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andrel wrote:
> What I said (and I think Jim is along the same line) is not that
> knowledge is faith but that those that believe *know* that they are
> right.
Right. Except by making it mean "I'm really *really* faithful", you've
eliminated the usefulness of the word.
If I said "I *know* Lincoln was the first president of the USA", what would
you say? What if I was absolutely positive? Would you say I knew that for a
fact? Or would you say "No, your belief is incorrect"?
> I can not prove it,
You have justification for your belief.
One can argue over whether there is sufficient justification to turn a
belief in something that happens to be true into knowledge, sure. But no
amount of confidence without justification will turn belief into knowledge.
> that does not change the fact that I know god does not exist.
You may have justification in your belief. Others may have justification in
theirs. But just as I wouldn't call any amount of belief in something false
to be "knowledge", I wouldn't call any amount of belief in something
unjustified to be "knowledge."
The idea that you "know" that you "should have" taken another route home is
silly. To "feel strongly" and to "know" are two different words, and it's
intellectually dishonest to use one instead of the other when you know better.
If you've had first-hand experience with deities, then saying you "know"
deities exist is reasonable, even if it turns out later you're mistaken and
you simply justifiably believed in something false.
In other words, it's perfectly reasonable to say "I know X", when indeed
you're mistaken about it. But you don't have the knowledge. You either
believe something false, or you accidentally believe something true without
any justification.
Maybe I'm just a bit oversensitive, with all the people who actually
deep-down inside know they are *not* right trying to convince me by
overstating their knowledge.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
back to version 1.0."
"We've done that already. We call it 2.0."
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Darren New wrote:
> Just so you know, falling back on the "every single word in the entire
> discussion has to be extensively and precisely defined, even tho all
> participants already know what it means" is an old and foolish debating
> trick.
Why foolish? Seems reasonable to me. Make sure everyone's on the same
proverbial page, and clarifies things.
--
Tim Cook
http://empyrean.freesitespace.net
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On Mon, 03 Aug 2009 12:10:24 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Sun, 02 Aug 2009 21:54:23 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>>
>>> Instinctive certainties, however, are wrong more than half the time.
>>
>> Citation?
>>
> Uh.. Such numbers are also made up and wrong, more than half the time?
> lol
It is true that 78.64% (I'm rounding) of all statistics are made up on
the spot. :-)
> Seriously though, I don't know the actual number, or have a cite, but I
> *have* seen cases dealing with cognition, where you can not only get
> 50-50 fails, but even 99% failures. One of the best examples is the,
> "two people with a big sign walking rudely between two people talking.",
> experiment they run, yearly, at some colleges, for their psychology
> experiments. The one where they replace the person asking the question
> of some random person with someone the wrong height, dressed wrong, in
> clothing some **totally** different color, or even the wrong gender, and
> like 90% of the people being "asked", never notice the substitution. The
> brain just starts over where it was interrupted, so long as the
> conversation "seems" to be the same, and ignore **everything** else. The
> replacement could probably be standing their nude and the only reaction
> you would get was, "Damn, I didn't realize when you came up that you
> where nude.", not, "Where the hell did the original person I was talking
> to go?"
>
> The ease by which the mind can be tricked is actually quite scary.
True, but at the same time, some people have *very* good instincts. I
seem to be one of those kinds of people - because I have an instinct that
something's going to be OK or work out for the best, and I find that
better than 90% of the time, I'm right. That's far better than the luck
of averages.
I've also been told by people in professions that depend on the ability
to read people and situations that my instincts are exceptionally good -
I have an extremely good track record and picking out attempts at
deception. Part of that I attribute to the fact that I tend not to trust
very easily because I know that people will generally try to get away
with whatever they can.
Jim
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On Mon, 03 Aug 2009 09:34:29 -0700, Darren New wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> To this day, I know that I avoided a disaster that night.
>
> No you don't. You just strongly believe it.
Well, that's your read of it, but I know differently. It's difficult to
explain, but there is a distinct difference in my own mindset when I know
something vs. when I strongly suspect something.
> no longer really "instinctive.") And of course if you do it correctly
> and repeatedly, then it's worth looking into, but so far nobody has
> measured proper psi powers.
I don't think it's anything like that - I think it's that I have a good
instinct for reading people and situations. Maybe it's something I've
learned on a subconscious level, I don't know. I'm not claiming to be
'supernatural" or anything silly like that.
> I know exactly what you're talking about, now.
:-)
> Sometimes I wake from a dream, *knowing* I solved some problem while I
> was dreaming, but I just can't remember it now. Did I really solve the
> problem while I was dreaming, or am I just <ahem> dreaming? How is your
> experience different?
Well, my specific experience was the reverse - I wasn't dreaming, I was
driving home. I sure hope I wasn't sleeping. ;-)
But I see what you mean and will have to think on that more as well.
> friends have been replaced with duplicates, etc, you realize no, you
> didn't know, you're just convinced you knew.
Perhaps, perhaps not.
> The very fact that you're convinced is what makes you think it's
> knowledge and not belief. Yet conviction is a state of mind. You're
> saying "because my brain has decided it's knowledge, that makes it
> knowledge and not just a hunch/guess/faith."
