What is it to know?

Ben,I've moved my response to this thread as it doesn't really fit where it was. I'm trying to move this discussion over here so it won't get aborted by an Admin.I see your point but ask you to consider what that means for conscious behaviour vs. unconscious. At what point is the context social, observable by others in normal everyday interactions? This just gets more complicated. And sometimes we aren't conscious of those responses. Now we are into the whole psychology area of repression, projection etc. i.e. a lot of our knowing may be wrong, and we may have contradictory knowledge.I'm getting tired and all this is looking like spagehti. Time to take a break from the computer.lfenedited typosThis message has been edited by lfen, 12-12-2004 09:42 PM

Ben,my apologies for getting your handle wrong. I'm really too tired. I'll clarify my statement which was not very clear and continue discussing your good insights. May not be until tomorrow though.lfen

haha just a joke; just taking the opportunity to (subtly) wonder why people call you Ifen, and why you don't seem to mind.Take it easy. It's almost noon here, I'm at a big advantage Until next time!
Ben

Ben,Took a walk and had some dinner.I like short easy to type handles. I used to use flen but I tried it on a site and the name was taken, so I thought lfen was less likely to be used and started using that. It hasn't meaning to me and I could see people mistaking the lower case l for I and Ifen has a sort of meaning so I see why lfen would be read as "Ifen" and I like ifen as well as lfen. So I've not bothered to correct people, I know who they are talking to.lfen Ifen johnjacobjingleheimerschmit

Ben,I wrote ambiguously: I'll try to recast this as: The human organism knows it's functioning rather than what reality is. I know how to go three blocks north to the market. I don't know what the market is, the blocks are, etc. but I have functioning that works including representations that I might take as the reality of this world. Well knowledge as information? Like a gene because it can template an amino acid is information? I'm making a distinction between what knowledge is and what knowing is. It may not be valid or it may be a matter of emphasis. What I mean is, as I sit here and think about something say a cheese sandwich what is my knowing what a cheese sandwich is. Knowledge would be either knowing the words, or knowing facts about cheese, but knowing is just the ability to make a picture of a cheese sandwich, to know how to go to the kitchen and make it. Do I really know what bread is, or cheese? No. But I know how to think about, remember, find, make.I hope this is a little clearer. I'll mention that where I am going with this is the notion that we don't even know our selves, don't know what it is to exist, all we know is to do various things including imagining things like winning the lottery etc.Do I know how to be conscious? Or is that something that happens to me. Do I know how to sleep or is that something that happens to me?lfen

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I'll try to recast this as: The human organism knows it's functioning rather than what reality is. I know how to go three blocks north to the market. I don't know what the market is, the blocks are, etc. but I have functioning that works including representations that I might take as the reality of this world.

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If it looks like a duck and it walks like a duck...Your knowledge of that market is so good that you can predict with near 100% certainty that it weill be there the next time you carry out these "functions". Why do you wish to interpret the reality you are confronted with as a "representation" instead of dealing with it as reality.What basis do you or anyone else have for suggesting that an extra layer of complexity be added to the scenario? Why should I not trust my senses to describe the world?

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What I mean is, as I sit here and think about something say a cheese sandwich what is my knowing what a cheese sandwich is.

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And index lookup to a memory of the sight and smell of a cheese sandwhich.

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Do I really know what bread is, or cheese? No. But I know how to think about, remember, find, make.

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Knowledge of all constituent components is unncessary. Why should 100% complete knowledge be the only type of valid knowledge?

It's a marker to remind me that though it is the "reality" that I experience is isn't solid or complete. Perception can be deceptive. I could use some other marker like reality1 and reality0, or reality' and reality''. As far as I know no one has isolated absolutely pure water or any chemical with 100% purity. Yet the concept of pure has a function. I didn't say that imprecise knowledge lacked validity. It is just useful to remember that the sense knowledge as sense experience is 100% what it is but as information has only some per cent of certainty or reliability.lfenedited the second quote when upon rereading I discovered I had not copied the quote I had highlighted and had simply pasted the first quote a second time. I must have been rushing. My reply now has a proper reference.This message has been edited by lfen, 12-13-2004 10:57 PM

forgot to mention... LOL!

