| Challenge the Philosophy Competition 1 - Entries 638-639 |
Definitions of the principal terms used in the competition:
"We cannot [more reasonably] truly know": our inability to more soundly and consistently show how we can know something in entirety. For further explanation, and explanation of "know", see "cannot truly know".
Reply to the response to Entry 636
“You seem to miss the central point. Your propositions lie in the domain of the known wherein the obscurities, coloration and distortions due to our minds is taken as the norm without questioning further. Consequently they have arisen out of errors from the notionless state of our own infanthood as our mind has processed something which is at variance with aspects of the unknown which got registered as the reference templates in our infanthood. On the other hand if what is perceived now happens to coincide with that of infanthood, tranquil moments of rapture would be triggered when the mind is left with nothing to process. Consequently, we may have to redefine ‘knowing’ to be grossly different from knowledge as we usually understand. Knowing is alive while knowledge is dead already. Knowing is when the knower vanishes and merges with the known and only a dynamic state of knowing remains ever fresh. As infants we are NOT aware while as adults if enlightened as above, the awareness dawns upon one who is so awakened. Once awakened going back to living by virtual reality or notional approach in the domain of the known does NOT arise at all. Though one my casually bother to talk in the domain of the known, he/she would be in constant state of blissful rapture remaining in a state of utmost vulnerability and extra-ordinary sensitivity all around. Incidentally your proposition also would be overcome if only one could recapture the lost innocence and lovability of one's own infanthood state of transparency and calmness from within.”
R. Rangan February 13, 2008
Your notionless state is outside the domain of the known, and therefore it is inaccessible except in a limited sense through the known.
We don’t understand how the act of knowing changes the limits on knowing the notionless state. The act of knowing is merely the brain’s processing stage prior to the actual production of knowledge. It is dynamic only in that different sensory data are being processed.
Reply to the response to Entry 637
“The Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle:
Looking for uncertainties and propounding a mythical principle to accommodate it, is a contradiction in terms. Exactly the ‘mind’ thought that attempts to produce impossibilities like ‘infinite regress’. Uncertainty is an attempted inversion of a constant reality.
Everything that is, is certain. All principles have as their base a reasonable possible construction from which considerable extensions can be made. All experience and knowledge have a foundation of certainty, which continually sustains us. Whatever it may be, it is a complete constant reality. If we attempted to progress the mythological Uncertainty Principle, then like the equally mythical ‘infinite regress’ we could never have established knowledge. All that we ever have is the certain reality of the ‘here and now”. Only from that sound basis can we establish ‘stable principles’ which are the construct of all existence. Principles are the constants that provide certainty and a measure of predictability!
Astonishingly someone (clutching at straws) addresses Heisenburg as having met your ‘more reasonable’ standards to refute substantial evidence of what truth is. Holding elevated mythical concepts of what ‘truth’ should be, will always regard reality as an impenetrable barrier despite it being the only source for ‘true experience’ (already said).
The truth of mathematics is that 1+1=2. Equally, in mathematics we know that 2=1+1. The digits like the words, truth and knowledge, are interchangeable, very simple, very clear, very certain, very complete. No endless regress and they are universally accepted standards that require no attempted endless regress explanation to confirm their existence.
Do you categorize the definition of Truth or Knowledge in my last entry as ‘infinite regress’? Does the relevance of the definition completely escape you? With honesty, observe its reality, in its wholesome action, and ‘infinite regress’ will become as irrelevant to you, as it is to me. Reality can be seen to exist.
Below my example of the definition extended, in reply to your observations. The equations can be substituted using any established principle.
Truth or Knowledge is the Universal application of a mutual standard that we trust e.g. 1+1=2. Its constructive purpose is to create simple and efficient laws that we constantly use e.g. 1+1=2. Where there is clear evidence of an interdependent measure that has reciprocal value, then it becomes unifying constructive knowledge e.g. 1+1=2. We recognize and accept that constant obligation toward truths that are enduring by the increasing use we adapt them creatively, and conform to their principles throughout the evolution process e.g. 1+1=2.