Hmm, an interesting point, and something else to think about.
> I really do believe there are faithful who have as much conviction about
> something as you did about your route home. I believe that's what a lot
> of the sudden unprompted "born again" stuff is about. I don't disparage
> that, but I don't count that as "knowledge" either.
I think part of it with me is that I tend to attribute "faith" and
"belief" with "religion", so I shy away from those terms because of those
connotations, which I consider undesirable connotations.
Jim
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On Mon, 03 Aug 2009 15:23:43 -0700, Darren New wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> I don't see how that relates - I'm talking about understanding depth of
>> field.....?
>
> I've even read of tribes of people living in rainforests for generations
> who, when the researcher takes them out of the forest, are amazed that
> he knows how to make cows the size of flies. Never having been able to
> see more than a dozen yards in a straight line, they never got the whole
> perspective thing figured out.
>
> Not that I've ever been able to find a cite for that, but I remember
> reading it long ago in a context that would imply it wasn't fictional.
Yeah, I remember reading that as well, I think maybe even up here, but
there wasn't a good citation for it.
Jim
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On Mon, 03 Aug 2009 17:29:30 -0500, David H. Burns wrote:
> that I objected to
> the tern "Bible Belt".
> I do think that it is hardly ever used in any but a pejorative sense
I've never actually heard it used in a pejorative or derogatory sense.
I've always heard it to refer to a set of southern states (as defined on
the map that Darren pointed to) where there is a fair grouping of people
following various sects of Christianity. I've heard it used by people
from *within* the Bible Belt as well, at that.
Jim
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Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Mon, 03 Aug 2009 09:34:29 -0700, Darren New wrote:
>
>> Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> To this day, I know that I avoided a disaster that night.
>> No you don't. You just strongly believe it.
>
> Well, that's your read of it, but I know differently.
I understand what you're saying. But if you *know* you're Napoleon, and I
tell you you just strongly suspect it, I think I'd win, in general.
"Knowing" isn't *just* a state of mind, is what I'm trying to express.
> Well, my specific experience was the reverse - I wasn't dreaming
No, because then you would have discounted it. :-)
> But I see what you mean and will have to think on that more as well.
Cool.
> Hmm, an interesting point, and something else to think about.
These are fun things to think about. I find it's actually kind of refreshing
and liberating to realize that I might be wrong in my deepest convictions.
It makes discussions of various philosophical stuff much more interesting.
> I think part of it with me is that I tend to attribute "faith" and
> "belief" with "religion", so I shy away from those terms because of those
> connotations, which I consider undesirable connotations.
I don't have a problem with faith, even of a religious nature. It's when
that "faith" turns into "knowledge" and therefore "you should do X" that
causes trouble, religion or not. For example, in college at one point my
mother became convinced I was doing drugs, and she wanted to see all my
class schedules and wanted me to come home promptly. (I was commuting to
college at the time.) I, *knowing* I wasn't doing drugs, just laughed and
refused. No amount of confidence, belief, or faith on her part was going to
convince me I had to change my behavior to stop doing drugs I wasn't already
doing. So maybe I'm a little oversensitive to people claiming something is
true simply because they're really, really convinced it is.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
back to version 1.0."
"We've done that already. We call it 2.0."
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Jim Henderson wrote:
> better than 90% of the time, I'm right.
You mean, better than 90% of the time you remember making the prediction and
remember checking, you're right? Or do you actually keep objective notes?
Granted, it's definitely a skill you can learn to read people and to pick up
subtle clues. I'm just saying ...
> I've also been told by people in professions that depend on the ability
> to read people and situations that my instincts are exceptionally good -
See, now *that* is justified belief. :-) Without some external validation,
you can never tell whether you're fooling yourself.
Just look at any friend who is infatuated with some girl that's no good for
him. :-)
A very good book on the subject:
http://www.amazon.com/Gift-Fear-Gavin-Becker/dp/0440226198
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
back to version 1.0."
"We've done that already. We call it 2.0."
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Tim Cook wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>> Just so you know, falling back on the "every single word in the entire
>> discussion has to be extensively and precisely defined, even tho all
>> participants already know what it means" is an old and foolish
>> debating trick.
>
> Why foolish? Seems reasonable to me. Make sure everyone's on the same
> proverbial page, and clarifies things.
Even tho everyone participating already knows what it means? Even when the
words admittedly don't have the sort of precision you're asking for?
Especially when the topic isn't even about the words that you're arguing the
definitions for?
Sorry. Foolish. Especially foolish if you do it so transparently. :-)
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
back to version 1.0."
"We've done that already. We call it 2.0."
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Darren New wrote:
> Even tho everyone participating already knows what it means? Even when
> the words admittedly don't have the sort of precision you're asking for?
> Especially when the topic isn't even about the words that you're arguing
> the definitions for?
>
> Sorry. Foolish. Especially foolish if you do it so transparently. :-)
Well, how about having a pre-debate meeting where you explicitly define
all the words you're going to be using? XD
(Consider a recording of the debate being discovered by an alien culture
50,000 years in the future who have no other reference for the language...)
--
Tim Cook
http://empyrean.freesitespace.net
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