April 18, 2002
-
Well, What Do You Know?
Have you ever wondered how it is that we know anything? This is one of those questions that I ponder on sleepless nights. How do I know anything. Is there a me inside my brain, or is thought just an illusion created by the firing of neurons? There is a school of philosophers who insist that the mind is nothing more than brain chemistry, but these thinkers aren’t getting very much support from neurologists. Neuroscience recognizes the connection between the brain and the mind. Brain damage obviously affects the mind. But, while the components of the brain are necessary, it seems that they are insufficient to explain the mind. Neural networks go a long way toward explaining how we think, but they aren’t very helpful in terms of understanding why we think.
Leaving aside the question of why it is that we are able to know at all, I’m also interesting in studies of how it is that we learn and know. What does it mean to be reasonable? Is reasonable synonymous with rational? Is there such a thing as objective knowledge?
Humans learn though sensory input, experience. A baby does not possess language, there is no thinking involved, no reasoning through logical steps, but learning takes place. Parents are able in a very short time to teach babies through stimulation of innate reflexes to suck and swallow. But, no mother begins to teach a child to nurse by saying, “Okay, Johnny, today we will open our books to lesson one . . . “ Child development specialists tell us that in the first year of life, babies learn more than they will for the entire rest of their lives. None of this learning utilizes reasoning or logic.
As we grow and acquire language, we conceptualize our reality in terms, words, metaphors. No thought equals the thing thought of. I can think of the image of a flower, but I cannot think the flower. I can remember a song, but I cannot produce the song by thinking of it. As we grow, our mode of learning shifts. As an adult, if I want to know something about a subject I’ve never studied before, I will most likely find a book, or a knowledgable person to explain it to me. But the way that we learn from books and others is by comparing their images – word pictures – to the experiences we’ve gained. Reason is the end of the process. All our learning begins with experience. Without a proper frame of reference (which is really just a fancy way of saying prior experience of the subject) I can’t learn anything new about it.
It’s popular to speak of the difference between objective and subjective. This is a distinction that I find silly. All thought refers to some object, concept, or event. In this respect all thought is objective. In order for a thought to be subjective it must “exist in a person’s mind, not be produced by anything outside it, not be objective” – well, by that definition all thought is subjective. The sky does not produce my thoughts about it, my brain produces the thought. However, my thoughts about the sky are in reference to an objective reality.
When a person says, when you say that you believe a certain thing based on your experience of it, that’s merely subjectivity – I say “Duh!” I understand what they are trying to say. They want to draw a distinction between my experience and “objective” reality. But, they are ignoring the fact that experience is a part of objective reality. My friend, Mary, has a wonderful illustration of this point so I’ll steal it from her. It is hypothesized by some people that since all matter is really energy then our perception of ourselves as solid must be a illusion. Mary challenges people who argue this way to slam their hand in a car door. None of them have taken her up on it so far, because for all the discussion about the abstract ideas of energy and matter and the cosmos, the experience of pain is a part of material reality.
I’ve been told that there are some people with nerve damage and other conditions who do not experience pain. These people have to be taught to avoid actions that will harm them. But it is impossible to teach someone to feel pain. You either feel it or you don’t. Much like seeing the color purple – you either see it or you don’t. A person who has been blind from birth can’t conceptualize color. Color, sound, touch, taste, smell, all these sensory experiences are related to the primary way that we learn and know.
Once we have linguistic tools in place we can order our thoughts about our experiences and interpret them, but learning begins before we apply reason. Knowledge begins with experience. After the experience, reason may be applied in order to organize and interpret the experience. But reason is always related to events in the past. Logic and reason are useful tools. With their help we are able to formulate statements about our experience. With logic we can test our statements to see if they are “true.” Logic is not a tool for gaining new knowledge, it is the way we organize the information we have already gained through our experience.
Natasha said: Let’s talk about having faith simply based on emotion. Some people call it intuition. I believe in intuition. Some would even call intuition God. I don’t always have faith in my intuitions, because they are not always “logical.” I admire anyone who can have complete faith in them, though. In fact, that is what I aspire to. That would be what any transcendentalist would aspire to–to listen to what is in our hearts and trust that as the truth.
I don’t have very much faith in emotion. I can be happy, sad, angry, frightened, hurt, or calm all in the course of a day. I’m not convinced that my emotional state testifies to any particular truth. Intuition however, (according to my dictionary) is knowledge gained “without reasoning or being taught.” Intuition is the way that humans learn 90% of everything we know. Intuition brings us new experiences and new thoughts. Intuition must precede reason in order for us to have something to reason about.
SO _ drumroll please – Although reason cannot be applied to every form of human knowing, it is irrational not to recognize the existence (and act on the basis) of intuition. Inasmuch as intuition is our ground of knowing, it is logical to say that intuitive experience of God forms a rational basis for discussion even when that intuition cannot be expressed by logical formulae.
Blankityblank said: Truth is not about belief, though… or is it? Is the act of proving something is true as much about believing that you are providing evidence that is (irrationally) conclusive?
