Nietzsche said: ';Countlessly more depends on what a thing is called, than what it actually is.'; I think the only bit of true knowledge that we have access to is that we don't have any real access to any true knowledge. More depends on the ways we interpret the world than what actually lies out there.
This is not to say that what you think causes what actually lies out there... that is taking things too far. What is implied here is that we don't have any real access to what is ';out there'; beyond what is happening ';in here'; (points to brain). So in our pursuit to understand what is ';out there'; we are really only revealing how we interpret things ';in here.';
The vast majority of our scientific knowledge is based on the presumption that the world ';out there'; is a rational place. But all we are really demonstrating is how our minds wish to categorize and logicize the matter of our experience. If you really learn to be on the spot and perceive the world ';as such';, you begin to realize that no such order really exists ';out there.'; To assign any kind of order to the world requires far too much presumption and induction, which again, really only reveals knowledge of the way our minds think.
I think the two most troublesome problems for any ';theory of knowledge';, according to the philosophy of science, is theory underdetermination and the problem of the theory dependence of observation.
Theory underdetermination means that often times it is impossible to distinguish between two competing theories if they make the same predictions. This illustrates that we have little ability to actually distinguish the ';why and how'; of things, we merely assign more ';truth'; to our theories given that they make the more accurate predictions. Also, propositions like ';Occam's Razor'; (the simplest description is usually the correct one) find a similar fate. They only have ';truth'; value insomuch as we presuppose that the world is best described simply!
The problem of the theory dependence of observation is the other major problem for any theory of knowledge. Basically, we cannot make an observation apart from some theory of making observations. Take for example the way we actually sense and perceive the world... the way this works is all psychological theory. And all experminents done on human perception involve observations that rely on other theories (ultimately physics). Since there is no observation that can be made apart from some theory, we can never be sure which theory we are actually testing in an experiment. It might be that our theories of perception and logic are all wrong.Please explain method/s for reaching true knowledge as distinct from mere opinion.. thanks to all =)?
Plato: under-stand (hypo-thesis) Ideas, Forms of the Good.
Plotinus: realize One Mind Soul (Soul-individuation).
Descartes: doubt everything that cannot be proven.
Kant: realize 5-sense data is conditioned by space, time, and causality, and that beyond our 5-senses, we cannot perceive.
Berkeley: Mind is all.
Malebranche: God is on occasion informing us.
Husserl: Pure Ego projects Rays of Light onto bracketed objects.
Whitehead: Monadic initiation of Dyadic activity unto Triadic sublimation into Spirit.
The notion of ';true knowing'; implies that truth is both existent and demonstrable.
Hence, most people have what is termed ';naive realism,'; or what you see is what you get. This works on a practical basis, for e.g. picking an apple from a tree. How one knows that an apple is good: by tradition; by simple testing (tasting).
How one cultivates an apple is another level of knowing. It involves knowing seed, perhaps grafting, soil nutrients, pest control, climate, irrigation.
How one knows about climate: meterology; how one knows about irrigation: hydraulics, ability to construct pipelines, canals, including over political regions, etc.
What is ';true knowledge'; is thus so far observably multi-layered and multi-faceted.
This apple example scenario obtains also for oranges, cattle, marbles, spices, concrete, etc.
In other words, what is known at these levels is what works in what ancient Greeks termed physis, and is what is verifiable according to shared opinion and data about atoms and molecules. This is generally called pragmatism and scientific method.
A second category, recognized by ancient Greek and subsequent philosophers, is psyche. Science reduces psyche as much as possible to atom- and molecule-based marking and tracing: if you're feeling an emotion, an mri or eeg record of various neural patterns may be typical for that feelling.
So far, no ';mere opinion,'; as both physis and psyche items at these levels are intersubjectively verifiable, duplicatable.
The next step, also intersubjectively verifiable and duplicatable, is found e.g. with Dr. William Tiller's ';Psychoenergetic Science'; http://www.tiller.org experiments, which produce quantum effects by trained meditators otherwise obtainable only through expensive high-end physics apparatus. Simply, human e-motion, biofield energy in motion, psi, prayerful intention, is able to imprint off-the-shelf electronic devices which then are able to influence experiments, per the meditators' intentions.
In logic, one example is sufficient to falsify a counter-hypothesis. With Dr. Tiller's work, psi is demonstrated: human biofield energy moving in quantum mechanical fashion is able to effect change in objects at a distance.
