What is it to know?

Ben,Sidelined opened a topic on "How do we know" somewhere towards the end of the thread I found myself wondering what is it we are asking how about it? To understand how we know, I felt I needed to know what it is we know. I don't really have a position here I'm trying to defend or even a direction that I want anyone to follow. I'm just curious as to what it is we know. The context will be this forum and possibly a focus on Hangdawg's fundamentalist Christian approach to knowing about religion and my eastern approach to non dual experience. I'm very interested in what you have to say. You don't need my approval. I probably tolerate more topic meander than an admin would.Your non dualist approach interests me but I'm not yet getting where you are coming from and going with it. Neither knower nor known? Is there then just the doing of knowing, like riding a bike, singing, solving a math problem?lfen

Ben,Taking an obvious example. One we deal with in ordinary life. A linguistic example. Someone ask you, "what is your name". If you reply with "Ben" does that demonstrate you "know" your name? Is that knowledge? A late stage alzheimer patient might look confused and be unable to answer the question.A much harder question would be to a believer here along the lines of, what is it you know when you speak of being filled with the Holy Spirit? Or what is it you know when you say you know you will go to heaven, or be judged by God, or experience the rapture?lfen

I think the entire concept of 'knower' and 'known' comes from how we perceive and understand, or model, the world. I think the model that postulates 'knowledge' is fundamentally dualistic in nature. I think if you eliminate the dualistic part of that model, 'knowledge' simply ceases to be a useful description of what's going on.Instead, I think a bottom-up approach using emergence is the one that models the world more consistently and usefully. In this model, there are parts that have aspects of what is called 'knowledge', but nothing that's really THAT close.I think you'll have a hard time finding an acceptable set of primitives to describe knowledge because, fundamentally, it derives from a model that has other explanatory problems. I was trying to ask what are the aspects of knowledge that you are interested in, so that I could try and extract those things while avoiding the 'knowledge'. I didn't mean to try and make you take a position--I always appreciate people who are interested to know other people's thoughts. I was just trying to get you to describe your question more, so that I could provide a better answer.In my reductionist model, you can give a basic model of things as organisms and environment (although this model does have problems, when it comes to determining 'being' and 'identity'). You can even pretty reliably model the organism as having a set of organs, one of which is this brain with a bunch of neurons, or computational units. That kind of works.In this model, you have all sorts of 'knowledge'. Here are some properties of 'knowledge':
- persists over time
- 'useful' for 'solving problems' with regards to 'the organism' or 'the environment' (ambiguous!)In this model, what levels or 'things' have these properties?- Cells, Genes, Organs--they all can be modeled to 'solve problems,' they all certainly come from 'knowledge' that is persisting over time (given that they all develop in such a consistent way, and so the same for offspring). This thought of (i.e. modeled) as 'hard-coded' knowledge... although if you include the idea of mutation, you can also model this as 'software' (just change the timescale; that's Darwinian evolution baby!)- Neurons--neurons interact in a Hebbian way. They store 'knowledge'--neurons change connectivity based on firing patterns of other neurons, based on cell death (programmed or through lack of nutrition or trauma). At this level it would be hard to model 'problem-solving', but maybe you could if you really want to. I've no reason to try, so I'll move on.- Networks of neurons--My current understanding of the brain is that there's many ways neurons can interact. Just because you have a bunch of neurons doesn't give you intelligence. It is the connectivity and the pattern of activation that gives rise to what we call intelligence. Networks of neurons still play off of the storage and 'learning' in individual units. Furthermore, we can think of a network to have a 'meaningful input' and 'meaningful output'. This depends on where you decide to 'cut' the network for analysis--what you define as the input layer, and what you define as the output layer.At this level, we can talk about language, memory, etc. However, remember, everything going on here comes from our own analysis and investigation. Even the separation between being and environment. None of this is 'real'--it's our model, our understanding. I think THIS level (the level of memory, language, etc.) is VERY problematic, and not a good abstraction. The next level (the abstraction of an individual) is even MORE problematic. Regardless of the appearance of the world through our own consciousness, our own folk psychology, this very model that is so apparent to us is NOT useful for scientific investigation into ourselves. To me, it's too inconsistent a model to be useful.So I will stop at the level of networks of neurons. Some people try to go from our emergent 'individual' systems, and work backwards to derive the 'pieces of the system.' It just doesn't work. That's cognitive science.I think I'll end the post here, and gather my thoughts again. This will all be easier to discuss after I've really spent time to write about it more. That's what I'm doing these days (well at least, after I finish my darn statement of purpose!)Thanks!
Ben

