For the time being. It's of lesser importance than getting you to actually face up to the fact that you don't really have a clear concept of knowledge.

Here is your statement:

There is no evidence that anyone other than you (and a couple random google links) has chosen to characterize knowledge using this formulation. Now that's fine if you want to admit that you are choosing a non-standard definition of knowledge. But if you want to treat this definition as if it is consistent with SEP/wikipedia, then the burden is on you to show me how that consistency exists.

You can use any of the standard concepts of epistemology. I don't care which one or ones you use. But you need to point to something specific that supports the sentence that you have declared as the starting point of knowledge.

Do you actually have a point anytime soon, or are you just looking to exhaust the English language for synonyms to "you're somehow wrong"?

Again; Feel free to elaborate your protests a bit more. Maybe you can explain what you think is right, so that I'll understand why I am supposedly ignorant.

He does have a point tho

you : Knowledge starts with an agreement of terms.

aaron: No one except you seems to accept this statement, are you using an alternate definition of knowledge?

you: insults and stuff


I was thinking the same, and started a post to ask you what your definition of knowledge was, because it seemed that you were using a very narrow definition. I didnt post the post because I could see things going the way they did.

There are many things that can be right, and I'm not even saying you're "wrong." But the statement that "Knowledge starts with an agreement of terms" isn't one that fits any of the standard conceptions of knowledge. It certainly is NOT consistent with SEP/wikipedia (which is what you seem to have claimed earlier).

I don't need to "explain what I think is right" and there's not even a single thing that I think is right. You're well aware that the person who makes the claim bears the burden of responsibility. This is not just for burden of proof, but also for burden of making sense. I've given you multiple opportunities to actually say something of substance, and you've failed to do so. The most reasonable conclusion is that you have nothing of substance to say.

I posted even though I could see things going the way they did.

This is a consolidation of your [td's] statements about knowledge:

I would like to see a definition of knowledge that works with all three of these statements. It's not an unreasonable request as these are all claims you've made about knowledge.

No, that is merely your latest idea of what this is. Originally it was a very short post about how little I must have contemplated knowledge. Then later it was something about google, and by now you're just confusing. Not the worst RGT-sin I guess, but you are the one crying for consistency...

You have said repeatedly I am likely wrong, now please elaborate why with your own thoughts on the subject. If you have any.

Direct quotes of you saying stuff is about you saying stuff directly.

I welcome you to give a direct quote of me saying that you are likely wrong (or a phrase that means precisely that). You know, direct quotes about me saying the thing you're claiming I'm saying?

I have given you my thoughts. I don't think you've thought much about knowledge because the statements you are making are grossly inconsistent with the standard formulations of knowledge. I've admitted that *I* might be wrong, but that would require you to be using a non-standard definition of knowledge because your statements don't fit the standard definitions (you can think about something using different words than what others use, and that's acceptable). I've also said that it's fine if you're doing that, but then the responsibility is on you to tell me what you mean by knowledge because it's not what other people mean by it.

Edit: I did say that you were wrong about my psychic powers, but in context that's not what you're talking about.

Ok, so when you started off your replies to me in this thread by saying how poorly I must had contemplated the issue, all I needed to do was understand that all you ever implicitly wanted to do was offer a series of textual criticisms regarding definitions and consistency. You never actually intended to give the impression that I was somehow wrong or even likely wrong.

That's... erm... good to know?

ok, so now we have got that out of the way, what IS your definition of knowledge in this case?

I have a reply, but I will yield the floor to neeeel.

I'm a psychologist, not an analytic philosopher.

A person is an evershifting process, not a static unit. Neurosciene tells us knowledge is a mess of shifting neural nets, information signals, chemistry, emotion and cooperating and conflicting brain processes crashing into eachother and generally making a mess of things. If I ask you a question, your brain can have many different answers. It will then reconcile those answers internally and sort it out for you, how it does this is dependant on where the wiring goes. The simplest example of this effect is in split brain patients, where this reconciliation is stopped when neural signals need to cross the corpus callusum.

Knowledge as it is typically touted in the English language is an illusory holistic concept. We tend to think that we see and learn, but in reality knowledge is a swarm process dependant on reactions, actions and the transference of information between compatible agents, or agents that agree on terms if you will. If this is not happening, no knowledge will result - the information will be lost.