All of the above continue to be true knowing. Further, well-controlled eeg studies on Tibetan monks find their cortical activity to within seconds move into high-gamma wave range, something found almost exclusively only in highly creative states.
Again, ';true knowing,'; not ';mere opinion.'; (Mere opinion is e.g. an a-theistic statement claiming ';God is not,'; when logically such a universal negative cannot be proven, unless the opiner is Omniscient.)
Presently, many are behind the knowledge curve when they believe ';true knowing'; is atoms and molecules in Kantian 5-sense mode. Kant himself could not account for his contemporary Emmanual Swedenborg's accurate far-seeing of an event hundreds of miles away in Stockholm, which he reported on to witnesses.
This tendency among some to either ignore significantly falsifying (to their atomic materialism position) data or deny it altogether is regrettable. One reason for trying to limit ';true knowledge'; to atoms etc. one can measure, manipulate, replicate, and control is that many opinions, speculations, and fantasies exist in the psyche or realms beyond atom sense data.
On the other hand, those who have claimed and demonstrated e.g. the ability to live on Light and nothing else (no food, no water) for decades, such as Saint Therese of Neumann, those who routinely accurately read minds in detail, such as Padre Pio, those who healed many, such as Reverend Mary Baker Eddy, have more than ';mere opinion';--they have demonstrated energy-events which contradict some of the more basic assumptions of atomic materialism, or scientism.
Hence, along with the mere opinions of atheists, 19th century physics which opined all major physics was done, 20th century logical positivists who made a fundamental error of logic (pointed out by Wittgenstein and others), the fantasies of would-be meditators occupy a polar position of error.
The middle ground in psyche-level true knowing is now increasingly occupied by scientists such as Dr. Tiller. Dr. Elizabeth Mayer, a statistics expert and professor of psychology at U.C. Berkeley, was flummoxed when, after trying all other means at her disposal, and, following a friend's recommendation, a dowsing expert 3,000 miles away successfully located her daughter's stolen harp, do to the intersection of two streets in a city. Her book, ';Extraordinary Knowing,'; documents her journey from statistical analysis of e.g. Dr. Robert Jahn's Princeton PEAR experiments, SRI-CIA remote viewing program, etc., to a position where she no longer could doubt that extraordinary true knowing is a part of human potential and realized by some much more than most.
So we return to the place where verifcation of e.g. Plato's under-standing (';hypo-thesis';) of God's Ideas is problematic. If one is Plato's student--Aristotle--one tends to focus on the atoms and leave the God-realization to Plato. No verification.
If one is Plato's student--Plotinus--one has out-of-body experiences, lucidity in One Mind Soul, Soul-realization, and logically describes a soulfield's misdirection of Soul Energy, Light of the Soul's biofield, as energy-veiling, e-veiling, eviling.
If one is Husserl, one claims to teach God-awareness (Plato's stated goal for philosophy) to those who are capable. Few learn; those who experience ';epoche'; find a permanet change of consciousness, a subjective sign of God-realization. Eegs of Tibetan insight meditators are incontrovertible; for those who opine they are meditating at such levels of high gamma, eeg tracings would confirm or deny their opining. Similar types of measurement might be used on Husserlian phenomenologists; in Husserl's day he stated most claiming such were to him obviously lacking. Today, that tradition is comparatively dilute, so no group of subjects comparable to the Tibetan meditators.
So it goes...when Edgar Cayce's remarkable far-seeing and diagnostic work was being done, many scientists of the day were convinced EC was extraordinary. ';The Reincarnation of Edgar Cayce?';, Free and Wilcock, is an example of more than mere opinion that the next incarnation of the EC lifestream is now with us, as foreseen by EC. Is this ';mere opinion?'; The reader ought investigate those such as Dr. Martha Beck, a Harvard Ph.D., who found her second pregnancy to be bringing extraordinary but true knowing--';Expecting Adam'; is an extraordinary book well worth reading. Again, what this trained scientist observed is rather challenging to 5-sense materialism, but mostly unreplicatable in a laboratory setting.
