possibly be evidence of that.

I'm going to use symbols abstractly for a moment: let's say that a particular moral stance is the first-person perspective of the brain state represented by «€©. Well, prior to that moral stance being a conscious phenomenon, it could be the case that contingently, everyone has a brain with the structures/processes ¥[®£.

¥[®£ is not itself a conscious state, and it's not itself a mental state. However, ¥[®£ always subsequently causes brain state «€©, and «€© is a conscious/mental state--namely, the particular moral stance in question.
How exactly does each "person's" brain work?
Are you asking for 7 billion different moment-by-moment accounts on a molecular (or finer-grained) level?
How do you propose needs always hinge on wants?
"I need water"--well, that's because you want to quench your thirst, you want to remain alive, etc.

Have to pause for a minute. I'll answer the rest when I get back.
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Terrapin Station
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Re: 4 kinds of things

Post by Terrapin Station »

Okay, I'm back for a minute finally.
ken wrote:In summary what is your view? (on greed)
It's easier to just read my post in that thread:
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=19745&p=277138#p277138
To you could there never be a possibility that for as long as that brain is producing thoughts you could never come across seemingly relatively "new" knowledge, which could also produce a similar realization as, "I already knew that" or "I have always known that"?
I can't make sense of that idea, no.
Are any or all of your views above open to anything else or are they more or less fixed in the way that they are written?
Sure, I'm open to changing my views, but for most philosophical topics, I've spent a lot of time on them already, I've had my views for a long time, and it's not very often that I run into any new arguments for contrary stances. Typically I just run into people slightly rephrasing stuff I've heard hundreds of times before.
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Harbal
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Re: 4 kinds of things

Post by Harbal »

Jaded Sage wrote:There is stuff we know we know. Like the price of a dollar cheeseburger.

There is stuff we know we don't know. Like who will win the next presidental election.

There is stuff we don't know we don't know. By definition I cannot give an example.

There is stuff we don't know we know. This, if it exists, is the most fascinating of the four. I imagine it is something like intuition. What do you think?
There's a fifth kind of thing: There's the stuff you think you know, which seems to be completely different from.the stuff everyone else knows.
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Re: 4 kinds of things

Post by creativesoul »

Hobbes' Choice wrote:
creativesoul wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote:
No it is not; no more than know unknowns.
Yes it is, as is known unknowns. Something cannot be both known and unknown at the same time given the same creature capable of knowing. As already argued for without subsequent refutation, when one talks about a 'known unknown' s/he is talking about two different things. One is known. One is not. Unknowns are entirely incapable of being known. An example of an unknown will not be known... by definition alone. Coherency matters.
If coherency matters, then I suggest you try to understand it before you dismiss it.
Show me how I've misunderstood, or dismissed coherency. Gratuitous assertions won't do.
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Re: 4 kinds of things

Post by creativesoul »

ken wrote:
creativesoul wrote:
Terrapin Station wrote:Exactly. It's just another way of saying that.
You see that that is not a known unknown, right? We can know that there are things that we do not know. That which we do not know is unknown. We can know that there are unknowns. We cannot know an unknown. Thus, there is no such thing as a known unknown. It's a very sloppy and misleading(intentional in some cases) way to talk.
Any examples of the intended misleading cases? This may be interesting to see.
I'm not in a position, currently, to be able to know another's intention wrt to known unknowns, but these conversations always remind me of Donald Rumsfeld...

:mrgreen:

I totally understand what you are saying here, as well as what the others are saying also, it just depends on how we want to look at it, objectively or subjectively.


There is no such thing as an objective viewpoint.

What you are now questioning is not if known unknowns and/or unknown knowns exist, but if we can know an unknown and/or not know a known. Adding the words 'an' and 'a' in between known and unknown changes what is being questioned and how we are actually looking at this.

Could it just be the case that from an objective viewpoint there are unknown knowns, and, known unknowns, so what others are getting at is right, but also from a subjective viewpoint you are right that an individual "cannot" know an unknown and not know an unknown known?
There is no such thing as an objective viewpoint.

Also, if we want to look at sloppy or misleading writing, then we have to look at everything. Is "We cannot know an unknown" absolutely meticulous and not a misleading way at all to talk?
It's an accurate report of matters of fact.

What is more truthful? "We cannot know an unknown" or "We may not yet know an unknown"?
What's it mean for either to be 'more' truthful? Either one, or both, is true or not. The second presupposes that it is possible to know an unknown. I'm saying, quite plainly, that if it is known, or becomes known, it is known. If it is not known, then it is unknown. If X is unknown at time T1, and becomes known at time T2, then X is not an unknown at time T2.

