Date: Mon, 29 Dec 1997 00:23:46 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199712290523.AAA29899@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group Subject: Re: knowledge and belief X-To: sbelknap@uic.edu X-cc: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan Status: OR X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 2954 X-From-Space-Date: Mon Dec 29 00:23:51 1997 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU >>For example, Galileo knows that a feather and a cannonball fall at the >>same rate, by epistemology of experimnentation at Pisa. I know that >>a feather and a cannonball fall at the same rate, by epistemology of >>cultural legend about Galileo's experiment at the leaning tower. But I >>cannot claim that >I< know by the experimentation directly since I did >>not do or observe any such experiment. >> >I am not sure if this mistatement of events is intentional to make the >point, or if it is unintentional. There are several orders of error >(possibly intentional by lojbab): The errors were partially intentional and partially fuzzy memory of the legend. The intention was to indicate that the false legend can be the source of false knowledge (i.e by using an invalid by some standard epistemology, things which are false according to that standard could be true according to the epistemology). I can thus know something is true by one epistemology and know that it is false by another epistemology. It is my observation that children have no problem maintaining contradictory knowledge in their heads. >The entire problem of what Socrates and Plato believe as to John's journey >to market appears to me to be a problem with false dichotomy. Socrates >would be foolish to accept as absolute truth the assertion that John went >to market. He could (if he wished) estimate the degree of certainty he has >about this assertion, this would allow him to compare the certainty of this >knowledge with that of other knowledge which he has. It seems that those who disagree with my opinion on this matter consider any "knowledge" that is less than "certainty" to be merely a "belief", at least in English. The recognition of fuzzy truth, multiple epistemologies, and a demonstrated lack of commitment to a "real world" in Lojban (as given by the lack of necessary marking in order to talk about "lo ) make it essential that knowledge not be equated to truth, and indeed that truth generally be considered relative. Be that as it may, Socrates and most other human beings, whether foolishly or not, tend to think of their knowledge as certainty. Indeed, they tend to think of tyheir beliefs as certainty and their opinions as certainty. I will not attempt to resume discussion of how to express fuzzy levels of truth. This is one of those areas where a summary of where the last overly technical discussion ended up would be useful to those of us who never quite followed most of it. lojbab ---- lojbab lojbab@access.digex.net Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: ftp.access.digex.net /pub/access/lojbab or see Lojban WWW Server: href="http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/" Order _The Complete Lojban Language_ - see our Web pages or ask me.