True Knowledge vs. Superstition and Credulity

Known unknowns and unknown unknowns!

Moderators: AMod, iMod

Walker
Posts: 14245
Joined: Thu Nov 05, 2015 12:00 am

Re: True Knowledge vs. Superstition and Credulity

Post by Walker »

RCSaunders wrote: Sun Jul 18, 2021 2:38 pm One major problem with relying oh authority for what one believes is the assumption one's own rational ability is insufficient to know everything they need to know and therefore requires some authority to supply them with their lack of knowledge. But, if one's own ability to reason cannot understand the truth on its own, how can it possibly know which authority has that knowledge? You believe you cannot understand something but can understand who else can? Absurd.
I’m hearing from you that rationality is the highest authority.
People are both rational, and emotionally irrational.

If you think that those two sentences are accurate, what are your thoughts concerning the purpose of rationality-clouding emotions?
surreptitious57
Posts: 4257
Joined: Fri Oct 25, 2013 6:09 am

Re: True Knowledge vs. Superstition and Credulity

Post by surreptitious57 »

RCSaunders wrote:
write a description of what you mean by true knowledge
Is there a difference between knowledge and true knowledge otherwise why the distinction
What I mean by knowledge is that which can be demonstrated to be either objectively true or objectively false using evidence or proof or logic

Scientific knowledge however is inductive and so pertains to what is probably true as opposed to what is definitely true
Except with regard to falsification because providing the methodology is sound that knowledge is always definitely true
User avatar
RCSaunders
Posts: 4704
Joined: Tue Jul 17, 2018 9:42 pm
Contact:

Re: True Knowledge vs. Superstition and Credulity

Post by RCSaunders »

surreptitious57 wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 7:53 pm
RCSaunders wrote:
write a description of what you mean by true knowledge
Is there a difference between knowledge and true knowledge otherwise why the distinction
What I mean by knowledge is that which can be demonstrated to be either objectively true or objectively false using evidence or proof or logic

Scientific knowledge however is inductive and so pertains to what is probably true as opposed to what is definitely true
Except with regard to falsification because providing the methodology is sound that knowledge is always definitely true
If something is not true, technically it is not knowledge, but a great deal of nonsense in this world is called knowledge which is not true. I use the phrase, "true knowedge," only to differentiate that false knowledge (like 90% of what is shoved down children's intellectual throats in government schools) from what knowledge really is.

Science is neither inductive (which can prove nothing and no scientific principle has ever been based on it) or deductive (which is only a logical method used to verify reasoning when in question). Both induction (which is nothing more than observation and statistics) and deduction are used in the process of scientific investigation and discovery, but science is entirely the process of identifying existence and its nature and there is no one method of science.

Science Philosophy
User avatar
Zarathustra
Posts: 127
Joined: Thu Jul 08, 2021 1:32 am

Re: True Knowledge vs. Superstition and Credulity

Post by Zarathustra »

If you hear about something X or read about X from the media or someone telling you about it, so you know about it. In this case is it knowledge or belief?
User avatar
RCSaunders
Posts: 4704
Joined: Tue Jul 17, 2018 9:42 pm
Contact:

Re: True Knowledge vs. Superstition and Credulity

Post by RCSaunders »

Walker wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 9:15 am
RCSaunders wrote: Sun Jul 18, 2021 2:38 pm One major problem with relying oh authority for what one believes is the assumption one's own rational ability is insufficient to know everything they need to know and therefore requires some authority to supply them with their lack of knowledge. But, if one's own ability to reason cannot understand the truth on its own, how can it possibly know which authority has that knowledge? You believe you cannot understand something but can understand who else can? Absurd.
I’m hearing from you that rationality is the highest authority.
People are both rational, and emotionally irrational.

If you think that those two sentences are accurate, what are your thoughts concerning the purpose of rationality-clouding emotions?
The emotions are non-cognitive. Rationality is the only faculty one has for acquiring (learning) and using knowledge (thinking.) The feelings and emotions are only physiological reactions to what one is conscious of at any moment, that is, what they are currently perceiving, thinking, remembering, or imaginisng, or choosing.

Feeling are reactions to choices and provide no guidance for one's choices. Reason is the only guide to right choices. To get the order backward, to use reason to pursue some feeling or allow feeling to influence one's choices is always disastrous. It's one of the curses of the age.