Utilizing the process above, insert any of the practicality concepts that you agree with into each section of the definition (e.g. Communication) and if none of them meet the defined objective, or justify them, then they are neither established truth nor knowledge! Each term is the innate meaning in each process, and must conform to its directive, because the definitional terms relates to our human involvement and direct evidence and proof of the orientation, which is Universal. No personal opinion.
No real concept is ever subject to ‘infinite regress’. The Principle of Leverage (accorded to Archimedes) has always been, and always will be, we now have identified its existence, and its real meaning is self-explanatory.
Everyone experiences, and subject to the quality of any experience, we acquire specific knowledge. Each moment of human experience necessarily includes its immediate reality with the consistent knowledge available to be realized, and made transparent.
We need to recognize that every ‘practicality’ is the ‘specific’ manifestation which experience has offered up to be expressed. Truth proliferates because it is a common property available to us all to be realized and used.
Everything that is, requires no convoluted or mythical concepts, to realize their potential. Only the experience and the necessity for application drive our collective creativity (Archimedes et al). The spurious need to elevate our common reality into a mythical realm, attempts to deny, the very certainty that determines our daily existence. Within that certainty we can construct, and make manifest those constant principles that make all things possible.
You have lately come to ‘agree’ on the commonality of commitment to principles (however practical you may find them), and I can only suggest that within that overall framework you will find a ‘more than reasonable’ answer to ‘who we are’.
You’re considered impression of sensory experiences and knowledge has been adequately explored in previous papers.
Simply put, if no one has ever had a real ‘Eureka’ experience, then no explanation of what real complete knowledge is, or its immediate and available truth will ever suffice, but I do attempt to provide enough information that may offer up the experience.
Excerpts copied and pasted from previous entries on the question of sensory perception:
How do you know this is true?
Your observation above can only be expressed when one has never experienced direct communion! To repeat, complete knowledge is not amassed information. Knowledge is the experience of ‘what is’, and the recognition of its fundamental constant reality, and integrity."
How can you on the other hand then question the factual reality of the principle of leverage (well established and embedded universally as a simple fundamental truth) _whoever_ it may have been that experienced its presence, evaluated its reality, and its evidential worth. Its validity as a truth lies in its constancy and universal application as a direct continuum. We do not require to ‘think' about the principle of leverage in its Universal application, it is natural, and constantly effective. (See definition of Truth or Knowledge)
This is simply a self-defeating exercise. How can anyone possibly establish that which is,uncertain, and then claim any form of validity to the claim! All that anyone can ever do is establish what is. (Again, see the definition of Truth and Knowledge).
Read revised definition of Truth and Knowledge.
The same as it is to both comments on The Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle.”
Bridie March 5 2008
1 +1=2 is not an absolute, complete statement (or equation). For example, in terms of space and time, 1+1 must equal more or less than 2. Or there is nothing that says completely that 1+1=2. The units and symbols in the equation are definitional, and thereby subject to relativity.
A “mutual standard” or agreement on a universal or super-universal level does not necessarily establish truth or completeness. Even if everyone living and deceased agreed on one point, it does not necessarily establish truth or completeness. Agreement itself is not a ground for completeness.
Your notion of “direct [or immediate] evidence and proof” is contingent upon opinion or perspective, and therefore it is not necessarily complete. You need to more reasonably demonstrate that your notion, “direct evidence and proof” is complete. How do you more reasonably completely know? How do you know your perspective is more reasonably complete? Perceiving the act of leverage, for example, does not necessarily establish completeness. It establishes your perspective which may or may not be complete.
How do you more reasonably completely know that “what is” is complete in momentary experience, and how do you more reasonably completely know that you recognize that experience completely for what it is? What makes your perspective all-complete-knowing? Do you think you are God or a similar entity?
The commonality of much of human existence can be attributed to the human faculty of reason, and human sensory of the external world. It is not necessarily attributed to a complete external world, which humanity can truly, completely perceive.
