What or who created the universe?

[DavidRoss]

     If there is knowledge about things it can't be non-material without being nonknowledge. Because knowledge is invariably about material things

Here it is again. The statement sounds reasonable because it's operating on such a big philosophical scale, but its purpose is to restrict the meaning of 'knowledge' in order to exclude anything that won't fit the self-consistent model - as if we already knew the validity of the self-consistent model.

I'm not proposing a philosophy of 'anything goes'; I'm just pointing out that all these kinds of arguments are constructed so that they can't fail, within their own terms. It's then a simple matter to slip in the subtext 'these are the only terms acceptable', and you've got the whole thing sewn up. It sounds persuasive because it's so interlocked with itself, but really it boils down to: 'I'll accept any answer that agrees with mine.'

It's kind of you to keep trying with Ernie, but he has long proven himself impervious to reason and logic.  He has made ridiculous statements like the one you quoted above many times--but no matter how often I point out that we have significant bodies of knowledge about non-material things, like love, justice, honor, truth, logic, reason, accuracy, doubt, faith, etc., the poor fellow is a hopeless prisoner of extraordinarily narrow-minded prejudice.  That even the subject of this forum--music--is non-material completely escapes his limited capacity to understand. 

A mind poisoned by unreasoning prejudice and blinding arrogance is a terrible tragedy.  Oh, well...some of us must be bad examples and cautionary tales, I suppose.

[MishaK]

The purpose of my question was to highlight the fact that one's picture of the universe will inevitably be limited by how one defines 'things'. If you define a 'thing' as X, and then construct a self-consistent model of the world in those terms (that is, which excludes the possibility that a 'thing' might be Y), then at the end of the process it will inevitably be true that within that model, X has been a satisfactory and sufficient definition of a 'thing'. It can't be otherwise. Since the outcome was inevitable (the result was fixed at the outset), we've shed no light at all on the possibility that a 'thing' might be Y.

Here it is again. The statement sounds reasonable because it's operating on such a big philosophical scale, but its purpose is to restrict the meaning of 'knowledge' in order to exclude anything that won't fit the self-consistent model - as if we already knew the validity of the self-consistent model.

You are sadly confused. What drogulus proposes is not at all what you call a 'self-consistent' model (what you actually mean is more something like 'immutable', but let's ignore that for the moment). Your disagreement is not over the definition of 'things', but rather about the concept of knowledge. You would like to include in the concept of knowledge emotions, inklings and instincts. Sadly, these aren't knowledge in any meaningful sense of the term (otherwise we would not have those other words for them). Knowledge by definition has to be empirical and therefore limited to what can be demonstrated in the material world (that includes knowledge about feelings and instincts, etc. insofar as they can be biologically and behaviorally measured). If knowledge cannot be replicated by a doubter, if it requires a priori faith or a common emotional sensation, it isn't knowledge. Thus drogulus' definition is perfectly accurate. He does not exclude at all that in time new knowledge about 'things' could be discovered, but that new knowledge, too, will be material knowledge as all knowledge is by definition.

but no matter how often I point out that we have significant bodies of knowledge about non-material things, like love, justice, honor, truth, logic, reason, accuracy, doubt, faith, etc., the poor fellow is a hopeless prisoner of extraordinarily narrow-minded prejudice.  That even the subject of this forum--music--is non-material completely escapes his limited capacity to understand. 

You too are confused about the concept of 'knowledge'. See above. We have plenty of material knowledge of how humans perceive all the various highlighted terms (I'm not quite sure why 'reason' and 'accuracy' are in there, I don't think you can dispute that these can be fully understood by rational empirical means), but there is plenty more that we don't know. The feelings and beliefs we have about those items do not constitute hard knowledge. It cannot be understood by persons who doubt those faiths or do not experience those feelings at a given time, are hence not-transferable, subjective and non-scientific. Faith and gut feelings are not knowledge, even if some self-anointed guru wrote a book about it.

[Elgarian]

Your disagreement is not over the definition of 'things', but rather about the concept of knowledge.

My disagreement is over the definition of things AND the concept of knowledge. But at the time we happened to be talking about 'things'.

Knowledge by definition has to be empirical and therefore limited to what can be demonstrated in the material world (that includes knowledge about feelings and instincts, etc. insofar as they can be biologically and behaviorally measured).

This is exactly the philosophical error that Drogulus falls into, again and again. Of course you'll agree with him, and disagree with me - you're making the same philosophical mistakes, by defining your terms in such a way as to exclude contradiction. But forgive me if I don't go over all this ground yet again; I've covered it in other threads to the point of exhaustion.

[Elgarian]

It's kind of you to keep trying with Ernie

I'm not really trying, Dave, because no resolution is possible. I'm just putting in a few observations that might cause a passing reader to at least question these apparently plausible arguments.