Feelings.
User avatar
RCSaunders
Posts: 4704
Joined: Tue Jul 17, 2018 9:42 pm
Contact:

Re: True Knowledge vs. Superstition and Credulity

Post by RCSaunders »

Zarathustra wrote: Sun Jul 18, 2021 10:02 pm Could this be in line with Logical Positivism's claim on the account of knowledge?
I have no idea what that is even supposed to mean, not that it makes any difference. It doesn't really matter. So called logical positivism completely destroyed epistemology and philosophy has never recovered from that corruption. After Hume and Kant, Russell and Wittgenstein have to have been the worst of philosophers.
User avatar
RCSaunders
Posts: 4704
Joined: Tue Jul 17, 2018 9:42 pm
Contact:

Re: True Knowledge vs. Superstition and Credulity

Post by RCSaunders »

Zarathustra wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 9:39 am If you hear about something X or read about X from the media or someone telling you about it, so you know about it. In this case is it knowledge or belief?
I'm sorry, I do not know what you are asking. Just being aware of something is not knowledge. The, "news," is full of lies and fictions, and one can call the fact the news says something, if it does, knowledge, only in the sense that one knows it was said. If one believes what is said, on no other basis then that it was said, that is not knowledge. It is credulity or gullibility like any superstition.
User avatar
Zarathustra
Posts: 127
Joined: Thu Jul 08, 2021 1:32 am

Re: True Knowledge vs. Superstition and Credulity

Post by Zarathustra »

RCSaunders wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 2:10 pm
I'm sorry, I do not know what you are asking. Just being aware of something is not knowledge. The, "news," is full of lies and fictions, and one can call the fact the news says something, if it does, knowledge, only in the sense that one knows it was said. If one believes what is said, on no other basis then that it was said, that is not knowledge. It is credulity or gullibility like any superstition.
Russell calls it "Derivative Knowledge". You read something, and that the meaning of the print becomes the basis of your knowledge. Same with listening to someone saying to you about something, or listening to the lectures and the news, and the linguistic messages, the contents of the sounds which has meanings in them give you knowledge. Ahh .. you don't rate Russell as a philosopher. I think they are all good philosophers.
Skepdick
Posts: 14347
Joined: Fri Jun 14, 2019 11:16 am

Re: True Knowledge vs. Superstition and Credulity

Post by Skepdick »

RCSaunders wrote: Thu Jul 15, 2021 8:51 pm Only knowledge based on actual evidence available to anyone to observe or study is true knowledge.
Knowledge is the decision which leads to a better future. All descriptive notions of knowledge are tautologies.
If you can't DO anything with it - it's worthless as knowledge.

Take any given decision that you have to take. The decision manifests two possible futures.

Either you know which choice you need to make to manifest a better future or you don't.

Everything else is philosophy.
User avatar
RCSaunders
Posts: 4704
Joined: Tue Jul 17, 2018 9:42 pm
Contact:

Re: True Knowledge vs. Superstition and Credulity

Post by RCSaunders »

Skepdick wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 2:28 pm Take any given decision that you have to take. The decision manifests two possible futures.
I will not discuss this again because we've already done that. At any point there are an infinite number of possible futures. There is never only one choice. Even in those cases where there are only two alternative things one can do, (go left or go right) there is always the third, (stop and go nowhere).
Last edited by RCSaunders on Fri Jul 23, 2021 3:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
RCSaunders
Posts: 4704
Joined: Tue Jul 17, 2018 9:42 pm
Contact:

Re: True Knowledge vs. Superstition and Credulity

Post by RCSaunders »

Zarathustra wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 2:18 pm
RCSaunders wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 2:10 pm
I'm sorry, I do not know what you are asking. Just being aware of something is not knowledge. The, "news," is full of lies and fictions, and one can call the fact the news says something, if it does, knowledge, only in the sense that one knows it was said. If one believes what is said, on no other basis then that it was said, that is not knowledge. It is credulity or gullibility like any superstition.
Russell calls it "Derivative Knowledge". You read something, and that the meaning of the print becomes the basis of your knowledge. Same with listening to someone saying to you about something, or listening to the lectures and the news, and the linguistic messages, the contents of the sounds which has meanings in them give you knowledge. Ahh .. you don't rate Russell as a philosopher. I think they are all good philosophers.
Russell thought the meaning of, "Scott," and, "the writer of Waverly," meant the same thing, in the proposition, "Scott is the writer of Waverly," because he believed the absurd notion that something put into correct logical form could be true, even if all the concepts meant nothing and the equally absurd notion (ala Kant) that a concept means its definition. If you think that's good philosophy, well, then you do. But it's that philosophy which makes you able to write:

"You read something, and that the meaning of the print becomes the basis of your knowledge. Same with listening to someone saying to you about something, or listening to the lectures and the news, and the linguistic messages, the contents of the sounds which has meanings in them give you knowledge." But if what you read or hear in a lecture or the news is a lie or nonsense, and you believe it, you have not gained knowledge, you have been deceived and filled your mind with anti-knowledge.

Just reading or hearing something does not provide you anything until you have analyzed it, understood it, and made the judgement that it is either cogent and true or absurd nonsense. Russell never made the connection between the necessity of conscious intentional choice in learning. Learning does not happen automatically, it requires conscious intentional effort and mental assent. So much for Russell.

Even Whitehead, Russell's collaborator on Principia Mathematica didn't agree with Russell's absurd epistemology.
Skepdick
Posts: 14347
Joined: Fri Jun 14, 2019 11:16 am

Re: True Knowledge vs. Superstition and Credulity

Post by Skepdick »

RCSaunders wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 2:46 pm At any point there are an infinite number of possible futures.
No. There are only two possible futures at at any given moment, but there will be only one actual future.

The one where you've made a choice to hange something.
The one where yo've make a choice to change nothing.

RCSaunders wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 2:46 pm There is never only one choice.
There are infinitely many choices to choose from but you can only make one choice at a time.

Change something.
Change nothing.
RCSaunders wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 2:46 pm Even in those cases where there are only two alternative things one can do, (go left or go right) there is always the third, (stop and go nowhere).
That's not a third. That's change-nothing.
User avatar
RCSaunders
Posts: 4704
Joined: Tue Jul 17, 2018 9:42 pm
Contact:

Re: True Knowledge vs. Superstition and Credulity

Post by RCSaunders »

Skepdick wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 3:20 pm That's not a third. That's change-nothing.
However may alternatives there are, "Do nothing," is always one of the possible choices. "Wait," is another. Human consciousness is not digital, it is analogue. Human choice is not determined by only two possible variables, but an indefinite number of variables.
Skepdick
Posts: 14347
Joined: Fri Jun 14, 2019 11:16 am

Re: True Knowledge vs. Superstition and Credulity

Post by Skepdick »

RCSaunders wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 3:36 pm However may alternatives there are, "Do nothing," is always one of the possible choices. "Wait," is another.
Waiting and doing-nothing are exactly the same thing. Actions. Not words.

RCSaunders wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 3:36 pm Human consciousness is not digital, it is analogue.
Nothing to do with consciousness. Either you act in a way to manifest one future; or you don't act and manifest another future.
RCSaunders wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 3:36 pm Human choice is not determined by only two possible variables, but an indefinite number of variables.
Those are inputs to reason. Choice is an output.
User avatar
RCSaunders
Posts: 4704
Joined: Tue Jul 17, 2018 9:42 pm
Contact:

Re: True Knowledge vs. Superstition and Credulity

Post by RCSaunders »

Skepdick wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 4:31 pm
RCSaunders wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 3:36 pm However may alternatives there are, "Do nothing," is always one of the possible choices. "Wait," is another.
Waiting and doing-nothing are exactly the same thing. Actions. Not words.
They are different choices. Choosing to do nothing removes a choice from consideration. Waiting is the choice to suspend the decision temporarily, or putting it aside for further consideration, with no overt action.
Skepdick wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 4:31 pm
RCSaunders wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 3:36 pm Human consciousness is not digital, it is analogue.
Nothing to do with consciousness. Either you act in a way to manifest one future; or you don't act and manifest another future.
I have no idea what you are talking about. If a choice is not a conscious choice, it is not a choice at all, just a meaningless physical event. Many choices to not result in any overt physical action, like the choice to, "think it over."
Skepdick wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 4:31 pm
RCSaunders wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 3:36 pm Human choice is not determined by only two possible variables, but an indefinite number of variables.
Those are inputs to reason. Choice is an output.
Well, of course! So long as they are not thought of as, "inputs," to some formula or algorithm. The, "inputs," are all of the myriad things one is conscious of at the moment the choice is made.
Post Reply