This principle also holds true on the macro-level. We know experimentally that Lev Vygotsky's social constructivism, one of the most popular and cited theories on knowledge from the 20th century, holds up to experiment very well. People learn as a result from social interaction and how they view themselves in the world. Cultural clash does not merely happen because people rationally disagree, it happens because they don't perceive the same things. We can even measure this effect with implicit association tests, where we can tell how your your brain paints perception with your attitudes long before it consciously considers what you see. That the same thing holds true for emotional effects on what you perceive is now proven to the extent of being trivial.

Knowledge then, as it is classically understood is impossible. An approximation of knowledge starts with objectivity (not to be confused with its philosophical namesake), the agreement of terms and succumbing to trials. Even then knowledge might be beyond us, because, as Thomas Kuhn so eloquently states, scientific paradigms do not only affect what questions we ask, but also how we interpret the answers.

But then again, what do I know. There is however, nothing "non-standard" or "narrow" about my definitions. Though I have no doubt the good AaronW is already rubbing his hands together in anticipation of some selective quote or closeminded interpretation to be made. I, however, have no fear of such things, but hopefully you understand that I don't waste my energy writing thought out replies when I exactly (from long experience) how his replies will be. This post is a reply to you.

ok , thanks for the reply. I am still a bit confused though.

Take your thought experiment from post no 13. We leave a newborn in the woods. Lets say by some amazing chance, it survives long enough to crawl about and explore, then by further amazing chance, it survives long enough to walk about and fend for itself. Does this person still know nothing?

What about , rather than a newborn human, a new born sheep? It can fend for itself immediatly, say we isolate a lamb, and come back 5 years later, does it know nothing?

You seem to be talking about knowledge as facts ( Eg kings of england, date of battle of hastings etc) , am I misunderstanding you?

The newborn won't survive, so that's irrelevant. It doesn't have a developed brain and can't crawl. Crawling takes about 4-6 months to develop.

Your question is if an individual can garner knowledge, and the answer is "it depends". A human being isn't really an individual outside the abstract. Your mind is about 100 billion neurons, so you're more of a swarm loosely patterned by genetics and interaction, and relatively fixed since adolescence.

The reason you brought up the thought experiment, I assumed, was because it shows that an individual would know nothing after being on its own for 20 years? But the thought experiment itself seems irrelevant, since the individual wont survive more than a few days anyway? this thought experiment sucks

ok, but if your going to take it to that level, a neuron isnt an individual either, its made up of thousands ( millions? ) of atoms.
Are you saying that an individual neuron can garner knowledge because its connected to other compatible agents capable of communication? You are obviously not speaking of knowledge as facts, so what do you mean by knowledge?

Lots of words... I'm going to go Feyman on this and restate what you've stated:

Rewriting it:

---
A person is a process. Neuroscience says knowledge is brain activity. Brains can reconcile questions and answers in multiple ways.

Knowledge doesn't actually exist (in the common usage of the term). We think we know things, but in reality knowledge consists of reactions and communication between things that are able to communicate with each other. Without communication, there is no knowledge because the information is lost.

The claim that there is no knowledge without communication is supported by Vygotsky's theory of social development. Knowledge is a social construction.

Knowledge cannot be understood as it has been understood. Knowledge (rightly understood) is social. Knowledge might still be impossible.
----

You know neuroscience... I guess. Knowledge might be impossible, so who knows what you know. Maybe you're under an holistic illusion about what you know.

Actually, there are some implications that I believe are nonstandard and the definitions you're using (if what you have described can even be called a definition), are indeed narrow.

[Reducing knowledge to brain activity is consistent with a strong form of physicalism and I guess a bit of a reductionist stance] (restraining knowledge to humanness as you've done in the start is a questionable position, and I don't quite know how to classify it). But what it would imply (among other things) is that knowledge is constrained by human thought, which is highly dubious, and I'm quite certain is nonstandard, except for possibly as an operational definition as I've suggested previously.

** The [bracketed] sentence may not be correct. I'm still thinking through what you would really be saying by denying the common concept of "objective" and the common concept of "knowledge" at the same time. At the moment, it seems that there are no true statements about the universe under your construction, unless "true" is also redefined to be a social construction.

You have a particular statement:

Now here, it seems you're *defining* "objectivity" as "an agreement of terms that succombs to trials." As you point out, it's certainly not philosophical objectivity (basically, true in a mind-independent manner). But this still appears to be a technical usage because non-technical (dictionary) definitions of objectivity don't sound like this, either.

And so having now defined knowledge as a purely social construction, what does it mean to "know" something? If you pick a particular definition (for fun, let say you give a definition of knowledge) and I don't agree with it, does either of us know anything?

