Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site l5.uucp Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!decwrl!sun!l5!laura From: laura@l5.uucp (Laura Creighton) Newsgroups: net.philosophy Subject: Re: Rigorous Mortis Message-ID: <136@l5.uucp> Date: Sat, 21-Sep-85 13:13:54 EDT Article-I.D.: l5.136 Posted: Sat Sep 21 13:13:54 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 25-Sep-85 08:17:49 EDT References: <103@l5.uucp> <1544@umcp-cs.UUCP> <109@l5.uucp> <1697@pyuxd.UUCP> <125@l5.uucp> <1721@pyuxd.UUCP> Reply-To: laura@l5.UUCP (Laura Creighton) Organization: Ell-Five [Consultants], San Francisco Lines: 70 Rich is trying to find an objective way of measuring whether or not I am hungry. >If I was really seeking serious proof that you were hungry, I could certainly >find an objective way of verifying it. Of course, it would take a lot of >data. >It would take an analysis of the current state of your digestive system, >knowledge of how long it's been since you last ate (sometimes the brain simply >wants food as a sensation experience without actually being hungry), and >data on the break points at which your body sends messages that your require >food. This is a good try, but remember that I promised to be as unfuriating as possible. So I say that I am hungry. You get out your measuring aparatus and say ``how can you be hungry? you just ate a huge dinner two hours ago!''. I say ``no, your equipment is malfunctioning.'' You go off an test your equpiment and report that it is working fine. I say ``well, it can't be: you see there is this evil plot to starve me to death -- all equipment will fail to measure whether or not I am hungry because that is the way that this plot works.'' ``But you *just* ate dinner!'' ``Pure illusion and deception implanted in your mind. You can't underestimate the damager-god (oops, wrong article!) after all''. And so it goes. At some point you will be forced to choose to believe me or to believe your equipment. If all the objective evidence that you can garner points to the fact that I am not hungry then it will be most reasonable for you to assume that I am lying. But in making that assumption you are implicitly professing a belief in objective reality. But how can you defend that belief without saying either that it is self-evident or that it is possible to construct a consistent set of beliefs while using this belief which is also consistent with the evidence of your senses? > >By definition, you are saying, it is only to be called knowledge if it is >certain to be true. No. By definition knowledge is true. no claims are made on whether or not this is certain, though! The verification is your problem, and there are true statements which are impossible to verify. (try verifying ``Alexander the Great had 12 illegitimate children'' and ``there is an objective reality'' now. You run into snags). >At bottom level, true knowledge IS self-evident, >representing a consistently accurate model of the world. Subjective beliefs, >very often, do not stand up to that scrutiny, and are not "self-evident" >at bottom level, but rather self-contradictory. > That is immaterial to the discussion at hand -- if there are any subjective beliefs that stand up to that scrutiny then those are the ones that I want to deal with. If you say that bottom-level true knowledge is self-evident, then you are making a statement of belief. HOW DO YOU KNOW WHETHER IT IS TRUE? Ihave long believed that consistency *is* truth -- that is when you say that X is true you could just as well have said that X is consistent with all available evidence. But this is belief -- and definitely not shared by everyone. >> But those things that are self-evident are true in a way that is verified >> differently than those things which are objectively true. > >Not at all. If you get to the bottom level, they are verified in exactly >the same way. Often, we choose not to go to the root level, and assume >the veracity of certain things, owing to the tediousness of a redundancy >we feel is not worthwhile in every case. That of course leaves us very >open to being out and out wrong. > I don't think that this is the case. I don't think that I verify ``there is an objective reality and it is not all an illusion produced by the damager-god'' at all -- I either believe it or I do not because I think that it is self-evident or it is not. I actually think that I determine whether or not I am hungry the same way, but I could be wrong about that one. -- Laura Creighton (note new address!) sun!l5!laura (that is ell-five, not fifteen) l5!laura@lll-crg.arpa Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com