h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A few evenings ago I mentioned on some thread the fact that I'm reading 'The Ethical Imagination' by Margaret Somerville and that my brain was having trouble getting around the meaning of what she termed different ways of knowing. Two of these ways of knowing she mentions are intuition and imagination. She also includes reason.

My problem is, I don't see that intuition or imagination are ways of knowing, and I'm not sure that Sumerville sees them as such either, since she mentions that reason is used as a means of verifying the others. Well, if the results of imagination and intuition need to be verified, they certainly aren't ways of *knowing* -- they are ways of guessing at best.

I've heard this kind of (what I would call fuzzy) talk about 'ways of knowing' before and I quite simply can't make any sense of it.

Anyone have thoughts?

this sounds like belief to me

That was quick.


I just realized that I should be defining something.


To me, knowledge is information that

a) can be transmitted from one brain to another more or less without loss, and

b) is objectively verifiable, in theory.


Examples:

In the Lord of the Rings, Frodo was a Hobbit = knowledge (look in the book)

Frodo liked pastrami sandwiches = guess, opinion, lie (there is no way to verify the information.)

I'm feeling stressed = knowledge (I just transmitted the information and in theory one could hook me up to various devices and verify that I display the physiological symptoms of stress)

The Bible says God spoke from a burning bush = knowledge (one can read Exodus)

God is speaking to me = fantasy, psychosis, delusion (there is no way to verify the information)

I'm trying to think of an example of information which can't be communicated but I can't seem to do it. Perhaps someone else will come up with such an example.

<>

I'm not paranoid i KNOW everyone is out to get me, so I can't tell anyone

Perhaps.


Actually, the definition I posted was really rather clumsy. It is ironic that in my haste I spent too much time.

Knowledge is independently verifiable.

If it isn't independently verifiable, it's something other than knowledge.

what about something like phantom pain

"my leg hurts, i know it hurts but there is no reason for it to hurt"

I bet there would be an EEG method for checking on that.

what about people that claim to have a 6th sense

things like

i am being watched i can feel them watching me, the hairs on the back of my neck.....etc.etc

perfect timing. While I was away I was thinking about the phantom limb thing and my thinking ties in somewhat with your latest.

Statements derived from introspection are interesting bits of evidence about internal states, but they are purely subjective. There is no way of judging their accuracy. If I say that I have had out of body experiences (as I have said on threads hereabouts), what is the value of that statement? Am I simply lying? Did I halucinate? Did I really float about the dance floor of that gay club in 1987? No. statements derived from introspection are not knowledge in any useful sense: they are opinion or guess or feeling.

To me, knowing is something that may be shared. I *know* the words of the first five lines of the Anglo-Saxon poem 'The Wanderer' (whence my moniker) and I could quite easily show them to you (http://www8.georgetown.edu/departments/medieval/labyrinth/library/oe/texts/a3.6.html). I cannot, however, show you precisely what they *mean* to me. That meaning is a product of largely subjective experience and is incommunicable, even to those who understand the language, it cannot be shared. It is certainly fine and beautiful (you'll have to take my word for it) but it is also melancholy and lonely. It is feeling, opinion, intuition, not knowledge.

Does that make sense (after a number of s)?

how about when you know you are in love????

two responses:

1) hook the boy up to an EEG, MRI, CAT and a BFG (sorry, been playing some games)

b) when I was a youngster I remember coming up with the phrase: 'he's in love -- or he thinks he is, and that amounts to the same thing'.

opinion, feelings. Not knowledge. The guy could be a lying creep.

I think I can help.

Now it's a dash complicated and long but try reading it (in small bits) through because it does deal with the question of distinguishing between what we can "know" of internal and external states.

My favourite bit is when it starts dealing with BIVs (Brains in Vats)

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/

later. I'll look at it more later.

Pain is an interesting one. Wittgenstein. Beetles in boxes and all that.

TRiG.

hi anhaga,

Someone gave me that book 'The Ethical Imagination' but I only got about half way through. Where I got bogged down was where she started to use Natural Law as an authority.

The expression doesn't seem to have any meaning other than what Margaret Somerville feels but can't articulate. In other words, she can't find a logical ground, so she just invents one.

Ultimately, the only thing we can know for certain is that something exists, might as well call it The Universe. After that, the scientific method seems to work best to find the truth. It has the advantage of producing results that can be demonstrated.

Its disadvantage is that the results are often unsatisfying or incomplete in an emotional sense. Ms. Sommerville tries to fix that, that's what her book is about.

I never finished the book because, since she hadn't established her premises, the argument wasn't worth following.

I finished the book. You're right in your assessment.