How do we know what we know, if we know anything?

[Mudhammam]

I've begun reading "Quantum Psychology: How Brain Software Programs You & Your World" by Robert Anton Wilson and in the introduction he discusses some different epistemological theories of knowledge and how humans determine which experiences are valid or invalid. The entire book is written in "E-Prime," that is, English without the word "is." As RAW explains it, "Common sense, for instance, assumes that the statement 'The job was finished in five hours' can contain both absolute truth and objectivity. Operationalism, however, following Einstein (and pragmatism) insists that the only meaningful statement about that measurement would read 'While I shared the same inertial system as the workers, my watch indicated an interval of five hours from start to finish of the job.' The contradictory statement, 'The job took six hours' then seems, not false, but equally true, if the observer took the measurement from another inertial system. In that case, it should read, 'While observing the workers' inertial system from my spaceship (another inertial system moving away from them), I observed that my watch showed an interval of six hours from start to finish of the job.'"

RAW appears skeptical of realism, alluding to Nobel physicist Percy W. Bridgman, who, according to RAW, "explicitly pointed out that 'common sense' derives unknowingly from some tenets of ancient philosophy and speculation--particularly Platonic Idealism and Aristoleian 'essentialism'--and that this philosophy assumes many axioms that now appear either untrue or unprovable." One further passage I found interesting: "Briefly--too briefly, and therefore somewhat inaccurately--when we decide on a course of action and convince ourselves or others that we have 'reasoned it all out logically,' existentialists grow suspicious. Kierkegaard would insist that you made the choice on the basis of some 'blind faith' or other (faith in Christianity, faith in Popular Science, faith in Marx...etc.) and Nietzsche would say that you as a biological organism will a certain result and have 'rationalized' your biological drives. Long before Godel's Proof in mathematics, existentialism recognized that we never 'prove' any proposition completely but always stop somewhere short of the infinite steps required for a toal logical 'proof' of anything; e.g., the abyss of infinity opens in attempting to prove 'I have x dollars in the bank' as soon as one questions the concept of 'having' something. (I think I 'have' a working computer but I may find I 'have' a non-working computer at any moment.)"

RAW is known for his mind-bending philosophical suggestions inspired by innumerable acid trips, and he was probably on acid when he wrote this book. Anyway, it should be interesting. My eldest brother (not the fanatical Christian one) has gotten into RAW quite a bit in the past year.

Thoughts?

[MindForgedManacle]

I'm honestly not sure what you're asking to give our thoughts on.

[Simon Moon]

I am a fan of RAW. But some of his stuff is just.............out there.

But since he follows what he has called 'guerrilla ontology', it is hard to tell when he is putting the reader on, or being serious.

"The basic technique of all my books. Ontology is the study of being; the guerrilla approach is to so mix the elements of each book that the reader must decide on each page 'How much of this is real and how much is a put-on?'

[Angrboda]

Sounds gimmicky.

For my part, I prefer to keep the question of the actual role of consciousness in willing an open question, though I'm fairly confident that most traditional accounts have it wrong. Since science will eventually uncover the truth in this area, I'm reluctant to commit resources to such contentious grounds.

[Mudhammam]

I'm honestly not sure what you're asking to give our thoughts on.

Well, I guess it's "Is reality knowable?" Is our "objective" knowledge merely consensus reality and nothing inherently "more real" than the subjective experiences we commonly deem psychotic or illusory? Or is consensus reality closer to "true reality" than unverifiable subjective observations? How can we know?

[Rampant.A.I.]

We already went through this with Descartes and his contemporaries. "Brain in a vat" is the Loony Toon Adventures end of a line with "sometimes I'm mistaken" in the middle, and Strict Empiricism at the other.

Scientific research is based on objective empiricism. Peer review. The only problem becomes "What if all these experts really are mistaken, and we need Keanu Reeves to fight the Computers?"

[Mudhammam]

We already went through this with Descartes and his contemporaries. "Brain in a vat" is the Loony Toon Adventures end of a line with "sometimes I'm mistaken" in the middle, and Strict Empiricism at the other.

Scientific research is based on objective empiricism. Peer review. The only problem becomes "What if all these experts really are mistaken, and we need Keanu Reeves to fight the Computers?"

Right but if someone makes a claim that cannot be subject to scientific empiricism, does that invalidate their claim? Can or should we appreciate these human experiences that don't correlate to consensus reality?

[MindForgedManacle]

Well, I guess it's "Is reality knowable?" Is our "objective" knowledge merely consensus reality and nothing inherently "more real" than the subjective experiences we commonly deem psychotic or illusory? Or is consensus reality closer to "true reality" than unverifiable subjective observations? How can we know?

I think this is where Immanuel Kant becomes relevant I think. I tend to think that people often misapply the word "objective" when discussing philosophical issues, which makes the discussion murkier. I mean, objective usually means something like "independent of any particular mind". But in such discussions it seems to change scope to something like "independent of all minds". But clearly wheen you're talking about knowledge it can't be detached from ALL minds, because knowledge is pretty much always defined as a special kind of belief, classically as one that is true and held with justification.


Where Kant comes into this I think is that we only have our experience of the world. We could never have anything but that, because "the world" is a construction that is interpreted and filtered by us. Even within what Kant calls the "phenomenal world" (as in the "world of phenomena"), we can repeatedly demonstrate that our conscious experience of the world is not the whole package. We only see the visible part of the spectrum (although a small percentage of lucky(?) women can see a bit into the ultraviolet range), there are detectable smells and sounds above and below our threshold (think dog whistles) and so on. Things go even further with the fact that not only do we filter out parts of possible experience, we also impose things onto our perception of the world that aren't regarded as "out there", with the classical example being colors, which are entirely mental.

So I'm not sure if the idea of knowing the world as it is in itself is even a meaningful endeavor in that sense. Talking of the world apart from subjective conscious experience is just plain meaningless, because to even talk of the world, you necessarily are going to be calling on your inductive, subjective experience of it and could never call on anything other than that: it's all you have. When we do seemingly talk of the world that way with others, it's more a pragmatic thing than anything else, and hey, it helps.


I shall wait for Rasetsu to strangle me. She seems to hate when I go this route.

[Mudhammam]

Could something like telepathy be explained by science? If not, what do we make of such phenomena? Ignore it?

[Rampant.A.I.]

Could something like telepathy be explained by science? If not, what do we make of such phenomena? Ignore it?

Telepathy and psychic phenomena are in my humble opinion, nothing but expert mental sleight of hand and the application of pattern recognition.

It's not unlike Déjà Vu: Your subconscious mind is recognizing a pattern your conscious mind has yet to. Most people I've talked to have had the experience of looking at an item on their way out the door in the morning, and thinking "I should bring that. Nah, what are the chances I'd need it?"

Then sometime later in the day, they realize they really could have used whatever the item was.

It's merely your subconscious mind being less burdened than your conscious mind, and more able to plan ahead.