[Wendell_E]

I also sat through the whole thing, what amazes me is that they are allowed to teach this in to days schools, or is it special schools operated by the Creationists? 

As it mentions in the video, this is a group of "home-schooled Christian children", so these guys are basically preaching to the choir.

[MishaK]

This is exactly the philosophical error that Drogulus falls into, again and again. Of course you'll agree with him, and disagree with me - you're making the same philosophical mistakes, by defining your terms in such a way as to exclude contradiction. But forgive me if I don't go over all this ground yet again; I've covered it in other threads to the point of exhaustion.

No, your problem is a whole lot of assumptions on which you operate. When someone tells you 'knowledge is necessarily empirical and material', you get all agitated about all the things that 'excludes' and that we are therefore depriving ourselves of 'other types of knowledge' (even though those other types cannot be knowledge, but let's ignore that for the moment). There is some basic assumption there that we humans are somehow entitled to knowledge beyond the material. But this is not the case. The intellectually honest thing to do is to say: 'up to here my empirical research yields reliable knowledge, beyond this point I simply do not know.' But to claim that you do 'know' things outside of your empirical knowledge is nonsense. Those are simply guesses, instincts and beliefs. Which is fine. Humans are designed to operate on guesses and instincts and we're pretty good at it much of the time (as long as we keep checking whether or not perhaps some things can't in fact be figured out and corrected empirically). But we run into serious danger when we confuse instinct, guesses and faith for actual hard knowledge. There is an underlying emotional insecurity that leads to this: many of us are simply unwilling or unable to live with our vast ignorance of the universe. It makes us uncomfortable, so in order to feel better about ourselves we just make shit up and call it 'knowledge'. But knowledge it is not. Intellectual honesty requires calling things what they are and not calling them what they're not.

[DavidRoss]

You too are confused about the concept of 'knowledge'. See above. We have plenty of material knowledge of how humans perceive all the various highlighted terms (I'm not quite sure why 'reason' and 'accuracy' are in there, I don't think you can dispute that these can be fully understood by rational empirical means), but there is plenty more that we don't know. The feelings and beliefs we have about those items do not constitute hard knowledge. It cannot be understood by persons who doubt those faiths or do not experience those feelings at a given time, are hence not-transferable, subjective and non-scientific. Faith and gut feelings are not knowledge, even if some self-anointed guru wrote a book about it.

Good grief.  You are the confused one, thinking you know or understand things that you don't, and being so arrogant about it that you fail to grasp even simple concepts that contradict your prejudices.  Knowledge itself is non-material.  So is the knower.  So is every single goddamned concept you use to express yourself--even the concept of "material."  (Even matter itself, of course, has long been understood as a manifestation of increasing complex organization of discrete packets of energy.)  If common sense fails you, then perhaps you can remedy that deficiency by academic study.  My own studies in epistemology were conducted under J.O. Urmson, Michael Bratman, and Ian Hacking.  I have no pretensions of expertise, but at least I have a basic understanding of the fundamental issues of knowledge and belief...and a modicum of common sense as well!  I suggest you remedy these deficiencies in yourself before presuming to correct others' statements about matters that clearly escape your understanding.

[Franco]

It's like trying to explain color to a blind man.

[DavidRoss]

It's like trying to explain color to a blind man.

Nice analogy.  Some blind men may recognize (or at least be open-minded to the possibility) that they are deficient in some way, and thus will be wiling to apply themselves to an enlarged understanding that at least enables them to grasp the concept of color even if they are unable to experience it personally.  Others, sadly, might just be so god-damned closed-minded and self-centered that they insist their own limited experience must be definitive for everyone, and so they refuse to admit the possibility of color and consequently condemn themselves to everlasting willful ignorance.

[Harpo]

I also sat through the whole thing, what amazes me is that they are allowed to teach this in to days schools, or is it special schools operated by the Creationists? 

Home schoolers have leeway in what they can teach, but there are lots of right-wing groups who want to see creationism taught in the public schools as an "alternate theory" to evolution. They try to make creationism sound more scientific by calling it "intelligent design." Besides the intellectual inequality (IMO) there is the important issue of separation of church and state. Religious dogma should not be in the public schools. It belongs in the home and church. So there!

[DavidW]

Knowledge is not the same as factual information.  There done.  Was that too hard?

The only source of debate is that a couple of posters were using their own private definition.  Don't you just hate that?

I agree with Elgarian and Dave.

[DavidW]

Oh okay I'll elaborate I guess--

Say Elgarian sits down to edit a journal article.  He reads the article.  He has gained knowledge right?  But he has not confirmed the truth for himself.  So it's not material knowledge.  If I were to tell you the speed of sound is 343 m/s, then whether it's the truth or not, would you not think that you know what the speed of sound is?  That's the problem, communication of a result conveys knowledge in an immaterial abstract way.  Yet it's still knowledge.  Not quite as witty as Dave pointing out the immaterial laden post, but there you have it.