"Who we are": the entire make-up of ourselves as human beings. For further explanation see who we are.
"Be": the state of living or existing.
"Existence": things and life-forms occupying space.
"We": all Homo sapiens who are existing, regardless of level of functionality.
"At the same time": the simultaneous occurrence of true knowledge of who we are, in part or in whole, and being who we are.
"Overcome": more reasonable refutation of the proposition, "we cannot truly know who we are, in part or in whole, and be who we are at the same time". "More reasonable refutation" entails using reason in the most objective manner possible, and includes the arguments stated in the entries and
disputes submitted to this "Challenge the Philosophy" competition, and the arguments stated in the responses to them. Also, one idea or position is deemed more reasonable than another idea or position if it is more sound and consistent. (Overcoming the proposition can entail more reasonably refuting its terms and the concepts behind them, if the meaning of the proposition itself is significantly altered through the incorporation of new terms and concepts.)
638. Entry:
Response:
We are not denying the existence of the notionless state. We are saying that because the notionless state is out of reach of what we know, it can never be grounds for completeness. Viz., there will always be doubt no matter how miniscule regarding its existence. So the best you can say is that we more reasonably (incompletely) know who we are through the notionless state, (rather than we more reasonably completely know who we are through the notionless state).
If we consider knowing something, like a child knowing it is a sunny day, then the brain has shifted from processing different sensory data, to processing the actual knowledge that it is a sunny day.
In both cases, the act of knowing does nothing to shed light on the notionless state, because the act of knowing is outside of the domain of the known as well.
639. Entry:
Your observation:
The phrase “truth = knowledge; knowledge = truth” is subject to endless regress, and therefore, it does not establish completeness.
If you wish to refute “endless regress,” you will need to more reasonably demonstrate a concept that does not succumb to infinite regress when it is broken down in terms of its meaning.
If there was any validity to the concept of ‘infinite regress,’ then your definition of truth could never be realized, because (despite its terms), it reaches for ‘nothingness’.
There are many arguments for and against the notion of ‘infinite regress’ but for me it is simply a rejection method and a refusal to justify the commonality of basic principles. This is especially so if the denial has as its basis a mythical belief system which can provide no significant reality to support its form of rejection. Instead of focusing on the immediate content of any argument (which may provide solutions), ironically there is the indulgence to perpetuate the very misdemeanor the perpetrators accuse others of, simply because of the inability to deal with a constant and immediate reality.
Your observation:
We agree that based on human agreement it can be more reasonably established (practically) that a “a table is a table, is a table, is a table.” However, that establishment is not the same as more reasonably completely establishing.
For every “practical” issue that you agree with, there was the reality of a principle at its base that is now made manifest (miraculous practicalities). My impression of your observations is that that which is “practical” and now commonplace, has no place in your philosophical library and is demoted via your ‘more reasonable and complete’ dictum. What seems to escape the Committee is that there is nothing other than ‘what is’ to be evaluated and that whatever is, is complete in that momentary experience, else it could not be recognized for what it is.
Your observation:
If we consider that knowledge is a product of sensory, and our sensory is in an indirect relation to the external world, then it follows that knowledge is not complete, and therefore it cannot be equated to truth or completeness.
Your observation:
Agreement or communion is not a ground for more reasonable complete knowledge. (Excerpt from the response to Entry 624).
Your observation:
The Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle, for example, more reasonably refutes the concept of immediate or direct experience (of truth).
Your observation:
Commonsense, though valuable on practical level, does not necessarily establish truth.
Your observation:
The idea that “everything is,” is subject to endless regress, and therefore it does not more reasonably establish completeness. For example, it is more reasonably possible that everything is not is.
Response:
Your “what is” may be a matter of perspective, so that what we perceive/know is simply from our subjective perspective. The Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle makes this point, by proving that complete observation of an object is beyond human grasp, because for instance, the act of observing itself distorts what is being observed. (There is no pure, complete observation.) We are not denying “what is.” Rather, we claim that we can only know from our perspective.