Heidegger

COMMON KNOWLEDGE

Posted by: _gevans613 at aol.com_ (mailto:gevans613@aol.com) Thu August 16,
2007

Hi Gary and all,
I was fascinated in what you had to say about *all we know is accidents –
even natural laws, even mathematics in all of its branches – in reality we know
these things historically, that is, in an accidental linear occurrence of
learning, that is, how each of us as pure individuals learn the things we know.
*
I agree. Although we are aware of objects and are able to identify them and
describe them etc., what is said about them - what WE say about them [and I
include human objects] is filtered through the metaphysical mesh of what we
have been told about them, in a language we have inherited, much of which
[though a lot has been updated] is couched in accord with ontological paradigms
which should have been thrown on the scrap heap years ago along with Plato’s
forms, the Ptolemaic system and the dreaded phlogiston theory.

GARY C. MOORE:
The color system of denoting who is or is not is not working on Yahoo
anymore.

JUD EVANS:
Yes, It was quite a job trying to sort out who-said-what in the last couple
of posts. May I suggest sticking to the tried and trusted method in this
post - where it is clear who is speaking?

GARY C. MOORE:
I am reading THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN by Michael Crichton again, the nearest I
will ever come to voluntarily reading a text about medicine. The hero, Stone,
develops the Wildfire project that deals with pathogens of unknown origin
precisely by dealing only with direct physical observation of one person
studying one object and describing precisely what they find, under what specific
physical conditions, and limiting their conclusions to only what they
physically, personally, and immediately observe. He essentially takes seriously every
proposition proposed to him by others, and, despite the automatic rejection of
the majority - such as purported alien bacteria always being contamination
coming from the examining scientist - asks if these conclusions are simply but
strictly logically possible. They do not have to be plausible or generally
accepted, just remotely possible, allowable according to strict logic, though
implausible according to chances of occurrence, and especially and most of
all one’s personal physical observation than can then possibly have repeatable
results when the same process is observed by others regardless of how
difficult such an experiment or observation may be, that is, how inconvenient to the
general observer automatically supporting the automatic response to what
seems like an outrageous proposal.
*** The point is, the point of view of physical personal observation is the
absolutely sole means of obtaining evidence for absolutely anything. This
includes geometry and all the *perfect* mathematical sciences. Why are they
considered perfect? Because their results always agree. Why do their results
always agree? Because the same definitions and rules of operation are accepted.
The field of what is strictly valid is highly limited - in the abstract, that
is, geometry is perfect only on paper or the brain. In physical application,
however, this is not at all the case, going from one extreme of simple
blunders to the middle level of unknown discoveries of inconvenient stress on
materials that has not happened before to the microscopic but related material
aspect of the grossly approximate application of *perfect* geometry to objects
whose microscopic defects invalidate the results of that *perfect* geometry
which, in physical fact, can never be *perfectly* applied to real matter.

This necessarily, without exception, means every observation one makes
is absolutely unique in itself no matter what it is of, or rather of what
matter it is made of. That one comes to conclusions that others can agree with
because they repeat a similar personal observation process simply validates
the scientific method of repeatability – which never rejects the personal and
immediately individual observation of any piece of knowledge whether it is
spiral DNA or geometry and the laws of physics - as long as individuals can
individually repeat the experiment with the same results. Therefore *perfect*
knowledge has no place in scientific method because scientific method is wholly
dependent upon accumulation of repeated results, not any Idea of Perfection
of geometry in the brain not physically applied to matter. Materially applied
geometry then can never be perfect, can never have perfectly exact results in
physical reality.

In history, it has been repeatedly demonstrated that what everyone seems to
have as common knowledge is in fact individual facts simply held as similar –
and often described as absolutely the same without physical proof – such as
Ptolemys, Issac Newtons, and Albert Einsteins views of the universe which, if
they truly held basic physical laws in any real and *perfect* sense
*common*, could never have made their revolutionary discoveries. Obviously, the
*same* thing they looked at that seemed exactly the same to the majority was not
seen the same way by them, given their personal, subjective observational
point of view. The facts each theoretician used were symbolically the same but
obviously viewed from a completely different personal aspect that gave them a
completely different idea of how to interpret those facts which, in fact,
means those *commonly held facts* could not possibly have been any way near
perfectly the same in any commonly held field of knowledge.

