All Knowledge is Assumption, Assumption is Knowledge

[11011]

to your most recent post: how do you know you see? i know what you're saying but it doesn't escape what i said.

there are other things beside 'sight' that move before your eyes, to the extent that we can confuse them for 'sight', and if we can make such confusions then we don't know what you suppose we do.

for example, when you are dreaming your imagination may create images that you may confuse in the moment with 'sight' - until you wake up and against the reference point of your waking consciousness dub them dream content, i.e. imaginations.

so even in our 'waking consciousness' we don't know that we see. in ultimate reality we may still be asleep.

however, i would like to run with your point as the point of this post isn't just to rebuttal you or whatever or point out the flaws in your example. i will explore the essence of your point which is that we know our mental content.

so even if the sun moving across the sky doesn't constitute sight as we think, does our perception, whatever it's true nature, constitute knowledge?

how about just: i perceive the sun moving across the sky

but does anything about this constitute knowledge? maybe...i know that i'm having this perception?

i know that i perceive?

but even here, everything after 'know' can be called into question.

who is 'I'?

is 'I' capable of knowing something about 'I', let alone that 'I' perceives? what is perception? does 'I' know the nature of perception and therefore in a position to determine whether it perceives or has this trait?

does 'I' even exist? how so? what is the nature and form of 'I'? i think least of all we'd have to determine this before determining whether 'I' can know anything.

the point is everything we 'know' currently relies on a reference point or 'grounding' and that is assumption, even the most fundamental and proximal of our experiences/perceptions.

[Speakpigeon]

to your most recent post: how do you know you see? i know what you're saying but it doesn't escape what i said. there are other things beside 'sight' that move before your eyes, to the extent that we can confuse them for 'sight', and if we can make such confusions then we don't know what you suppose we do. for example, when you are dreaming your imagination may create images that you may confuse in the moment with 'sight' - until you wake up and against the reference point of your waking consciousness dub them dream content, i.e. imaginations. so even in our 'waking consciousness' we don't know that we see. in ultimate reality we may still be asleep.

Sorry, but your reasoning is a fallacy. That I may be deceived (e.g. dream, hallucination, drugs) into believing that I see the Sun moving in the sky doesn't falsify that if I actually see the Sun moving in the sky, then I know that I see the Sun moving in the sky.
If ever you wanted to deny this, please realise that you would be denying the very possibility of any sort of knowledge whatsoever. And then, you would obviously falsify your initial claim that "all knowledge proceeds from assumption" since you would now claim knowledge doesn't exist in the first place.
Thank you to clarify.
EB

[11011]

clarity is of utmost importance in this discussion if we are to get anywhere, accordingly, please define your terms, starting with:

knowledge:

and then, in the context in which you used them above,

'I':

'Know':

'See':


i touched on this aspect of the problem in my previous posts, that's why i included them as tangents. they are not tangents. i was anticipating the fundamental issue.

and i later said that currently all knowledge proceeds from assumption, i was not moving the goal posts, context is ever so important and based on how you responded to that initial post i saw that you did not see my context: knowledge (presently) proceeds from assumption. that is what i meant because that is what i see. i see assumptions underlying all of our knowledges, including 'i think, therefore i am' or 'i see'

for you to know that you see you would have to know 'I' first, in particular its capacity for knowledge. it isn't just the seeing part that's epistemologically relevant in that statement, it's the 'I' part. the 'seeing' part depends on the 'I' part. you are taking 'I' for granted

you are assuming 'I'. you are assuming 'I' exists. you are assuming 'I' can know (anything) when you do not know (presently).

i defined knowledge earlier as 'confirmed thought' - that knowledge is in contrast to thinking or perception in general because the actuality of its statements are confirmable outside of the possesser. if we do not make this distinction then knowledge is indistinguishable from deception.