[MishaK]

Oh okay I'll elaborate I guess--

Say Elgarian sits down to edit a journal article.  He reads the article.  He has gained knowledge right?  But he has not confirmed the truth for himself.  So it's not material knowledge.  If I were to tell you the speed of sound is 343 m/s, then whether it's the truth or not, would you not think that you know what the speed of sound is?  That's the problem, communication of a result conveys knowledge in an immaterial abstract way.  Yet it's still knowledge.  Not quite as witty as Dave pointing out the immaterial laden post, but there you have it.

It's not quite that simple. If he reads an article, he has gained quite material knowledge about what is said in that article. I.e. He knows what the article says and the nature of what is de facto contained in that article is not controversial: either it is in fact in the article or not, that can be unambiguously ascertained by reverting back to the article and checking it. Whether or not that article has anything useful to say is a different matter.

Good grief.  You are the confused one, thinking you know or understand things that you don't, and being so arrogant about it that you fail to grasp even simple concepts that contradict your prejudices.  Knowledge itself is non-material.  So is the knower.  So is every single goddamned concept you use to express yourself--even the concept of "material."  (Even matter itself, of course, has long been understood as a manifestation of increasing complex organization of discrete packets of energy.)  If common sense fails you, then perhaps you can remedy that deficiency by academic study.  My own studies in epistemology were conducted under J.O. Urmson, Michael Bratman, and Ian Hacking.  I have no pretensions of expertise, but at least I have a basic understanding of the fundamental issues of knowledge and belief...and a modicum of common sense as well!  I suggest you remedy these deficiencies in yourself before presuming to correct others' statements about matters that clearly escape your understanding.

It is telling that in order to accuse me of arrogance you have to excise the most important sentence from my prior post that you're quoting:

The intellectually honest thing to do is to say: 'up to here my empirical research yields reliable knowledge, beyond this point I simply do not know.'

Read that again carefully. You don't seem to have understood it.

Here is what you're failing to grasp: I don't disagree that there are plenty of things to be experienced outside of empirical knowledge. And it is good that we are capable of that because otherwise we couldn't function very well, given our limited ability to process empirical knowledge within our lifetimes. Read that previous sentence again. It's important. But I disagree that this sort of instinctual experience is of the same quality as what we call empirical knowledge. Indeed to treat those two as the same and to rely on non-empirical knowledge in the same way that one can rely on empirical knowledge is arrogant and foolish.

You take this fallacy to an extreme by flatly claiming that knowledge and the knower are non-material. To agree with you on this I would have to share your faith in a sort of human soul, distinct and separate from the material human body. Yet it is inherent in your faith that you cannot provide proof to the doubter who does not share your faith, precisely because you lack the material evidence for it. Hence, what a non-arrogant intellectually honest person should say is that we simply do not know at this point in history what else constitutes the human being beyond the material body and its measurable neurological and other biological processes. But it is characteristic of your own arrogance that you are unwilling to settle for a state of considerable partial ignorance. You think you are entitled to knowledge beyond what is currently available as material knowledge and you fill in the blanks through faith-based constructs. But knowledge that is not.

BTW, you can cut out the name dropping. If your arguments can't stand on their own feet, citing the names of your teachers won't help. I'm not impressed.

[Ten thumbs]

The problem with defining knowledge on a factual basis is that we rarely, if at all, can be absolutely certain of a fact. Most facts have to be qualified. For instance the speed of light is not always 343 m/s and indeed it may have been quite different at the time of the 'big bang' (that is definitely not knowledge!). The inference of this is that we do not know what is knowledge and what is not. What is more the statement 'knowledge is facts about the material world' is merely a definition and not a demonstrable material fact. Therefore it is not itself knowledge.

[Saul]

What or who created the materials and conditions that produced the Big Bang?
Why does the universe exist?
What is the purpose of existence of the living and non-living entities?
Is there a major force or god that created the universe?

The world kidnapped by the Orc Scientists who brainwash innocent and simple people about unfounded oblivious and void nonsensical Big Bangs

[drogulus]

The problem with defining knowledge on a factual basis is that we rarely, if at all, can be absolutely certain of a fact. Most facts have to be qualified. For instance the speed of light is not always 343 m/s and indeed it may have been quite different at the time of the 'big bang' (that is definitely not knowledge!). The inference of this is that we do not know what is knowledge and what is not. What is more the statement 'knowledge is facts about the material world' is merely a definition and not a demonstrable material fact. Therefore it is not itself knowledge.

    No, all this demonstrates is that you must understand knowledge as probabilistic and not absolute. That facts are not certain does not mean they are not facts. It means you steer clear of absolutist ways of thinking about them. All science assumes this point of view, which is why new theories can replace old ones without invalidating science. Philosophers, OTOH, have a great deal of trouble on this point. They agree with your inference that a lack of certainty means nothing is known. They always make this stupid, stupid move and apparently can't understand an explanation of what's wrong with it.