OK, let me try... I've re-ordered some of your comments for my own convenience. Just FYI. Actually, distinguising between knowledge / knowing and information is important to me. Information is a term based on 'value' or 'function'; weird term. Knowledge, to me, just means "what is known." It is the physical structure supporting whatever "to know" is. Weird. Weird! Weird!! Weird!!!...But serously, I think I'm starting to understand. You're using these words in a very colloquial sense I think, and that causes trouble in communication. What you call knowledge is more like what I call information.I think cognitive scientists would agree with the direction of your statements (a reduction of knowing to something else), but not with the specifics. You want to define knowing in purely physical terms, to kind of remove the consciousness part of it. Let me lay out what "knowledge" and "knowing" are from a cognitive perspective, and you can let me know how that jives with you.Speaking broadly and making up generalizations as I go, information is stored in the brain in a few different ways.

1. There's the biased processing of the sensory system. "Knowing" a cheese sandwich includes being able to recognize what is a cheese sandwich, what is not a cheese sandwich, and what looks like a cheese sandwich. Even more, being able to imagine a cheese sandwich when one is not around.
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2. There's the association areas, where information from different modalities are combined; this would suggest that "knowing" a cheese sandwich means being able to visualize a cheese sandwich when you hear the sound of one (haha).
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3. there's sensory-motor association areas. This would mean, "knowing" what is a cheese sandwich means salivating when you see one, or whatever.
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4. Finally, there's the purely motor areas. This would mean that "knowing" what a cheese sandwich is entails being able to make one, being able to eat one, etc.

If you're trying to propose that we are "removed" from encountering the "essence" of a cheese sandwich, that our "knowing" a cheese sandwich does not involve our direct encounter with its "essence", then sure, I agree. But I don't think you're going there.Weird!Help me understand Ben

Contracycle,I think these questions are super-important, and I hope I can convince you of my answers. I re-ordered your questions a bit to fit the logical flow I wanted for my response.

• Dr. Ramachandran's studies of consciousness and the generative aspect of our own awareness. His studies clearly and scientifically demonstrate that our 'model' of the world 'inside' our head, what we call mind, is an active construct of the brain, and nothing more.
• Dreaming
• Philosophical studies on the nature of knowledge (epistemology)
• The fallability, and reconstructive nature of our own memories. This has been studied extensively in the memory literature, and very specifically in the eyewitness testimony literature.
• The ability to fractionalize the "I" through different diseases or neural procedures (such as a corpus callosectomy

Another great question. Really, we ALL model the world in our heads as "reality." Is there really any explanatory value in adding this extra layer?I believe the answer is a definitive YES! Here's some reasons why:

• It makes scientific predictions that are different, and that we find. In other words, it gives us a much better understanding of the mind.
• It answers some philosophical questions that can't be answered by the "reality" model.
• It removes the dualist distinction between mind and body, which is a HUGE source of confusion and assumption in scientific and philosophical studies
• It allows you to freely abstract away from "apparent reality," to find explanations for data that go outside of what seems to be "reality." For example, proposing a 5th dimension to explain some phenomena in cosmology, or to explain that there are no particles in the world, only fields--these are more acceptable when we realize that "reality" IS just an abstraction. To explain the apparent reality using other abstractions is then very valid; that is exactly what our mind does. Our mind constructs a model of "reality" using some rules and procedures, no more or less valid than those scientific rules and procedures to describe different aspects of this "reality."
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Why should I not trust my senses to describe the world?
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You better. If you don't, you'll get killed. This is not for behavior; this is for understanding. This is science and philosophy, not life. Scientifically, there's no justification for trusting your senses. Practically, however, you've got no choice. Besides to shut it all down, do nothing.
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Knowledge of all constituent components is unnecessary. Why should 100% complete knowledge be the only type of valid knowledge?
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It's just a matter of definitions. I think the point is just that knowledge, in the classical sense of the word, is impossible. There are things that are possible--like constructing a pretty consistent model of the world, and knowing (inductive) facts about the model.
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I think you're asking all the right questions; I hope my answers provide some value to you.
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Thanks!
Ben

Ben,I'm not going there, I'm starting from there, I think?Hmmm, I think I should just start over. My approach is to move from the nondualist teachings and accounts of nondual experience towards what is being currently discovered in science to see how the two match up and if they can shed any light on understanding the other. It turns out this is a lot more difficult than I had forseen. I don't have enough background in neuroscience to be doing this at this time. Well, not exactly. I was thinking it was possible to separate consciousness from the content we are conscious of. But I'm now quite uncertain about that. My idea went along the lines of since we don't know the essences of things we don't even know what we are doing and yet we are conscious of knowing our experience of doing or knowing something. And so what we know is just ourselves, our sensory motor system at work. But I am thinking now that this is not a productive line of thought, I don't think I can get anywhere with it.Not sure what my next step will be.lfen

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It's a marker to remind me that though it is the "reality" that I experience is isn't solid or complete.