I understand. This is such a cognitive perspective.From this perspective, fuzzy logic seems better than a two-valued approach. Here's a list of questions that I think are important in talking about this perspective of knowledge:What is it that you know?
How quickly can you state it in words?
In how many situations can you apply it?
What cues will make you remember it?
What is your variability when stating it?
How often do you state it or apply it incorrectly?Like in math, some cases are so biased in one direction, they really hide the number of questions. 'what is your name?' is such a question, and by reducing the number of questions, it is simple and obvious. You can even say, 'yes, i know my name!' and get away with it (for the most part... just don't dig too far!).In this way of thinking, I think there's all sorts of knowledge, not just one.
- knowledge of HOW to do things
- knowledge of the relation of internalized 'concepts' (such as logic, math, and 'abstract thought'
- knowledge of the past (memory) (which is notably 'reconstrucive', not like computer memory).When you move into the arena of PDPs and distributed systems, there's just no 'knowledge' like that. I hope this post offers something for you . I'll be interested to hear your thougths.BenP.S. Thanks for bearing with me... I'm doing my best to understand where you're coming from and to address your questions with my own thoughts.

Ben,I've got to head off to bed. I thank you for bearing with me as I don't have anything like your depth in this subject. I googled PDP and realized I don't really know anything about that.I am sensing the possibilities that we are approaching the same understanding from different directions. But we may have some work to get our terms equated.Identity seems important. Thinking of the immune system preserving the intergrity of cellular on up processes. Yet an organism is still a colony. I read somewhere that the human cells of the body may be outnumbered by the other organisms living in/on us, bacteria, fungus, etc.Persistence in time. Change and identity. You can't step in the same river twice. If that is true you can't step in the same river once. yet we can speak of a river. There is persistence of memory for a spell.I writing this in the context of this forum which is largely a Christain atheist dicotomy. As someone with strong Buddhist and Advaitist leanings I'm generally regarded as decieved by demons by the fundamentalist which makes me about the same as an atheist. So when Hangdawg tells me he believes that there is a spiritual war going on I think in terms of fiction and he thinks in terms of fact.But what do either of us "know". I'm tired and my mind is wandering now. Faith as a belief in a creed, a set of propositions some of which make no sense to me like the Father and Son being of the same substance??? But then faith as an acceptance of being even though we know nothing but only do.Well, I'm incoherent and can't keep my eyes open. good night,lfen

lfen,One primitive understanding that I always work is that we're NEVER talking about 'truth' in the absolute sense. There is know such 'knowledge' available. You can read my (fairly short) post here that might explain my view better. Basically, my primitive is that all understanding is MODELING. There is nothing more, nothing less. All concepts are simply ways of understanding, models. Identity, consciousness, knowledge... they are concepts to try and help us understand, to survive, to 'make due.' Nothing more, nothing less.Models (and therefore understanding) are about two things: logical consistency and explanatory power. Those are the two criterion for any set of concepts (i.e. a model) that I judge.I understand where you're coming from. I think the top-down approach (taking consciousness as a primitive, and trying to derive answers from there) doesn't work; it's not a good model.I'm currently trying a bottom-up approach, and I'm getting somewhere.PDP / neural network models are pretty simple and very powerful. It might take a little time to feel comfortable with them, but I think they're a really powerful tool for understanding. Beyond that, I think you "know" just as much about this stuff as I do. I think I'm just confusing you with my thoughts.I think your writing about identity and 'what it is to be a river' is on the right path. Half of what I was trying to write (but didn't post) was a description of WHY the top-down, dualist approach to knowledge is problematic. You're touching on it here. Maybe if I try to flesh that out, and we take that direction, that would be useful.Anyway, I think I understand where you're coming from. If you're interested in pursuing any of these lines of discussion, I think that would be interesting. If you want to take a different direction, that's cool too. Not too many people are interested in following these directions of investigation (in my experience).Thanks!
Ben

quote:

---

Taking an obvious example. One we deal with in ordinary life. A linguistic example. Someone ask you, "what is your name". If you reply with "Ben" does that demonstrate you "know" your name? Is that knowledge? A late stage alzheimer patient might look confused and be unable to answer the question.