    I'll try again: Don't define knowledge in a way that nothing can answer to it. It may be clever to show that we really know nothing, but in every sense that's important it's obviously and stupidly false.

     Another point:
     

What is more the statement 'knowledge is facts about the material world' is merely a definition and not a demonstrable material fact. Therefore it is not itself knowledge.

     Knowledge about the world is not all we know. We also know about rules of interpretation. Facts are verified and rules are used. Definitions are knowledge, yes, and not facts about the world, and they are useful. We have to name things and categorize them without thinking the names are objects in the world, not "material knowledge". I encourage people to avoid treating abstractions as objects in the world, so where's the problem?

[drogulus]

     It's harder to explain success than failure, which is why mystics and believers try to make you think you know nothing. Failure has many possible causes, but how can you explain how we get around in the world if we know nothing? Success demands an explanation of how it's accomplished. The mystic/believer devalues this to make you think devalued knowledge is the same as no knowledge and hopes you don't notice this neat move. You should notice it, because if you can find your way from the sidewalk to your front door you have knowledge. It's funny, we aren't supposed to know things yet we do. How?

     Why is a common sense definition of knowledge compatible with experience from a child riding a bicycle for the first time all the way up to investigating the early universe with the latest technology, and why is all of this supposed to be nothing? Shouldn't we treat this "nothingism" as suspect? Why is it so important to devalue the world, to say that it can't exist without help from something offstage somewhere, that life can't arise on it's own, that you can't think thoughts without an unknown something giving you permission, and that no matter what, knowledge is never good enough unless ignorance is given authority over it?

[drogulus]

Oh okay I'll elaborate I guess--

Say Elgarian sits down to edit a journal article.  He reads the article.  He has gained knowledge right?  But he has not confirmed the truth for himself.  So it's not material knowledge.  If I were to tell you the speed of sound is 343 m/s, then whether it's the truth or not, would you not think that you know what the speed of sound is?  That's the problem, communication of a result conveys knowledge in an immaterial abstract way.  Yet it's still knowledge.  Not quite as witty as Dave pointing out the immaterial laden post, but there you have it.

    You can be well informed about something or only know it sketchily. It's usually better to have hands on knowledge. You can understand deeply at the theoretical level, though. Anyway, it's not important to anything here. Knowledge, however acquired, is confirmed by what you do with it, even if it's just confirming it again. Book learning vs. experience is a false dichotomy. Most experience has a lot of book learning in it anyway.

Knowledge is not the same as factual information.  There done.  Was that too hard?

     That's true. It still not a good idea to run a fact-free model of knowledge like the mystics/believers do. Just try to determine facts without information or experiments. Once again, imperfect material knowledge is supposed to come in second place to the perfect knowledge no one has in a race that will never be held. I wish people had the innate good sense to just walk away from this idiocy, but clearly the non-rational component in human psychology just luuuvs this stuff. It's a mental sweet tooth. And to see very intelligent and sophisticated posters here get bedazzled by it is quite a lesson in the limits of what Kant called "pure reason". If you don't reason about sense data (to not coin a phrase ), you're just adrift with your own thoughts, imagining grand confirmations for your intuitions.*

      Incidentally, I think faith and gut feelings are things we can have knowledge about. We can study them, and have. We don't adopt the conclusions of faith and gut feelings because we do study them, and have gained a little experience with how they lead us astray. The mystics/believers give us plenty of evidence to show how to interpret their...uh...musings? When they decline to give their affirmative case for the antimaterialist position and instead employ their evasions about what can be perfectly known, there should be no doubt. They have nothing to show because they have nothing.

     _{* I have intuitions, too, you know! Mine tell me that intuitions can't be trusted unless they can be confirmed somehow. Why can't that be automatically true just like the other ones?} 

[Ten thumbs]

    No, all this demonstrates is that you must understand knowledge as probabilistic and not absolute. That facts are not certain does not mean they are not facts. It means you steer clear of absolutist ways of thinking about them. All science assumes this point of view, which is why new theories can replace old ones without invalidating science. Philosophers, OTOH, have a great deal of trouble on this point. They agree with your inference that a lack of certainty means nothing is known. They always make this stupid, stupid move and apparently can't understand an explanation of what's wrong with it.

    I'll try again: Don't define knowledge in a way that nothing can answer to it. It may be clever to show that we really know nothing, but in every sense that's important it's obviously and stupidly false.

     

Good. I agree in general with what you say here. My first response was entirely tongue in cheek, I assure you. Besides, the whole of pure mathematics is knowledge concerning non-material things. Scientific knowledge is our knowledge of the universe etc. as it stands now and is subject to further revelations.