Do we have to 'know' that we know?: Philosophy Forums

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Do we have to 'know' that we know?

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Do we have to 'know' that we know?

nousPLOTINU
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Posted 06/23/09 - 07:39 AM: Subject: discrete functions	#21
treysuttle, you had wrote that, "For instance, if I were to say that I know that the president is in Chicago today. I have a justified true belief (I read it in the paper and it is true). I think it is perfectly legitimate to ask: what is your justification for believing that the paper is accurate", and I too believe your concerns are accurately described. My ideas on epistemology, ahem, ring in the mathematics of continuous beliefs, somewhat analagous to Dali's persistence of memory, as opposed to discrete beliefs that your wagons have now circled. Discrete beliefs, which are normally justified by appeals to some higher authority are difficult to justify due to their plainly informative nature. Proper examples are taken from the history of our planet Earth, passed around to a certain degree in Universities and appear daily in newspapers and television. The remarkable difference between continuous beliefs like the persistence of my memory, and discrete beliefs that are intermittently transformed into information is the inability of the bearer to use their own base beliefs to corroborste the information. The implication is I can never justify discrete beliefs but I can only justify continuous beliefs. For example the persistence of your memory is a discrete belief for me,and likewise mine for you. The organization of the belief dispels all doubt concerning its continuous nature or its discrete representation. (I will pause again at this intersection)
It is not that I think I know, it is that I know when I think.

nousPLOTINU
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Posted 06/25/09 - 06:05 AM:	#22
I had thought that they statement, "the inability of the bearer to use their own base beliefs to corroborste the information", would have raised the proverbial red flag!
It is not that I think I know, it is that I know when I think.

treysuttle
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Posted 06/25/09 - 06:45 AM:	#23
Well, it may or may not raise a red flag...according to if I understand you. Appeals to authority I take it, are not very difficult to justify. Now, the stronger we require the justification, the more difficult it is going to become. Different situations are going to call for various degrees of strength. Now, if my belief is that the president is in Chicago, and my belief is justified by the prints, and it is of no real consequence in our discussion whether he is or isn't....then I think we are fine there. It may or may not be true, but it's justified...and the matter is simply not significant enough for usto question further. If there happens to be a skeptic in the room, who...instead of getting back to concentrating on pizza and beer, wants to discuss epistemology...then she may shift the discussion to degree of justification, and argue that 'prints' do not meet an acceptable level of justification to constitute knowledge. In terms of memory, I generally take it that if we remember something, then we are justified in believing it. I want to say that technically, we can't 'remember' something if that something never happened (although we may be doing something else...but it's not remembering). Of course again, the skeptic may interlude and question whether memory provides an acceptable degree of justification to constitute knowledge.

nousPLOTINU
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Posted 07/03/09 - 06:14 AM: Subject: strict justification - has to be done	#24
My reply to all sceptics is you have to be able to do it, you have to be able to show that it is the case under discussion, you have to be able to deploy your knowledge. I think this is where we part ways. (bi-furcate) In the epistemology I support, knowledge is only that which can be deployed. Therefore the degree of justification is absolute - make it work to demonstrate your knowledge. All else other than deployment are justifications for rattling in the head, I call this strict justification..
It is not that I think I know, it is that I know when I think.

enl1ghtened
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Posted 07/12/09 - 09:06 PM:	#25
One may attach a sound that is a word to an action without knowing the definition of the word. It does become a new word at this point in the misunderstanding's mind, but it may not be understood in the way it was spoken and intended to be understood by the one who spoke it.

enl1ghtened
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Posted 07/13/09 - 04:03 PM:	#26
I think the question relates to the physical existence layer. We must have some form of index, or database system that helps us store and find our memory information. A reference catalog to find the deeper, larger memory. Similar to computers. Computers are thinking platform machines which lack free will. Computers are platforms. If a human can form the thought and translate it into something the computer can understand, then the computer is now thinking the thought of the human which the human transfered to the machine. The programmer is putting his mind's thoughts into a thinking machine. Truly an art. Free Will means an individual can think unique and individual thoughts of their own. One with free will functions fully off of their own desires, and can function above the layer of instinct, even enough to demand. Animals and Computers are told what to think, and do not think unique thoughts, as animal species are one, and do not find differences in each other's consciousnesses. They are all one mind, one species. A human can dwell on a thought. We are many different very unique patterns, each completely their own, down to detailed memories in one's life deeply affecting the rest.

xzJoel
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Posted 07/13/09 - 04:24 PM:	#27
treysuttle wrote: Well, it may or may not raise a red flag...according to if I understand you. Appeals to authority I take it, are not very difficult to justify. Now, the stronger we require the justification, the more difficult it is going to become. Different situations are going to call for various degrees of strength. Now, if my belief is that the president is in Chicago, and my belief is justified by the prints, and it is of no real consequence in our discussion whether he is or isn't....then I think we are fine there. It may or may not be true, but it's justified...and the matter is simply not significant enough for usto question further. If there happens to be a skeptic in the room, who...instead of getting back to concentrating on pizza and beer, wants to discuss epistemology...then she may shift the discussion to degree of justification, and argue that 'prints' do not meet an acceptable level of justification to constitute knowledge. In terms of memory, I generally take it that if we remember something, then we are justified in believing it. I want to say that technically, we can't 'remember' something if that something never happened (although we may be doing something else...but it's not remembering). Of course again, the skeptic may interlude and question whether memory provides an acceptable degree of justification to constitute knowledge. Perhaps this is too skeptical, but have you ever heard that if you repeat something often enough, you begin to think it is true? Sort of like that story you are told 400 times by your parents and suddenly you remember the story as if it were so? I think memory is dubious on the face of it, rather than in some skeptical way. We have regular occasions where our memory is sufficiently in doubt such that we "remember" things that may not have happened. I don't think memory has two types, only one of which is properly called memory. I think memory is related to surety of mental imagery not believed to be occurring in the present or future. Your memory is often right, so you are "justified" in trusting it - but as so often happens, you look for your keys precisely where they aren't despite the fact you are certain you left them there.
Make a joyous noise onto the lord... Not a good one, just a joyous one.

enl1ghtened
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Posted 07/13/09 - 04:50 PM:	#28
You're probably remembering a time you forgot your keys previously and are getting that mixed up with the memory that had never been made, and so therefore you are asking your mind "where are my keys" and are answered with the last logical memory involving the same exact problem's answer because you were never focused enough on the thought of removing the keys during the time of losing them.

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