Truth may not be about belief, but belief is very much about truth. A person who believes, trusts, or places confidence contrary to evidence isn’t demonstrating faith. Once belief is divorced from truth, the proper term isn’t faith, it’s superstition. However, truth is not the same as proof. Proof is a product of logic. Truth is much broader than logic or reason.
I’m still thinking about Grioghair’s words from Monday, and he left another profound comment since then. I’ll be coming back to his ideas. There’s a LOT to say about the points he’s raising.
Comments (19)
Great discussion. If you’re interested in epistemology, you may be interested in EEPS Media.
Thanks for the link Majormike – I am interested in epsitemology – how’d you guess?
This is one of those blogs that requires me to think. I make it a habit to avoid thinking whenever possible. I may have to come back and reread this again later.
Wow… I haven’t had my mental gears spun like this in a long time… I’m a reader here now…
hee hee hee – great blog
Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D infers that the intuition is inate in us all at birth and the part of us that already knows the more important things about life. I would call it a God-given knowledge that is left over from the fall and soon put down by worldly knowledge and the idea that anything worth knowing is reasoned out by our own brain power. The idea seems to be that the only knowledge that is worth anything is that which is gained by our efforts by our own powerful brains. We forget that, because of the second law of thermodynamics, our brains are as well equiped to work out the right answers as Adams was. Paul pointed out that the truth is inate in our very being and confirmed by the created world around us. Dr. Estes would call it the wild world. The intuition is intricaly intwined with the cerebral cortex with its involuntary responses of flight or fight and the resultent energy supplied.
The infant is practicing sucking while it is still in the womb and most babies are born with language skills. My son-in-law used to put his lips close to his unborn daughter’s little nest and say,”Daddy loves you, little booboos.” The first thing the new-born di when she was put into her daddy’s arms was to smile sweetly (No gas) and say plainly “booboos”.
I enjoyed your post.
I like the way your mind works! I was just talking to someone about – if you imagine it then it must be there – I don’t know about that one.. it is there in my mind and I may believe it to exist somewhere but I can’t say that that makes it real and now I am starting to ramble
I’ve raised points, and now I’m raising bread – thanks for the recipe!
Can you please send us your recipe for microwaved brown rice?! (We want to make sure we do it properly right from the beginning!)
I’ve just bought the gluten flour – and I am ready to start kneading. (I will ignore all use of puns here!)
I once spend some time on a macrobiotic diet – after reading that John Lennon was on one.
…and I learnt the pleasures of brown rice from that!
I guess we are luckier than earlier days, when they just used to bake unleavened bread.
I always thought that God gave us everything we need to “Know”.. you know? This is hard to explain indeed.
It seems to be the old distinction between the states of innocence and experience. In the state of innocence the infant of the human animal, just like any other species, is programmed to learn what it needs to survive. That would be intuitive, or even instinctual. In the state of experience, humans learn based on their preconceptions.
When it was said that Adam and Eve, in their state of innocence, did not know sin, it meant literally that– they had no concept of it. It was necessary for them to sin before they could know what it was. The abstraction would have been meaningless without a referent. Now it could be said that how could sin even exist to be “known” if it had not previously existed? I suppose that Satan’s disobedience caused its creation? But for Satan to even want to disobey would have to mean that God created a universe with both good and evil present– and thus imperfect– because if evil did not previously exist, how could Satan have conceived of it?
Paradoxes, paradoxes. Exceptional blog though.
God Bless – Dale
Ok, I’ve read this three times. And the one thing I’m sure of… I don’t have anything intelligent to add.
OK before I get started… Noam Chomsky, the founder of modern linguistics, put forth the idea that the capacity for language is hard-wired into our brains, that is, the capacity to learn language. There’s biological proof of this now, 30 years later.
So. Where does “how” end and “why” begin? For every “why” question, you can use “how” questions to dig deeper and deeper into “why” and keep coming up with reasons to ask why. Why questions are properly a trigger for further exploration into “how.”
Babies, and smart adults, learn through association. They associate stimuli with feelings first, then learn how to bring the two more into harmony through language. It doesn’t turn into self-control for months or years, but it proceeds in that fashion. Language, therefore, is built on association — on learning that “this” means “that.”
Now, on to “objective vs. subjective.” Like our gracious hostess, I think it’s a false delimitation. You can’t boil objectivity down to simple reference to an object, concept or event and say that subjectivity bears no resemblance to that. Here’s why: Your brain produces the phenomena you “observe”, like what you call “sky”, based on millions of stimuli that are then abstracted and associated with an image in your head. It’s a reference to an “event”, surely, and it’s something you agree upon with your neighbor… but your particular association IS NOT REPEATABLE. It’s individual to you, your experience. And just so you know I’m aware I’m talking in circles, let me just add the following question: “Is there anything truly objective?”
In other words, is the idea of “objective” really just a banana? A why question, where individuals stop asking “how” and are thus forced to proceed on assumption, or agreement based on previous reality construction and socialization? So if anything’s subjective, aren’t why questions? Or at least why answers? Aren’t why questions SUBJECTIVE BANANAS WAITING TO BE SMUSHED???