'I', based on common meanings of this term, cannot know anything on its own without some sort of external confirmation. external to 'I'. this is because 'I' by its very nature depends on reference points to perceive its own existence; our very sense of self depends on our interacting with others or something 'outside' to emerge, without this interaction at least initially, there can be no self. so at the very beginning referential assumptions are at play even in our 'knowing' that 'I' exists, let alone knows anything.

but that is also cause for hope in terms of possibility for knowledge, as it suggests that there is something out there to know about if 'I' - which is required for knowledge - arises out of interaction rather than solitude or vacuum or emptiness or whatever. it also suggests how we ought to go about finding out whether 'I' can know anything - through studying other things, that is indirectly.

so doubting 'I's' ability to know anything presently does not deny the possibility of knowledge, and perhaps the nature of knowledge is such that there are actually levels of it. that knowledge is actually inherently referential in nature, that knowledge arises from external confirmation or reference to something else, and that the deeper we peer into and understand other things outside of 'I', the more certain our confirmations of 'I's' perceptions become until one day we may be able to call them knowledge.

don't confuse awareness with knowledge. you might be aware of such as 'the sun moving over the sky' but that is not knowing anything, because even that awareness depends on reference points/assumptions, language and so on, you've collected in memory and apply to awareness moment to moment. there is no knowledge without thought and thought requires at least working assumptions. in other words, assumptions precede knowledge and are necessary to obtain knowledge after which point they are augmented until they are, optimistically, replaced with pure knowledge itself, or knowledge without assumptions. but assumptions are needed to get there.

[HexHammer]

yadda yadda ..bla bla ...bla!!!

Plz go elsewhere and spew your endless nonsense and babble!!!

[Speakpigeon]

clarity is of utmost importance in this discussion if we are to get anywhere, accordingly, please define your terms, starting with:
knowledge

Here are dictionary definitions that seem apt:

knowledge
1. the facts, feelings, or experiences known by a person or group of people
2. the state of knowing
3. awareness, consciousness, or familiarity gained by experience or learning
4. erudition or informed learning
5. specific information about a subject

And here is the view of Russell on knowledge:

Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description
Russell used the distinction between knowledge by acquaintance and description to articulate a foundationalist epistemology where knowledge by acquaintance is the most basic kind of knowledge and knowledge by description is inferential (Russell 1910 and 1912, ch. 5). “All our knowledge,” wrote Russell, “rests upon acquaintance for its foundation” (Russell 1912, p. 48). Knowledge by acquaintance, therefore, is a direct kind of knowledge; it is a kind of knowledge that does not depend on inference or mediation.
https://www.iep.utm.edu/knowacq/

Knowledge by acquaintance does not require any assumption.

and then, in the context in which you used them above, 'I'

Here is is:

I
1. the nominative singular pronoun used by a speaker or writer in referring to himself or herself.

'Know'

See "knowledge".

'See'

Here it is:

See
1. a. To perceive with the eye: Do you see the hawk in the tree?

i see assumptions underlying all of our knowledges, including 'i think, therefore i am' or 'i see'
for you to know that you see you would have to know 'I' first, in particular its capacity for knowledge. it isn't just the seeing part that's epistemologically relevant in that statement, it's the 'I' part. the 'seeing' part depends on the 'I' part. you are taking 'I' for granted

But it's not how people express themselves. We cannot express ourselves meaningfully without a subject and a predicate, and if we were to understand a statement S only once we have stated the definition of the subject of S and of that of the subject of every statement we need to make to define the subject of S, then we get into an infinite regress and we won't be able to define anything, and we would have to say that we don't understand anything, and even that wouldn't be understandable. Yet, we understand each other.
If we were to follow your strictures, then, again, all our statements would be devoid of meaning and therefore not true. You're welcome to think there is no knowledge at all and no possibility of knowledge, but then you would be contradicting yourself when you say all knowledge proceed from assumption.

you are assuming 'I'. you are assuming 'I' exists. you are assuming 'I' can know (anything) when you do not know (presently).

