08-04-2018, 12:00 AM
DoktorGreen wrote:
How many things can you say you really know are true?
We are born.
We perceive.
We perceive differently at night.
We die.
What else? Is everything else an assumption?
My most favoritest word at the moment is hypothetical. I remember watching Deepak Chopra get stymied on a youtube video in which him and several other spiritual gurus du jour were being interviewed on some sort of talk show when the host opened things up for audience questions. The man picked from the audience tells the host that his question is for Deepak and the following exchange occurs.
Man "You said that no belief is true?"
Deepak "Yes"
Man "Do you believe that?"
Deepak "Yes"
Man "Thank you" and immediately heads back to his seat, while the audience laughs.
Poor Deepak.
At least he had the good sense to laugh appreciatively about it, in spite of it being "at his expense". Perhaps if Deepak had a better mastery of the word hypothetical he would have better been able to address the man's questions, or at least not fallen into such a linguistic trap.
Hypothetical, (according to me) - Anything that may or may not be true. When a hypothetical is considered true it is still different from a belief in that no energetic investment is made into it's being true.
Armed with a word like this, perhaps Deepak could've clarified that he doesn't have beliefs, he only has hypotheticals, some of which he's subscribed to, and he always considers them to be in question. Of course, that might not really be true, but it seems to be the gist of what he's recommending people do, (a recommendation I agree with).
So, using my favorite word to answer the question "What do we really know?", I'll suggest that the question can be fairly and more precisely re-phrased as "What hypotheticals, if any, can we say are true without having to make any assumption?"
An assumption in this case would mean to accept a hypothetical as true without proof. Proof meaning that a hypothetical has been shown to be drawn in a logically valid manner 1-exclusively from other hypotheticals which are known to be true or 2-as an immediate inference in which no other hypotheticals need be considered.
People have been wrestling with this question for thousands of years. A few answers tend to come up a lot for this question, and they are all somewhat lacking.
1 - If A is true than A is true.
This answer, which seems true, simply hides the assumption in itself. We're looking for something we know to be true, not something we know to be true IF it's true.
2 - You cannot have A and ~A.
Which means that A can't be both true and untrue at the same time. This is arguably the fundamental belief of reason, and it is necessary for the rules of logic to be at all credible, since they are ultimately based on this. However, it still isn't telling us any specific thing that is true. This is a bit better than the first answer in that from it we get 1 hypothetical out of it, that being "Truth and falsehood are universal opposites". Two problems with this though. First is that it is still an assumption, and second is that it only describes our labelling/mental modelling system. It is pretty useful however.
3 - The cogito, aka "I think therefore I am" - This ego-based amateur attempt at a proof is hardly worth the effort to discuss. Let's just say that if I were to say "The pink elephant sitting on top of your head thinks, therefore the pink elephant sitting on top of your head is" you would be able to find the problem in this yourself. Thus if you can't find the issue in the original it's because of your attachment to "I". The fact that logicians and philosophers have treated this seriously so long is an embarrassment to their entire fields of study.
So... from a logical, mind-centric viewpoint, to the best of my knowledge I don't know anything. However their is another viewpoint to consider, and that's the "direct knowledge" that funnyguy and many others have talked about.
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Direct knowledge is quite a bit different than logical proofs. To me it doesn't seem to occur in the mind at all. If I'm going to throw a basketball towards a hoop, direct knowledge can tell me if it's going in or not. But it seems like it operates on a scale. Usually I have an idea of whether that will happen but I don't "know" for sure. Often I've thought it would go in and it did not, (and vice versa). Only when a lot of energy was placed on the awareness would I absolutely know for sure. It takes a lot of energy to be aware of exactly how to throw every shot so it goes in.
This seems to invite the question "Does putting energy into awareness inform us of truth or create it?" If I put enough energy into the awareness that my grandma is actually still alive, can I make that true? Note that I'm talking about putting energy into the awareness of this, not putting energy into believing it.
At the moment, I don't have a great system of understanding for this, but it seems worth my while to take time contemplating it. But if I know anything it's that I'm gonna need more words like hypothetical before I'm done.