Although we may not yet know an unknown, at a certain point in time, we can still learn and thus know an unknown, in the future. Therefore, we can know an unknown (in the future). Maybe to rid ourselves completely of any misleading or sloppiness in the way we talk we have to use the most accurate of language.

By the way, if some thing is known to you but is unknown to Me and we both know this, then is there any way that could be a known unknown to you and an unknown known to Me?
Our knowing that you do not know 'X' does not make 'X' known to you or unknown to me.
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Terrapin Station
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Re: 4 kinds of things

Post by Terrapin Station »

Hobbes' Choice wrote:
Terrapin Station wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote:I think you need to think this one through a bit - as I think you will find the idea useful and truthful.
Maybe you're getting at the fact that we have dispositions, such as preference dispositions? The thing is that I wouldn't call those, as something unconscious, knowledge or something known.

I see dispositions like this: there are rivers, creeks, etc. that do not flow at all times. When they do not flow, they are sometimes called washes. Washes are ground contours that determine where/how the river will flow when there's enough water for it to flow. Well, dispositions are like washes, and consciousness and mental phenomena in genera are like a river. The wash isn't itself a river. It's just depressions/contours, etc. of dirt, rock, etc. Flowing water is required for it to be a river. And there's no flowing water when it's just a wash.

So the river isn't just arbitrary, but a wash isn't a river, either.
You area trying to change the goalpost and still failing.
You'd have to explain your criticism in a bit more detail for me to get much out of it. ;-)
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Re: 4 kinds of things

Post by ken »

Terrapin Station wrote:
ken wrote:Do you think it could be possible that if all individuals coincidentally had the exact same preference about interpersonal behavior, then that commonly held shared preference could have come from an inner unconscious knowing of what is actually right and wrong?
Well first I don't think that one can know what's right and wrong (morally).
Yes I know what you think already. I have already acknowledged that. That is why I asked you if "you think it could be possible ..."

Your response shows you are not open to the idea that it could be possible. That is fair enough. You are free to be as open or as closed as you choose to be. But truthfully I am still unsure how open you are, or if you are. You say you "do not think that one can know what is right and wrong (morally)". On a scale of 1 to 100 is there a possibility that one can know what is right and wrong (morally), 1 being no possibility and 100 being absolutely there is a possibility.
Terrapin Station wrote:Because propositional knowledge requires that something is true. Moral claims are not, and can not be, true (or false).
Are you absolutely sure of this?

If it is true that every person agrees on at least one moral claim, then could that moral claim be true?

Aside from that perhaps more "technical" point, could it contingently be the case that everyone feels the same way on some moral stance? Sure.
Terrapin Station wrote:What I wouldn't say, though, is that that is evidence of the moral stance existing prior to individuals being aware that they have that moral stance. I don't know how there could possibly be evidence of that.
I have explained already how that evidence can and does exist.

The evidence can not be provided to you here for two reasons:
1. If you continue to show in your writings that you believe that there is no possibility.
2. Evidence can only become apparent to you when you come to the realization that you already knew some thing prior to becoming consciously aware of it.

If a person never comes to that realization, then that is fine. No one says a person "has to".
Terrapin Station wrote:I'm going to use symbols abstractly for a moment: let's say that a particular moral stance is the first-person perspective of the brain state represented by «€©. Well, prior to that moral stance being a conscious phenomenon, it could be the case that contingently, everyone has a brain with the structures/processes ¥[®£.

¥[®£ is not itself a conscious state, and it's not itself a mental state. However, ¥[®£ always subsequently causes brain state «€©, and «€© is a conscious/mental state--namely, the particular moral stance in question.
Who says and/or why does ¥[®£ always subsequently causes brain state «€©?

How does ¥[®£ always causes brain state «€©?

How do you propose the brain works?

I can not make sense of your idea here. Maybe I need to firstly grasp your idea of 'brain state', how 'some thing causes brain states'', and the 'structures/processes' you talk about.
Terrapin Station wrote:
How exactly does each "person's" brain work?
Are you asking for 7 billion different moment-by-moment accounts on a molecular (or finer-grained) level?
No.

You said the reason why we all think and do what what we do is "Because that's the way each person's brain works" ultimately.

To Me what appeared in your response was that you knew how the brain worked, ultimately. I was just asking you to clarify how the brain works actually.

Terrapin Station wrote:
How do you propose needs always hinge on wants?
"I need water"--well, that's because you want to quench your thirst, you want to remain alive, etc.
I can very easily see how that need is hinged on a want in that example. I can also see how our three other needs hinge on our wants in three other examples. But, to Me, every other want is just that, 'a want', it is not 'a need', and by saying our needs always hinge on wants is just another way we "justify to ourselves" (only) our greedy (and wrong) behaviors.

Sure, our very minimal needs do hinge on our wants, but, how many of our wants hinge on our needs?

