Re: [Mind's Eye] philosophical teaser

Exercising the reader's intuition does not lead to more power but describes an accelerated decomposition process - is that what you are saying?

On Sat, Nov 5, 2011 at 5:12 PM, James Lynch <ashkashal@gmail.com> wrote:

On Wed, Nov 2, 2011 at 3:38 PM, archytas <nwterry@gmail.com> wrote:

> The question why knowledge is distinctively valuable has an important
> historical precedent in Plato's Meno in which Socrates raises the
> question of why knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief.
> Initially, we might appeal to the fact that knowledge appears to be of
> more practical use than true belief in order to mark this difference
> in value, but, as Socrates notes, this claim is far from obvious on
> closer inspection. After all, a true belief about the correct way to
> Larissa is surely of just as much practical use as knowledge of the
> way to Larissa—both will get us to our destination. Given that we
> clearly do value knowledge more than mere true belief, the fact that
> there is no obvious explanation of why this should be so creates a
> problem. We will call the issue of why knowledge is more valuable than
> mere true belief, the Meno problem.
>
> You can get the rest here - http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-value/
>
> I somehow doubt I will be causing much mouse clicking in posting the
> link!
> I did some work on knowledge justification and value whilst
> bored out of my tree, recovering from a serious injury.  I was
> discovering most of academic study is 'witterpiss for wuckfits' at the
> time.  There's a big snag in the Meno problem in that it restricts us
> to argument not much informed by science.  We could sit down all day
> trying to define knowledge, which might be nice under the Greek sun
> with some Rakis, local beer and imported coffee.  No one has defined
> knowledge - rather as we don't have a precise decimal for pi.  There
> are, of course, many definitions.

Knowledge is power, right?

I object to some attempts to create an atomic image of knowledge, it
is a handy word we have to represent a multidimensional landscape, not
at all a map though inspection can turn up markers to gain
orientation, direction. I found most of that article an endurance
exercise, maybe I was tired last night or my right-brain cringing, it
seemed to take a very long time for the discussion to even scrape the
surface of my first intuitive inclinations (Craig's
historical-adaptation perspective, pluralism). Caveat the strictures
of educational institutions, whatever they were, it read more as an
assignment than my liking.

Outside of the processes for learning and teaching, acquisition,
refinement and transmission of human comprehension I am not sure there
is so much an independent value to knowledge other than we have
developed a rightly firm orientation. To me it is a powerful
adaptation to our environment, an environment that rewards
comprehension with success, it seems a slight advancement over the
process of gene survival albeit highly accelerated. It exists in the
domain of meta I think, as good faith representations (Baudrillards
first order simulacra) of observed phenomena. There is no fundamental
unit, no perfection, but stringent natural processes built on the
tools and faculties

Knowledge is not a lucky cup of coffee, neither is a lucky cup of
coffee as valuable as a malfunctional coffee maker. Without reference
these entities simply do not exist, what point would there be to
immaculately produce an entity devoid of reference to any antecedent
causes, purpose, or function and then place values on it presto-magic!
The result is what I think the logical positivist would call 'lacking
in cognitive content', by eliminating reality and dealing entirely in
symbols we are in the domain of third order simulacra, without meaning
(and what is that knowledge), vacuous, unverifiable.

Just my irritability speaking- that doesn't mean that the desire to
comprehend these things is without value, I just think it is mostly an
exercise presented in a way that is difficult to derive meaning from
and left mostly to the reader's intuition.

>
> There are lots of teasers like this in philosophy.  My take on this
> is :
> 1.there are some things I believe true and have tested scientifically
> or in mathematical proof - these I trust as knowledge
> 2. there are some things I think true and can't do the above with.
> 3. etc. etc. on what I consider reliable or barking.
>
> we worry too much about this kind of stuff and not enough about the
> issues of the condition of ignorance.

is a story of accelerated decomposition