Subject: Re: [lojban] Random lojban questions/annoyances.

From: Robin Lee Powell <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2001 15:39:24 -0500

On Sun, Mar 18, 2001 at 03:27:30PM -0500, John Cowan wrote:
> Robin Lee Powell scripsit:
> 
> > And I would say that he _knew_ that, but he was worng, and hopefully now
> > knows better. In fact, the phrase 'he knows better' is in contradiction
> > with your point of view on knowledge.
> 
> Not at all.
> 
> Consider:
> 
> John says the earth is flat.
> How absurd! He knows better than that.
> 
> entails that John knows (whatever he says) that the Earth is not flat, which
> entails, indeed, that the Earth is not flat. 

No, it entails that as far as we know, the Earth is not flat. Knowledge
is changing all the time.

> Would you say "Aristotle knew that the Earth was the center of the
> universe"? 

Absolutely. He did know exactly that. We now 'know' that he is wrong,
but maybe _we're_ wrong, hard as that may be to believe, or maybe the
universe has changed.

> I would instead say that Aristotle *believed* etc. but that we know it
> is not.

I consider belief and knowledge to be equivalent, because 'the truth' is
too elusive and always changing for us to ever be _SURE_ something is
true.

I can _know_, with absolute certainty, that the sky is purple. I sure
most people would say that my knowlede is wrong. But if you point a
colorimiter at the sky, it will in fact come up purple rather than blue.

Who _knows_ in that case, and who merely believes? Whichever you pick,
you are making a basically arbitrary choice from the perspective of what
_you_ believe to be true. Knowledge is _WAY_ too fuzzy to talk about
absolute truth.

> (It is not sufficient, for a belief to count as knowledge, that it be true,
> but it is necessary.)

Wow. I am _SO_ not with you on this.

Is this philosophical point of view an inherent aspect of the lojban
language itself?

-Robin

-- 
http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~rlpowell/ BTW, I'm male, honest.
Information wants to be free. Too bad most of it is crap. --RLP