How many things can you say you really know are true?
We are born.
We perceive.
We perceive differently at night.
We die.
What else? Is everything else an assumption?
My most favoritest word at the moment is hypothetical. I remember watching Deepak Chopra get stymied on a youtube video in which him and several other spiritual gurus du jour were being interviewed on some sort of talk show when the host opened things up for audience questions. The man picked from the audience tells the host that his question is for Deepak and the following exchange occurs.
Man "You said that no belief is true?"
Deepak "Yes"
Man "Do you believe that?"
Deepak "Yes"
Man "Thank you" and immediately heads back to his seat, while the audience laughs.
Poor Deepak.
At least he had the good sense to laugh appreciatively about it, in spite of it being "at his expense". Perhaps if Deepak had a better mastery of the word hypothetical he would have better been able to address the man's questions, or at least not fallen into such a linguistic trap. Hypothetical, (according to me) - Anything that may or may not be true. When a hypothetical is considered true it is still different from a belief in that no energetic investment is made into it's being true.
Armed with a word like this, perhaps Deepak could've clarified that he doesn't have beliefs, he only has hypotheticals, some of which he's subscribed to, and he always considers them to be in question. Of course, that might not really be true, but it seems to be the gist of what he's recommending people do, (a recommendation I agree with).
So, using my favorite word to answer the question "What do we really know?", I'll suggest that the question can be fairly and more precisely re-phrased as "What hypotheticals, if any, can we say are true without having to make any assumption?"
An assumption in this case would mean to accept a hypothetical as true without proof. Proof meaning that a hypothetical has been shown to be drawn in a logically valid manner 1-exclusively from other hypotheticals which are known to be true or 2-as an immediate inference in which no other hypotheticals need be considered.
People have been wrestling with this question for thousands of years. A few answers tend to come up a lot for this question, and they are all somewhat lacking.
1 - If A is true than A is true.
This answer, which seems true, simply hides the assumption in itself. We're looking for something we know to be true, not something we know to be true IF it's true.
2 - You cannot have A and ~A.
Which means that A can't be both true and untrue at the same time. This is arguably the fundamental belief of reason, and it is necessary for the rules of logic to be at all credible, since they are ultimately based on this. However, it still isn't telling us any specific thing that is true. This is a bit better than the first answer in that from it we get 1 hypothetical out of it, that being "Truth and falsehood are universal opposites". Two problems with this though. First is that it is still an assumption, and second is that it only describes our labelling/mental modelling system. It is pretty useful however.
3 - The cogito, aka "I think therefore I am" - This ego-based amateur attempt at a proof is hardly worth the effort to discuss. Let's just say that if I were to say "The pink elephant sitting on top of your head thinks, therefore the pink elephant sitting on top of your head is" you would be able to find the problem in this yourself. Thus if you can't find the issue in the original it's because of your attachment to "I". The fact that logicians and philosophers have treated this seriously so long is an embarrassment to their entire fields of study.
So... from a logical, mind-centric viewpoint, to the best of my knowledge I don't know anything. However their is another viewpoint to consider, and that's the "direct knowledge" that funnyguy and many others have talked about.
===========
Direct knowledge is quite a bit different than logical proofs. To me it doesn't seem to occur in the mind at all. If I'm going to throw a basketball towards a hoop, direct knowledge can tell me if it's going in or not. But it seems like it operates on a scale. Usually I have an idea of whether that will happen but I don't "know" for sure. Often I've thought it would go in and it did not, (and vice versa). Only when a lot of energy was placed on the awareness would I absolutely know for sure. It takes a lot of energy to be aware of exactly how to throw every shot so it goes in.
This seems to invite the question "Does putting energy into awareness inform us of truth or create it?" If I put enough energy into the awareness that my grandma is actually still alive, can I make that true? Note that I'm talking about putting energy into the awareness of this, not putting energy into believing it.
At the moment, I don't have a great system of understanding for this, but it seems worth my while to take time contemplating it. But if I know anything it's that I'm gonna need more words like hypothetical before I'm done.