Do I really 'need' the brand new ferrari when I say, "I want one"?

Or, do I really 'need' the brand new car when I say, "I need one"?
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Re: 4 kinds of things

Post by ken »

Terrapin Station wrote:
To you could there never be a possibility that for as long as that brain is producing thoughts you could never come across seemingly relatively "new" knowledge, which could also produce a similar realization as, "I already knew that" or "I have always known that"?
I can't make sense of that idea, no.
So even if you can not make sense of an idea you still will refute it with the absoluteness of a "no", instead of trying to grasp any sense of the idea with some sort of inquisitiveness?
Terrapin Station wrote:
Are any or all of your views above open to anything else or are they more or less fixed in the way that they are written?
Sure, I'm open to changing my views, but for most philosophical topics, I've spent a lot of time on them already, I've had my views for a long time, and it's not very often that I run into any new arguments for contrary stances. Typically I just run into people slightly rephrasing stuff I've heard hundreds of times before.
Okay.
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Re: 4 kinds of things

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creativesoul wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote:
creativesoul wrote:
Yes it is, as is known unknowns. Something cannot be both known and unknown at the same time given the same creature capable of knowing. As already argued for without subsequent refutation, when one talks about a 'known unknown' s/he is talking about two different things. One is known. One is not. Unknowns are entirely incapable of being known. An example of an unknown will not be known... by definition alone. Coherency matters.
If coherency matters, then I suggest you try to understand it before you dismiss it.
Show me how I've misunderstood, or dismissed coherency. Gratuitous assertions won't do.
I cannot show you how you have misunderstood, since I am not a mind reader. If you were to give it your best shot in explaining what you think "Unknown knows" means then I can tell you where you have gone wrong.
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Re: 4 kinds of things

Post by ken »

creativesoul wrote:
ken wrote:I totally understand what you are saying here, as well as what the others are saying also, it just depends on how we want to look at it, objectively or subjectively.


There is no such thing as an objective viewpoint.
Okay, if that is what you believe, then I acknowledge that that is what you believe.

creativesoul wrote:
What you are now questioning is not if known unknowns and/or unknown knowns exist, but if we can know an unknown and/or not know a known. Adding the words 'an' and 'a' in between known and unknown changes what is being questioned and how we are actually looking at this.

Could it just be the case that from an objective viewpoint there are unknown knowns, and, known unknowns, so what others are getting at is right, but also from a subjective viewpoint you are right that an individual "cannot" know an unknown and not know an unknown known?
There is no such thing as an objective viewpoint.
From your perspective there is also no unknown knowns and no known unknowns, right?
creativesoul wrote:
Also, if we want to look at sloppy or misleading writing, then we have to look at everything. Is "We cannot know an unknown" absolutely meticulous and not a misleading way at all to talk?
It's an accurate report of matters of fact.
What is this "accurate report" of "matters of fact" actually based on, and where can I get a copy of it from?

I wish I also had the ability and the power to be able to obtain these "accurate reports" of "matters of fact" like some people here profess to be able to obtain.

But at least I am able to come here to obtain "completely accurate facts". Although I do wonder why so many of these "accurate reports" of "matters of fact" actually are inaccuracies and contradictions of other "matters of facts", which are reported here so often.
creativesoul wrote:
What is more truthful? "We cannot know an unknown" or "We may not yet know an unknown"?
What's it mean for either to be 'more' truthful?
What it means is what is says, "one could be more truthful then the other".

Either one, or both, is true or not. The second presupposes that it is possible to know an unknown.[/quote]

Whereas the first (the one that you wrote) presupposes that it is not possible to know an unknown. Without stipulating a time frame the first means, what it says, forever more, which is not absolutely true. If you do not stipulate a time frame, then what you said is incorrect, sloppy, and/or misleading talk.
creativesoul wrote: I'm saying, quite plainly, that if it is known, or becomes known, it is known.
I do not think you needed to say this obvious fact, quite plainly, or in any other way. The obviousness of this does NOT need to be explained. However, can you explain the reason why you are reiterating what I have previously said?
creativesoul wrote:If it is not known, then it is unknown.
Obviously.
creativesoul wrote: If X is unknown at time T1, and becomes known at time T2, then X is not an unknown at time T2.
Again obviously. But do you realize that what is unknown to you at time T1, can be known to another person at the exact same time T1, and thus it then could be known as a known unknown or an unknown known, depending on what perspective this is being looked at?

Or are you still going to hold onto and maintain your same beliefs?
creativesoul wrote:
Although we may not yet know an unknown, at a certain point in time, we can still learn and thus know an unknown, in the future. Therefore, we can know an unknown (in the future). Maybe to rid ourselves completely of any misleading or sloppiness in the way we talk we have to use the most accurate of language.