I'm not assuming that I exist. I only need to think in order to know that I exist. Not assume, know. And I know when I think, therefore I know that I am whenever I think. That's the Cogito, literally, and it's 300 years old. You need to read Descartes.

i defined knowledge earlier as 'confirmed thought' - that knowledge is in contrast to thinking or perception in general because the actuality of its statements are confirmable outside of the possesser. if we do not make this distinction then knowledge is indistinguishable from deception.

First of all, and as we can see routinely in real life, many people find that what they think is confirmed by other people, including experts, and yet that's definitely no guaranty that what they think is true. So, sorry, "confirmed thought" doesn't work.
Second, "confirmed thought" is your own private definition of the the term. I'm not interested discussing your private definitions.

'I', based on common meanings of this term, cannot know anything on its own without some sort of external confirmation. external to 'I'. this is because 'I' by its very nature depends on reference points to perceive its own existence; our very sense of self depends on our interacting with others or something 'outside' to emerge, without this interaction at least initially, there can be no self. so at the very beginning referential assumptions are at play even in our 'knowing' that 'I' exists, let alone knows anything.

You are confusing or equivocating, on the one hand, the long process of the genesis of the person as a thinking thing, through existence as a human being in society and through interaction with people and things; and on the second hand, the notion of assumption. An assumption is a statement, or a thought equivalent to a statement, used as premise in an inference to a conclusion.
Once you are a normal human being, you experience knowing that you think, knowing that you are, and, crucially, you definitely don't need anyone to confirm this to you. The fact that to get there you need to have been born and to have grown up in normal conditions is neither here nor there. Reality as a whole is probably necessary for me to exist at all, and yet it would be a fallacy to say that I don't know that I exist until I know the whole of reality. But it's true that I know that reality exists as soon as I know I exist. And I know I exist as soon as I think. The "I" here is defined by "I think". The "I" is the thinking thing. The "I" knows it exists because it thinks and thinking involve awareness of the "I". It's just a fact. There's no explanation that we would know of. But that's definitely good enough.

don't confuse awareness with knowledge. you might be aware of such as 'the sun moving over the sky'

That's not what I said. Read again.
EB

[11011]

is knowledge different from deception?

my impression is that you don't understand or can't appreciate the implication behind the question: how do we know that we know?

you're being way too casual about this, 'Probably', 'Good enough'

and i think it's driven by your bias that you don't want to be or feel like you're in a position of not being able to know anything currently, i say this because you rush to that conclusion about what i say even though i'm not implying that at all and even state so explicitly and explain how knowledge is still possible

you readily accept things that clearly pose issues in knowing

[Speakpigeon]

is knowledge different from deception?

By definition, knowledge and deception are different. The only question is whether knowledge exists at all, and what kind of knowledge.

my impression is that you don't understand or can't appreciate the implication behind the question: how do we know that we know?

Why would that question be relevant?

you're being way too casual about this, 'Probably', 'Good enough'

You would need to quote me here. The context is missing. So, no, not good enough.

and i think it's driven by your bias that you don't want to be or feel like you're in a position of not being able to know anything currently,

???
This is false on the face of what I said. Read again. If you can't properly read what I say, then this conversation is meaningless.

i say this because you rush to that conclusion about what i say even though i'm not implying that at all and even state so explicitly and explain how knowledge is still possible

So, you prefer to assert without justification rather that discuss what I actually said?!

you readily accept things that clearly pose issues in knowing

You would need to argue your point and you're clearly not doing that right now.
EB

[Logik]

By definition, knowledge and deception are different. The only question is whether knowledge exists at all, and what kind of knowledge.

my impression is that you don't understand or can't appreciate the implication behind the question: how do we know that we know?

Why would that question be relevant?

Because it's entirely possible that you may have deceived yourself in error. You may think you have attained knowledge when you actually haven't.

So these are valid questions:

A. How do you know that you know?
B. How do you know that you don't know?

[Speakpigeon]

Because it's entirely possible that you may have deceived yourself in error. You may think you have attained knowledge when you actually haven't.

So, what's the value of knowing how we know if knowing is possibly deceptive as you all claim.
EB

[Logik]

Because it's entirely possible that you may have deceived yourself in error. You may think you have attained knowledge when you actually haven't.