And what about the limitation of social compatibility? Can a dog "know" that the treats are in the cupboard? That would defy the starting point of personness that you introduced.

At the minimum, this expanded explanation shows that your definition is simply inconsistent with SEP/Wikipedia. Unless I'm mistaken, neither one points to knowledge as being reduced to brain activity or as a purely social construction.

Ah, sorry. I meant to convey that we are a social species, dependant on learning and that learning always happens in a context that shapes our brain, and that we are even unable to survive without such a context. There is no escaping bias, it is bias or die.


That might be, a neuron is after all a highly sophisticated organism, but that is beyond my (and pretty much anyones) current theories. I suspect such "thinking" would be very different from our thinking, since it more chemical and mechanic than it is electric. To put it in perspective one might also claim that an anthill learns via the swarm actions of its independent agents, but such learning is extremely mechanic and very slow compared to synaptic actions and responses. We also have no reason to suspect it generates a consciousness (not to be confused with the philosophical concept), but neither do we have reason to suspect that we would know if it did.

So if the hypothetical infant managed to survive( lets say rain water and berries fell into its mouth enough that it survived to crawl, and then walk) are you saying it wouldnt know anything, because it had been alone the whole time?


it does seem, as aaron says, that you are conflating thinking with knowledge.

So, the allmighty XENU, the dictator of the "Galactic Confederacy" who 75 million years ago brought billions of his people to Earth (then known as "Teegeeack") in a DC-8-like spacecraft, stacked them around volcanoes and killed them using hydrogen bombs...
is more plausable then let's say.. Buddah's teachings?

Sounds legit, I'm in.
Where do I sign up?

...oh, it costs money?
Well, I'm out.
Sorry XENU, we could have been buds... but you wanted money...no deal!

An infant can't eat berries, and even he had a working digestive tract you'd likely kill him because the immune system is very underdeveloped.

Humans are a social species, the few cases of "wild humans" involve older children. Even those tell of loss of language, severe cognitive impairment and inability to resocialize.


The two are only separable in the taxonomical abstract, so that protest is irrelevant. Philosophy's and theology's contribution to understanding the mind is largely limited to the underlying notion that it is worth exploring. Neither has actually yielded much working theory, and introspection as a method for exploring the mind is largely useless except for mnenemonics and some memory research.

This would confirm my suspicion that you would also need to do work to define "true" under your formulation. In fact, because objectivity is socially defined, it's far from clear that "true" even exists in your formulation.

1) Can a dog "know" that the treats are in the cupboard?
2a) If so, does it matter under your definition whether the treats are *actually* in the cupboard?
2b) If not, then can an animal other than a human "know" anything?

forget about the physiological aspect. I am just trying to get you to say whether a human who hypothetically was brought up on his own would know anything or not, which is what your thought experiment was pointing to, no?




only for a very narrow definition of knowledge ( which I keep pressing you to define, as you seem to be only including hard "facts"). I will be interested to see your answers to aarons question about the dog and other animals.

I don't see true as anything but a symbolic representation, and it is no more profound to me than the letter A. Though more useful.

Yes, in all likelihoods many animals can know stuff. Consider that mammalian brains are similar, and though no mammals have the complex cortex of humans - many have highly developed cortexes, limbic regions very similar to our own and a behaviour that makes knowledge seem more than likely.

It is actually incremental problemsolving (the ability to expand a solution as the basis for another solution) that is the key feature of human cognition we still don't really know if any other species possess, though recent research is making a case that some whales have this.

Okay. But now you're moving further and further from any concept of knowledge that I'm aware of, and I'd like to see some sort of reference to a neuroscience (or philosophy of neuroscience) article that reconciles your view of knowledge and your view of true. I'm unaware of anyone in neuroscience who rejects "true" as a concept. If you are not saying that you are rejecting "true" as a concept, then what does "true" mean to you?

This doesn't actually answer the question in a meaningful way.

What would it take for a dog to know that the treats are in the cupboard? Notice that this is different from asking what would it take for US to know that the dog knows the treats are in the cupboard.

What you are or are not unaware is not my concern, and I am not moving away from anything. A truck explained without the concept of transport is just a strange building. You like definitions, order and strict divides - many do, but there is little to indicate such things are anything but abstraction.

Your question is old. Nagel's "What is it like to be a bat?" was written in '74, and is well worth a read. Even Nagel would struggle with DARwIn-OP however.