By the way, if some thing is known to you but is unknown to Me and we both know this, then is there any way that could be a known unknown to you and an unknown known to Me?
Our knowing that you do not know 'X' does not make 'X' known to you or unknown to me.
Can you explain why you said this?

Why did you just not answer the question?

Obviously what you said is true, but that has nothing to do with my question here.

If X is known to you but X is not known to Me, then could X in regards to you be an unknown known from my perspective, (in other words I do NOT know what you know), and, could X in regards to Me be an known unknown from your perspective (in other words again what is known to you is unknown to Me)?
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Re: 4 kinds of things

Post by creativesoul »

Hobbes' Choice wrote:
creativesoul wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote:
If coherency matters, then I suggest you try to understand it before you dismiss it.
Show me how I've misunderstood, or dismissed coherency. Gratuitous assertions won't do.
I cannot show you how you have misunderstood, since I am not a mind reader. If you were to give it your best shot in explaining what you think "Unknown knows" means then I can tell you where you have gone wrong.
One need not read minds to show another how they've misunderstood. I've already explained how the meaning of "unknown knowns" is ill-conceived.
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Re: 4 kinds of things

Post by creativesoul »

ken wrote:
...What is this "accurate report" of "matters of fact" actually based on, and where can I get a copy of it from?

I wish I also had the ability and the power to be able to obtain these "accurate reports" of "matters of fact" like some people here profess to be able to obtain.

But at least I am able to come here to obtain "completely accurate facts". Although I do wonder why so many of these "accurate reports" of "matters of fact" actually are inaccuracies and contradictions of other "matters of facts", which are reported here so often.
Do you have an argument?

...the first (the one that you wrote) presupposes that it is not possible to know an unknown. Without stipulating a time frame the first means, what it says, forever more, which is not absolutely true. If you do not stipulate a time frame, then what you said is incorrect, sloppy, and/or misleading talk.
There is no time frame necessary. It's a matter of self-contradiction/coherency. All your talk about 'more' true and 'absolutely' true is prima facie evidence of a gross misunderstanding of truth at work. Something is either known or it is not.




...do you realize that what is unknown to you at time T1, can be known to another person at the exact same time T1, and thus it then could be known as a known unknown or an unknown known, depending on what perspective this is being looked at?

Or are you still going to hold onto and maintain your same beliefs?
So, if person A doesn't know 'X' but person B does know 'X', then 'X' is both unknown and known to both A and B?

Nah. Swapping between different folks' knowledge base doesn't cut it...

'X' is unknown to A. 'X' is known to B. What is known is not unknown. What is unknown is not known. It is not an unknown known to A, and it is not a known unknown to B. Rather, it is unknown to A and known to B.


creativesoul wrote:
Our knowing that you do not know 'X' does not make 'X' known to you or unknown to me.
ken replied;
Can you explain why you said this?

Why did you just not answer the question?

Obviously what you said is true, but that has nothing to do with my question here.

If X is known to you but X is not known to Me, then could X in regards to you be an unknown known from my perspective, (in other words I do NOT know what you know), and, could X in regards to Me be an known unknown from your perspective (in other words again what is known to you is unknown to Me)?
I did answer the question. Perhaps this will help...

If 'X' is not known to you then it is unknown(to you). If 'X' is known to me then it is not unknown(to me). You're conflating one person's knowledge with another's when you talk about 'X' being a known unknown from my perspective or 'X' being an unknown known from your persepctive. That's wrong. 'X' is not unknown from my perspective, and it is not known from yours. Thus, it makes no sense to say that 'X'' is an unknown known from your perspective. That is to conflate two different people's knowledge bases and talk about them as if they were one.
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Re: 4 kinds of things

Post by Harbal »

Hobbes' Choice wrote: I can tell you where you have gone wrong.
Thinking he can have a reasonable discussion with you is probably his gravest error.
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Re: 4 kinds of things

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

creativesoul wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote:
creativesoul wrote:
Show me how I've misunderstood, or dismissed coherency. Gratuitous assertions won't do.
I cannot show you how you have misunderstood, since I am not a mind reader. If you were to give it your best shot in explaining what you think "Unknown knows" means then I can tell you where you have gone wrong.
One need not read minds to show another how they've misunderstood. I've already explained how the meaning of "unknown knowns" is ill-conceived.
There you go, you are not showing that you have tried to understand what you are denigrating.
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Re: 4 kinds of things

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

Harbal wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote: I can tell you where you have gone wrong.
Thinking he can have a reasonable discussion with you is probably his gravest error.
So you think you can read his mind. Maybe you can tell me how he has misunderstood the idea, because he does not seem to know.
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