As for intuition, that’s baby talk. The idea that you should have faith in your intuitions, your feelings in common parlance (or ideas constructed from your feelings and previous assumptions, more truthfully), isn’t that just another way of saying “Believe your own heart?” And the kicker: Does this idea have ANYTHING AT ALL TO DO WITH APPLES OR ORANGES???
OK I’m done teasing. Hope you enjoyed my junk.
Lawdy, lawdy…. what an incredible blog…. so much stuff to respond to, where in the world does a body start? I really liked litboiler’s comment, a lot. Blankity blank was on that fruit salad thing again and really I didn’t understand most of what he had to say. (I’m just kidding, Scott.
) I agree with the language thing. In fact, that very theory is what started the concept of “whole language learning” in education. If we teach language as a whole together (reading, writing, speaking) it is supposedly absorbed better and simply learned. As we read we respond by writing and speaking. If first we read about something, then write about it, then are forced to discuss those thoughts we wrote about, then the concepts are all working together to create a complete sense of language.
And since my intuition comment was brought up, I guess I’ll be forced to defend that one, hm?
Why do you not put much faith in your emotions? Because they change? Are not constant? Aren’t always logical or reasonable? There is no more pure truth than being angry. Happy. Sad. Simply because the reasons we are those things aren’t always easily explicable do not mean they are not the truth. Geeezus, why are we a society that has forced our emotion onto the back burner because it is illogical and people are sure to misunderstand us. “Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” Now, isn’t that the most illogical thing to do at this point? Quote another on maintaining the integrity of one’s own mind? Because isn’t that his mind and not mine? But damn, it makes sense. We ask hows and whys because we need to feel content. If there are no answers to the hows and whys we do not feel content–it is the reason for evolution, right? Why do things change, because they have to in order to survive. Why do we ask questions, because we seek answers–yet when someone attempts to provide us with an answer, if we are not content with it, then it is not the answer we are searching for. And why are you not content? Can you always explain it? Why do you really not trust your emotions? Because we cannot always label them. Tell me, Terri… what is love? what is hate? what is fear? There may be some definition of them in a dictionary, but believe me, they are not those emotions–they are attempting to define something that cannot be defined with words, and that is why you do not trust them. It’s not real.
You do not trust your emotions, yet you believe in God? Marriage? Motherhood? It is a biological fact that you are a mother–an emotional fact that you are a mama, or a mommy. All these things you have because they are built on emotion–in my opinion.
Uh… see??? I don’t even know what the hell I’m talking about anymore, and if I’m even responding to your blog! lol I’m sorry if this comment sucks.
“A person who believes, trusts, or places confidence contrary to evidence isn’t demonstrating faith.”<–I could argue exactly the opposite. My definition of faith might even be: believing, trusting, or placing confidence contrary to evidence. What need is there for faith when one is acting in accordance with evidence? Faith in the evidence? I would argue that the term “evidence” itself, as it’s being used here, has that brand of faith inherent in it. It has to. Otherwise we’re not talking about faith any more, we’re talking about epistemology (which is fine, don’t get me wrong, I’m just trying to frame the fact that I am responding to the faith facet of the discussion not the epistemological facet). Or am I confusing evidence and proof. Or perhaps it depends on how you define evidence. Or truth. Or faith.
From time to time someone, in a discussion like this will say, “Oh pish, you’re just talking semantics.” To which I have to reply, “Yes. Aren’t you?” or “You started it!” Which generally goes over poorly. But, all these really juicy meaty conversations have this element of relying heavily on the FULL and personal definitions of the terminology employed.
Many people would argue that there is no evidence of God. Other’s that the evidence is all around us, abundant, we need only notice.
With my just made claim that I see faith as occurring counter to evidence still fresh on my fingers, I admit that I also see faith as that thing which takes over once we realize that there is no such thing as evidence at all, at least not in terms of sufficient evidence. Faith, then, is what breaks us out of paradoxicalities like “what if this chair isn’t really here but is only in illusion?” and “in order to move 10 feet I must move 5, but to move 5 I must move 2 1/2 but to move 2 1/2 I must…ad infinitum ad absurdum”. Faith is what makes us go, “Wokay, here we go!” in the morning instead of, “am I really awake or only dreaming I’m awake or dreaming I am dreaming I am dreaming I’m awake?”
Faith is both these things to me. The first is a relative of intuition, I suppose. When something feels right, contrary to evidence. The second is more related to a faith in God (in my mind anyway (the determination for most people, I would guess, is in whether one see abundant evidence of God all around us or not)), in that we can gather all the evidence we like, but are incapable of ever having certainty.
Depending on how you define: certainty, having, ever, incapable, evidence, etc.
What namely you are writing is a horrible mistake. 1 6 9. Pretty helpful data, thank you for the article. LINK LINK 1. In my view everyone have to glance at it. site 7 go. Well, I don’t really suppose this is likely to have effect.