Thus, the more basic and more highly controlled work of a Tiller is the incontrovertible true knowing of human psi which manifests in trained Tibetan meditators, trained US remote viewers, but, unless one is willing to take e.g. Saints Therese of Neumann, Padre Pio, and Mary Baker Eddy's words and works as true, without laboratory reproduction by less-trained individuals, the ';God is Truth'; stage which they truth-claim is somewhere between Absolute Truth and ';mere opinion.';
So, in sum, unless one sincerely develops one's own meditational and/or other faculties, which demonstrably exist, per e.g. Dr. Tiller's experiments, one is not in a position to critique truth-claims of a Reverend Mary Baker Eddy, as the very words she uses import more to a like-equipped soulfield than to a more dense 5-sense materialist. Same for Plato, Plotinus, Husserl, Whitehead, Bergson, Buber, et al.
Thus, for this aspect of true knowing, two points of procedure:
1. purify your soulfield/biofield. This is doable per sincere, sustained, guided effort over a period of years. Levels of effort: keeping a dream diary and moving toward lucidity in dreams and even in waking: ';Watch Your Dreams,'; Ann Ree Colton, ';The Master of Lucid Dreams,'; psychiatrist Olga Kharitidi, and ';Light Is a Living Spirit,'; Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov, are three good sources of information for what is a win-win level of effort: by nightly asking ';God to make you a better person,'; you enable your subconscious (which becomes your dream consciousness) to be more creative, problem-solving, and teachable by God and the angels, whether the latter exist or not. ';The Masters and Their Retreats,'; Mark L. Prophet, is a magnificent example of a master of out-of-body soul awareness. If one reaches such focus, clearness, and coherency, one is doing much. A second level of protocol could utilize e.g. Saint Teresa of Avila's ';Interior Castel'; meditations, Yogananda's kriya yoga (';Autobiography of a Yogi,'; %26lt;%26gt;),http://www.yogananda-srf.org%26gt;), and suchlike.
2. investigate SU(2) (Tiller quantum space model) activity, e.g. as noted in the popularization of current mainstream biophysics such as Chang (PRC), Popp (Germany), etc., as given in Lynne McTaggart's ';The Field,'; another book worth reading.
These are all fairly-demonstrated methods for reaching ';true knowledge'; in various states-specific of the human biofield/soulfield.
Would suggest, in concluding, that a list be made of the books mentioned, and some decision as to what types of true knowing are worth pursuing. If Husserlian phenomenology or Plotinian metaphysics is to be pursued with cogent realization, such is a bit more chancey than merely reading e.g. ';Psychoenergetic Science,'; ';Extraordinary Knowing,'; and ';The Field,'; or superficially/academically noting presumptions in e.g. Husserl or Plotinus. In the event one would pursue dream or insight meditation protocols, ';Watch Your Dreams,'; ';Light Is a Living Spirit,'; following kriya yoga, Saint Teresa's protocol, etc. are well-accepted means.
C. S. Lewis noted that looking at the light and looking along the light are two levels of knowing. The former is subject-object, the latter involves the psyche in a One Mind Soul-individuation, insight meditation's merging of subject and object, etc.
regards,
j.Please explain method/s for reaching true knowledge as distinct from mere opinion.. thanks to all =)?
i read the facts....
Well if you want true knowledge on any subject you go to the experts in that particular field of interest.
It is from the experience of their knowledge that you can gain your opinion one way or the other.
The difference between knowledge and opinion is the time and patience and energy that is spent in a man's life to achieve it. Opinion does not require it. But opinion is very necessary for determining the direction of choices one makes which is based on the individuals personal philosophy
When same article held in doubt is confirmed by three or more reliable, separate sources, then I hold it to be true, not mere opinion. And unless this alleged ';truth'; can be disproved by further tests.
knowledge is usually never fighted, its universal, opinion is always personal and people cant say their own enough
True 'knowledge' can be explained to others, opinion is usually never supported (except by general consensus, which is almost always wrong 鈽?. But the deepest 'true' knowledge that you can have is of yourself. And you can't really ever share all of that with anybody because there's an infinite amount of it.
Doug
first of all what is the truth? is there really such a thing as truth, when everyone has a different truth? knowledge is acquired in many ways and no one can really tell which of those is credible nor true nor the right way to do so. opinions is also a form of knowledge based on various things such as experience. therefore knowledge can be acquired through living and learning from it.
It is not a matter of teaching knowledge,but rather the person having a true opinion of life in general. Remember in life we all grow day by day, and with that you learn through experiance.
Well, can man have true and certain knowledge? This is a basic question ask in epistemology. The answer is yes. Opinion is a simple way of giving an assessment to a particular subject matter which doesnt require a systematic investigation about the subject or an idea being discussed.
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