So, what's the value of knowing how we know if knowing is possibly deceptive as you all claim.
EB

The value is quite literally being able to spot which one of your own beliefs are bullshit.

Self-awareness, self-skepticism and self-correction.

The value is autodidactism

[Speakpigeon]

Because it's entirely possible that you may have deceived yourself in error. You may think you have attained knowledge when you actually haven't.

So, what's the value of knowing how we know if knowing is possibly deceptive as you all claim.

The value is quite literally being able to spot which one of your own beliefs are bullshit.
Self-awareness, self-skepticism and self-correction.
The value is autodidactism

???
Let me repeat myself, since apparently you didn't understand my question: What would be the value of knowing how we know if knowing is possibly deceptive as you all claim?

OK, let's rephrase: If knowing was possibly deceptive, then knowing how we know would possibly be deceptive too and therefore useless. Knowing how we know wouldn't make knowledge not deceptive.

Believing is of course possibly deceptive so, in effect, you're all saying that knowing is a species of belief. I wonder why we bother to use the word "knowledge". Why do you even ever bother to assert that you know anything at all?

Why would self-correction work is knowledge is possibly deceptive? Isn't self-correction deceptive, too? You think self-correction is a better species of knowledge?

As we understand the notion of knowledge, when you know that p, then p is true. There's no need and indeed no room for self-correction when you know that p. The question is whether knowledge exists at all and what species of knowledge does.

Still, if you think that knowing that you think can be deceptive, then stay in your bed because for all you know staying in bed may be deceptive and very possibly you're in fact at work, so why bother?
EB

[Logik]

So, what's the value of knowing how we know if knowing is possibly deceptive as you all claim.

The value is quite literally being able to spot which one of your own beliefs are bullshit.
Self-awareness, self-skepticism and self-correction.
The value is autodidactism

???
Let me repeat myself, since apparently you didn't understand my question: What would be the value of knowing how we know if knowing is possibly deceptive as you all claim?

OK, let's rephrase: If knowing was possibly deceptive, then knowing how we know would possibly be deceptive too and therefore useless. Knowing how we know wouldn't make knowledge not deceptive.

Believing is of course possibly deceptive so, in effect, you're all saying that knowing is a species of belief. I wonder why we bother to use the word "knowledge". Why do you even ever bother to assert that you know anything at all?

Why would self-correction work is knowledge is possibly deceptive? Isn't self-correction deceptive, too? You think self-correction is a better species of knowledge?

As we understand the notion of knowledge, when you know that p, then p is true. There's no need and indeed no room for self-correction when you know that p. The question is whether knowledge exists at all and what species of knowledge does.

Still, if you think that knowing that you think can be deceptive, then stay in your bed because for all you know staying in bed may be deceptive and very possibly you're in fact at work, so why bother?
EB

Ohhhhh. Another black-and-white line of reasoning.

Nobody knows THAT p.

Some people know THAT SOMETIMES (often? rarely?) and in particular context (C) and given particular model/framework (F) for reasoning, then p is true.

I get out of bed because I don't give a shit about knowledge. Knowledge is instrumental towards one's goals.

[Speakpigeon]

I didn't say anybody knew that p.
So, OK, you're saying knowledge doesn't exist. Only belief and then what kind of belief. Presumably not belief that p. Oh, I know, all there is are our actions. Algorithmic actions, presumably.
So, you don't know THAT you posted "Nobody knows THAT p"?
Impressive.
EB

[Speakpigeon]

Nobody knows THAT p.

Some people know THAT SOMETIMES (often? rarely?) and in particular context (C) and given particular model/framework (F) for reasoning, then p is true.

THAT is knowing that p.
EB

[Logik]

Nobody knows THAT p.

Some people know THAT SOMETIMES (often? rarely?) and in particular context (C) and given particular model/framework (F) for reasoning, then p is true.

THAT is knowing that p.
EB

Maybe in your epistemology. Not mine.

Ever heard of edge and corner cases?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_case
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corner_case