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On what basis? It's there, its solid, it hurts if you bump into it. Thats exactly why I am asking you why you think it is a representation, is not solid or complete.This appears to be an assumption of yours that remains baseless and to me, inexplicable.

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As far as I know no one has isolated absolutely pure water or any chemical with 100% purity.

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Thats easy enough to do out of constituent atoms.

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Dr. Ramachandran's studies of consciousness and the generative aspect of our own awareness. His studies clearly and scientifically demonstrate that our 'model' of the world 'inside' our head, what we call mind, is an active construct of the brain, and nothing more.

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Granted BUT that is not IMO the sense in which lfen deploys the terms, becuase those problem can be addressed by examining the mechanisms employed. Our world-experience is both synthetic and real - these are not mutually contradictory states. Else a camera could not be said to produce an image.

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Dreaming

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I explain it as data archiving.

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# Philosophical studies on the nature of knowledge (epistemology)

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... are generally laughed at. Again: why ask the question in the first place? [quote] It makes scientific predictions that are different, and that we find. In other words, it gives us a much better understanding of the mind./quoteI say thats nonsense - what predictions? The tests that show the unreliability of euewitness testimony support the contention that cognition is a real physical process, and that the external reality it responds to is also external and real.

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It removes the dualist distinction between mind and body, which is a HUGE source of confusion and assumption in scientific and philosophical studies

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Eh? I think lfen is arguing for dualism, and I am arguing against it.

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It allows you to freely abstract away from "apparent reality," to find explanations for data that go outside of what seems to be "reality." For example, proposing a 5th dimension to explain some phenomena in cosmology, or to explain that there are no particles in the world, only fields--these are more acceptable when we realize that "reality" IS just an abstraction.

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Again, nonsense. the fact that the really-existing external world can be represented to my mind via abstractions does not inmply that the experiental universe is an itself an abstraction without valid existance. That is confusion of the map for the terrain, or even the mapability of the terrain for the terrain itself.

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You better. If you don't, you'll get killed. This is not for behavior; this is for understanding. This is science and philosophy, not life. Scientifically, there's no justification for trusting your senses. Practically, however, you've got no choice. Besides to shut it all down, do nothing.

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How can that possibly be the case - of course there is a sound scientific basis for trusting my sense - they have on multiple times saved me from being run over by vehicles. The distinction you present between understanding and doing is false - I understand so that I can do, and in both cases I rely on a real appreciation of a real world.

I'm not arguing for or against dualism. I'm probing the topic and am looking at a way to explicate the problem in a nondual way. However, my doubts are just not satisfied by your phrasing of the solution.The physical universe is there and things bump into things. I'll call that fundamental reality. There is a world I percieve and my percieved world is dependent on my senses and brain processing. A color blind person, a person who doesn't feel pain, a person with brain damage have differing perceptions of the identical fundamental reality.So at this point I'm examing the concept of fundamental reality that exist independent of anyone percieving it, and my reality that is based on my perceptions and processing of that reality.I don't understand all that you are saying and so I'm not sure what our argument would be.lfen

And I'm not understanding you either, I don't know what the problem is. Are you familiar with Korzbski's General Semantics. Jar likes to quote his "the map is not the territory".What in your view happens when senses are in error and mistakes are made? Say there is a tasteless odorless poison in food. It's there but we have no representation for it and so eat it and die. I guess I'm having the same trouble with your writing as you are having with mine. I don't think you can possibly mean what you wrote but that can be that I'm just don't quite getting your way of expression.It seems obvious to me that my representation of the world, my perception of the world is not complete and hence is at best a partial reality. The market may have been demolished. I may be schizophrenic and believe it is a government agency set up to lure me in to feed me poisoned food. To me it's just as obvious that my representations can't be fully trusted and I suspect you will agree. So, I'm just not getting your objections I guess.lfen