---

You know becuase that data is stored somewhere in your brain. 'knowing' then is both having the appropriate data stored and the facility to retrieve it under appropriate circumstances.An alzheimer's patient may have any of these physical processes interrupted, and hence be unable to answer the qestion.

Ben,Thanks for the referral to Chalmers paper. I'm having my wake up cup of coffee. So I'll respond more in detail later. Yes, I'd very much like to read the problems you see with the top-down approach. Thinking about religion and not scientific models I wonder if "logical" is necessary? Consistency and explanatory power, but the power can be psychological rather than functional. That is prayer, curses, magical spells might not functionally do much except alter how one or more people feel but that is a powerful factor in human behaviour. The model wouldn't have to be logical to satisfy some peoples feeling of consistency. Many Christians on this list seem to feel that the notion of the "trinity" is logical, others feel it isn't and have some other nonlogical but text based explanatory model that satisfies their sense of what is consistent in the Bible. Consistency seems to be a direction that the brain strives to move in, which seems to be a factor in paranoia as well as science, i.e. the seeing of pictures in clouds or inkblots, organizing random patterns into something that can be assigned a meaning.The primitives here might be in the brain. I'm thinking of optical illusions or problems where the processing of sensory input in some circumstances produces paradox.There is conscious knowledge but can we also talk of non consciousness knowledge? Do migratory animals know in some sense? Does a cell know in some sense? Does the immune system for example represent knowing?lfen

Thanks for your reply. I agree that it is impossible to be 100% confident in something because there is always room for doubt about everything except for one thing: I exist. I cannot possibly raise a doubt in my mind that I exist. Therefore there must be at least 1 truth: I exist. Therefore, I think we can agree that there must exist absolute truth and falsehood.Knowledge is information that we BELIEVE to be true. Scientific knowledge is information gained by empricial tests that show us reliablity, thereby increasing our confidence enough to believe the information to be true.Personal knowledge might be something a friend tells you in conversation. If your friend is reliable and you trust him, then you are sufficiently confident to believe what he says is true. His information then becomes knowledge.I hope that clarifies my idea. Right, I agree, but I would add that because we are born with an intuitive understanding that there is truth and falsehood, that in the vast majority of situations we choose to accept trustworthy information as true even if all doubts cannot be removed. Whether or not the information is trustworthy is objective. How trustworthy something must be in order to believe it to be true is a subjective decision. Scientific knowledge does. But if you use this strict definition of knowledge for everything, then you really don't know very much do you? This means you can say you know almost nothing that is passed on to you in daily contact with people. This morning I took a nap in my room. Nobody except my roomate knows that I did this. I'm telling you this now so that you can know that I took a nap in my room. Do you trust me enough to say that you KNOW I took a nap in my room this morning? There is no way to test or prove that I took a nap this morning. You could send me to a shrink that was determined to prove that the nap was in my imagination, and if he is good enough, he might be able to hypnotize me and convince me that it was yesterday I took a nap.What is the difference between my claim that I took a nap this morning and PY's claim that he and others with him have seen supernatural things? There is no more reason to trust my words that I took a nap this morning than that PY and his friends have seen supernatural things for the past 25 years.Nevertheless, you are probably more likely to trust the nap claim and accept it as knowledge because you have also experienced napping and witnessed others napping, but have never witnessed supernatural events. I am willing to trust someone's word that they have experienced something I've never experienced, but you aren't.That is the choice that you and I make, but you cannot dogmatically state that you KNOW every claim of the supernatural is myth and mystery because by the same reasoning you must say that you KNOW it is a myth that I took a nap this morning despite the fact that this is true.

Thanks for your reply. It raises some exciting and scary questions. It makes me think that the verse in Genesis was not an overstatement, "If man speaking by one tounge can accomplish this, nothing shall be impossible for him."I think he's right about many of his predictions, but ultimately wrong in his conclusions about the future of humanity. As knolwedge increases so does power and as power increases, so does the potential for evil. ...unless of course evil can be gotten rid of by fixing the problems with our brains, which I do not believe is the case.Anyways... Yes, its too deep a question to wrap my mind around so to speak. But as far as knowledge goes, I still think knowledge is information that we choose to accept as true and store in our brains. I think our brains, like our computers, store things as true or false. We don't have an infinite set of places to store things according to how confident we are. Perhaps this is the reason for cognitive dissonance. We find it hard to continually doubt something. We must decide whether or not to accept it or not.