JUD EVANS:
I am sure that Hume would be well pleased with the above, which is a very
well put together fugue on a theme by Hume seamlessly spliced with a joyously
Moorean extrapolation of his own views on the matter. Hume put forward
similar views in his brilliant [if not complete] rejection of *causality* in
which he used the clash of the billiard balls as an example. I have now more or
less accepted that Hume was the most brilliant philosopher who ever lived [and
I include Aristotle in that evaluation]
***
RICHARD SANSOM:
Dear Gary, When you say: *all we know, all, is accidents even natural laws,
even mathematics in all of its branches* begs the epistemological question as
to what *knowledge* IS.

GARY C. MOORE:
Knowledge is in every situation personal physical observation according to
rules one has personally validated, that is, it is the primary given of sense
experience. Knowledge either is accepted as what you sense or it is not
accepted as such. A rejection can actually be logically valid as the Idealists do
since they say sense perception purely of itself is chaos and unknowable
unless we apply pre-existent Ideas to make *sense*, that is, *knowledge of it.
But in practice, we apply ideas, that is, words, concepts to sense experience
as an experiment to see if the words fit, not the other way around as pure
Idealists do.

JUD EVANS:
I agree with the above, but with my own personal slant that it is *the
sensing knowledgeable knower* who exists and not the abstraction known as
*knowledge.* For me it works somewhat like this.

(1) Richard exists in an *Existential State A* modality of not knowing
[being unaware] that they are planning to construct an artificial lake two miles
further up Frei Road from where he lives. In the supermarket he meets a local
farmer friend who causes him to change to *Existential State B* of being aware
of the intentions of the authorities to construct an artificial lake two
miles further up Frei Road from where he lives.

(2) Gary and Jud exist elsewhere in an *Existential State A* modality of not
knowing [being unaware] that they are planning to construct an artificial
lake two miles further up Frei Road from where Richard lives.

(3) Richard then begins to exist in an *Existential State C* modality of
wishing to tell Gary and Jud that they are planning to construct an artificial
lake two miles further up Frei Road from where he lives. Whilst in that mode
[frame of mind] using an agreed system of signs that he knows will be
understood by his two friends, he types out a coded representation of his neurological
*Existential State B* of knowing they are planning to construct an
artificial lake two miles further up Frei Road from where he lives, which includes him
mentioning ( *I thought you might be interested to know* ) his *Existential
State C* modality and sends it by e-mail.

(4) Existing in a state of being unaware of the planned development in Frei
Road Gary and Jud switch on their computers and read the code, which informs
them of Richard’s former existential modality and his active neurological
state at the time of writing. The two friends then change the way that they exist
from*Existential State A* [being unaware] to *Existential State B* [being
aware.] ) Gary and Jud now exist in the new state of being aware that they are
planning to construct an artificial lake two miles further up Frei Road from
where he lives.

So what transpired was the knowing Richard informing his friends of his
recently changed way of existing from that of being in (State A) [being unaware]
traceable back to the time when a local farmer friend caused him to change to
*Existential State B* of being aware of the intentions of the authorities, to
the most recent state *Existential State C* of thinking his two friends
might be interested in changing the way that they existed [in relation to the
matter] from their own version of *Existential State A* to *Existential State B.*

I suggest to you that just like any other learning event in our lives, what
occurred was not an exchange of *information, * but a notification of a change
of his existential *knowing* states by Richard to his friends, which led
to a change in their own personal states, which then became personal
versions of Richard’s existential states as communicated to them by him using the
means of a previously agreed code [the English language.]

No *information* therefore *exists out there* as an additional *
ontologically different* immaterial being separated from those humans who know (or who
do not know) of the intention of the authorities to construct an artificial
lake two miles further up Frei Road from where Richard lives.

All of the individual humans involved in these plans have entirely different
existential versions of existing in relation to the Frei Road project and
ALL of them exclude Richard - because none of them know of him personally

RICHARD SANSOM:
[I suppose it is also an ontological question in the fullest sense.] If
knowledge is but the arrangements of synapses and neuronal connections and no two
of us have identical arrangements of these physical and chemical elements,
then all knowledge is only subjective, and no two persons
*knowledge* can be identical.

