The worth of Knowledge
June 11, 2011 at 6:19 am
(This post was last modified: June 11, 2011 at 6:23 am by diffidus.)
There seems to be a pre-ponderance of people on this site who claim that the only worthwhile form of knowledge is empirical knowlege based upon measurement. This is not true.
Take as examples the following statements: ' It is an absolute fact that in Euclidean geometry, the internal angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees', 'I think therefore I am', 'The earth is smaller than the universe that contains it', 'The law of cause and effect is based upon faith and cannot be proven'.
These are all statements of fact, but cannot be proven by emprical measurement. Emprical measurement is useful, but only a part of what is required to make a scientific assertion about the world. Imagine measuring how hot the radiation from the sun is, at different distances from its surface. This would give you a set of measurements, but without any understanding, you could not say what the temperature would be at points in-between your measured points. To do this, you have to employ a different type of knowlede that is based upon abstract reasoning. Without this type of reasoning, empirical observation would be virtually useless.
This is why some statements can be made with 100% certainty that they are true, while others are doubtful.
There are even people on this site who believe there is a real difference in meaning between the statements 'I believe that God doesn't exist' and 'I don't believe in God'.
Finally, there are people on this site who believe that God does not exist based upon it being unlikely, due to the lack of empirical evidence. But this 'unlikely' implies a knowledge of the probability that God does not exist. Upon what set of empirical measurements is this probability estimated? The answer is none!! Atheism, on these grounds, is a huge leap of faith into the dark world of Humankinds lack of knowledge.
Take as examples the following statements: ' It is an absolute fact that in Euclidean geometry, the internal angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees', 'I think therefore I am', 'The earth is smaller than the universe that contains it', 'The law of cause and effect is based upon faith and cannot be proven'.
These are all statements of fact, but cannot be proven by emprical measurement. Emprical measurement is useful, but only a part of what is required to make a scientific assertion about the world. Imagine measuring how hot the radiation from the sun is, at different distances from its surface. This would give you a set of measurements, but without any understanding, you could not say what the temperature would be at points in-between your measured points. To do this, you have to employ a different type of knowlede that is based upon abstract reasoning. Without this type of reasoning, empirical observation would be virtually useless.
This is why some statements can be made with 100% certainty that they are true, while others are doubtful.
There are even people on this site who believe there is a real difference in meaning between the statements 'I believe that God doesn't exist' and 'I don't believe in God'.
Finally, there are people on this site who believe that God does not exist based upon it being unlikely, due to the lack of empirical evidence. But this 'unlikely' implies a knowledge of the probability that God does not exist. Upon what set of empirical measurements is this probability estimated? The answer is none!! Atheism, on these grounds, is a huge leap of faith into the dark world of Humankinds lack of knowledge.