Hangdawg,Let me give you an example from my experience. It's the inverse of the above coming from my elderly parent. Perhaps you've a grandparent or someone that you've experienced this with. I've come into a room and found my mother sleeping in her easy chair having dozed off in the afternoon. I awaken her for some reason and mention she was sleeping and, and this is not that unusual for older adults not just my mother, she denies she was asleep. "I was just resting my eyes." Should I embarass her by asking her why she was snoring?I've actually started to recall a dream from long ago that I felt menaced by something trying to suck me in and I recall very vaguely I think appealing to God and then waking up. These discussions are just nudging this from the back storage areas, and dreams are hard for me to recall. I woke up. I don't attribute this to independent entities. I had a scary nightmare, perhaps it was a shadow side of myself that I experienced.Setting aside those folks we know to be chronic liars. No human being is totally reliable. We have quirks, misjudgements. I'd be inclined to believe you had a nap. Was my mother lying when she said she wasn't sleeping? I don't think so. I think she dozed and didn't recall sleeping but had recalled closing her eyes. Memory is maleable. It changes dynamically not just fading like a color photo.I think reliablity or lack thereof can be construed on a continuum. It's not "told the truth" or "lied". You know about fish stories and how big the one that got away was? The fisherman was struggling and excited and the fish just keeps getting bigger because they are recalling it in their enthusiasm. They aren't lying but there is a process of distorting going on. Particularly when dealing with out of the ordinary and heightened emotional experiences there are distortions.You know about the crime enactment and eye witness testimony? You might want to try this with a group sometime. I've typically read about it as taking place during a law school lecturer. Some one burst into the room and says something, pulls out a gun and someone runs, they fire the gun etc. Then the professor announces it was staged and collects the eyewitness testimony of the class. Nothing supernatural at all. Do you think the testimony will all agree?Some people are more suggestible than others. They have done experiments on this. So I'm reluctant to take ancedotal data very seriously in these matters, there are just so many factors that will distort it and can't be accounted for.Did you take a nap? Or did you call your girl friend that you've not told us about?Heading back on topic: I actually wasn't looking at knowledge true or false but rather if we know something what is it. In other words it's not whether you lied or told the truth about napping, but let's say I believe you. Let say I saw you napping even. What is that knowing? Not even how do I know, but what is it to know someone is napping? And can I really know what napping is even for myself? the scientific discription of the brain function is different from my experience but do either of them really tell us WHAT napping is? Or anything is for that matter?So what is it we do know about napping. It's not the whole truth. So is all we know about napping a set of doings, actions, such as even calling it "napping", being able to predict a loud noise will wake the napper, knowing to shake the napper awake before we ask where the car keys are, etc.lfen

Hangdawg,I think my use of the word knowledge is misleading. I was not thinking about knowledge as in the book of knowledge that is to say the population of England, or the longitude of London. I was looking at what is stored in the brain, what do we know. Cognitive dissonance is an intriguing concept. I suspect there are tensions. But I'm first wanting to find out what it is that is the unit for the tensions. If I tell you I am 5 ft tall when I'm really 6 ft tall. One of those statements is false and one true. But what is it we know about 5ft and 6ft tall?lfen

And some of Poe's dreams were nightmares.
Shakespeare got at that too with his "we are the stuff that dreams are made on".This was also the teaching of the Buddha: edited to correct a typo.This message has been edited by lfen, 12-11-2004 03:50 PM

Ben,Let's talk about the Richard Axel paper and how "molecular logic of perception" might constitute knowledge.I'm way more philosophical than scientific and so my first response is here is something indicating that an organism is knowledge. That is the functioning of the organism including sensory discrimination and motor actions based on that is knowledge as the ability to function in the environment. This is the area I am exploring now. All we know is how to function. We know our functioning not reality.How does that sound to you?lfen

lfen,Everything made sense to me until you said, Who is we? Do you mean the individual knows it's own functioning? Or did you mean that WE, scientists, know only how an animal functions, and not the "reality." If you mean this, what sense of reality do you mean?My first thought is that calling behavior "knowledge" is not quite right; it is like the paradigm, or data, for knowledge. Most people think of knowledge as something static--the thing that produces the behavior, the more general storage and capacity behind the behavior. At least, that's true for organisms.For something like gravity, some people might call THE GRAVITY itself "knowledge." This I think goes back a bit to what Searle was saying, about the two types of causality.Ben(edited to change the subtitle to reflect my real EvC handle... right "Ifen"? )This message has been edited by bencip19, 12-12-2004 09:39 PM