JUD EVANS:
Precisely - we all exist differently and we all bring and introduce
different experiences, slants and knowledge to the way we deal with existing in the
new mode of being aware that they plan to construct an artificial lake two
miles further up Frei Road from where you live.

GARY C. MOORE:
This is true. Knowledge is purely subjective as it is purely personal,
individual. Any other conclusion would have to be either Idealistic or
supernaturalist involving mind reading of some sort. It is confirmed in other peoples
subjective - from one specific person to another - fields of knowledge by
personal testing to see if the same results are obtained. And such experiments are
cumulative, not perfect and enduring forever in and of itself.

JUD EVANS: Because I was involved in project planning of such schemes for 10
years I am aware that though they may be planning to construct an artificial
lake two miles further up Frei Road from where Richard lives it will only be
confirmed when the heavy machinery moves in and the job is well underway.
Even then an earthquake or some other calamity may to put paid to their plans.

*The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men, Gang aft agley.* Robert Burns: ‘To a
Mouse.*

But Hey! I cannot resist publishing the whole beautiful poem:

Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beastie,
O, what panic’s in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi’ bickering brattle!

I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee,
Wi’ murd’ring pattle!

I’m truly sorry Man’s dominion
Has broken Nature’s social union,
An’ justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle,
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An’ fellow-mortal!

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie,
thou maun live!
A daimen-icker in a thrave
‘S a sma’ request:
I’ll get a blessin wi’ the lave,
An’ never miss’t!

Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!
It’s silly wa’s the win’s are strewin!
An’ naething, now, to big a new ane,
O’ foggage green!
An’ bleak December’s winds ensuin,
Baith snell an’ keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ wast,
An’ weary Winter comin fast,
An’ cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro’ thy cell.

That wee-bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble,
Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
Now thou’s turn’d out, for a’ thy trouble,
But house or hald.
To thole the Winter’s sleety dribble,
An’ cranreuch cauld!

But Mousie, thou are no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men,
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!

Still, thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But Och! I backward cast my e’e,
On prospects drear!
An’ forward, tho’ I canna see,
I guess an’ fear!

RICHARD SANSOM:
[this is even ignoring the quantum level of disagreements among our physical
brains] What then of mathematical knowledge or belief, wherein it is a fact
that two people can use the axioms of mathematics to solve the same problem
and get identical answers?

GARY C. MOORE:
If this is done only abstractly, it is merely a game like tic-tac-do. You
simply set up the rules and play by the rules. But to have a real problem is a
problem of material application wherein *identical answers* is a physical
impossibility. Knowledge starts as subjective and therefore has to remain
subjective. Even the study of the material object is from different visual and
historical points of view, that is, accidents. Any other stance would necessarily
be Idealism, the racial unconscious, supernaturalism, something that would
justify peering into anothers mind to see that they exactly perceive the
*same* fact truly and exactly identically. Approximately the same does not count
because obviously in the past scientists have taken *identical* facts and saw
them within extremely different contexts from everyone else.

JUD EVANS:
*Tic-tac-toe* we say - but beautifully put. Playing with the abstractions
we call number is just a game - a very SERIOUS and useful game but
nevertheless a game by which we say things like:

Naval Architect:
*Do you see the first joint of my thumb? We will call this an *inch.* I wish
to know the length of the new handrail we have been commissioned to fix
around the Titanic - just start at one end of the old rail - put your thumb on
the rail and count the number of thumb lengths.

Workman:
*What ALL the way around?*

Naval Architect:
No silly, Just check out the rail-length on one side and double it.

Doubling the amount of thumb-lengths is the game of tic-tac-toe - it is
extrapolating or abstracting the actual thumb-joint away from the job of
measuring. I believe all of basic number abstraction was extrapolated away from
fingers and toes and counting cattle or sheaves of corn etc., somewhere in the
Mesopotamian area or the Indus River valleys.

RICHARD SANSOM:
If, given the rules of geometry, two people can determine that all triangles
have three angles whose sum is always 180 degrees, does this mean that,
inherent in those axioms, there exists irrefutable conditions that inevitably
lead to the same result by any human mind that can understand those conditions?
Is there such a thing as the inherent or intuitive clarity of the idea of a
perfect circle? Indeed, is there inherent or intuitive clarity in the idea of
a perfect anything?

Posted on Sunday, August 19th, 2007 at 3:50 am
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