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DividedQuantum
Outer Head


Registered: 12/06/13
Posts: 9,819
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Can we know anything?
#22263895 - 09/20/15 09:12 AM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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Socrates taught us that the only thing we can truly know is that we know not. He was right -- truly to know is probably beyond humans. I think it is possible in this life, however, at least to get onto the right track. Hints and clues here and there can give us that much.
Do you agree? Can human knowledge have meaning? Can we touch on truth? Or, in the words of the pastor, are we just jerking off?
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
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Jokeshopbeard
Humble Student

Registered: 11/30/11
Posts: 26,088
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Great post DQ. I've thought about this a lot. I think we can probably have some idea of what the truth might be, however it strikes me as particularly arrogant of us to believe that we know anything.
Therefore, I believe that a search for truth is a worthy cause, and can uncover much and teach us much; as long as one remains mindful that it will always be just that; a search, rather than an arrival.
Like the old saying goes, it's all about the journey, and not the destination!!
-------------------- Let it be seen that you are nothing. And in knowing that you are nothing... there is nothing to lose, there is nothing to gain. What can happen to you? Something can happen to the body, but it will either heal or it won't. What's the big deal? Let life knock you to bits. Let life take you apart. Let life destroy you. It will only destroy what you are not. --Jac O'keeffe
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falcon



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What the fuck, of course we can know tons of shit, the thing to remember that all knowledge is contextual. And before I bad-mouthed Socrates in this post, I googled about and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_that_I_know_nothing.
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Jokeshopbeard
Humble Student

Registered: 11/30/11
Posts: 26,088
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Re: Can we know anything? [Re: falcon]
#22264276 - 09/20/15 11:07 AM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
falcon said: What the fuck, of course we can know tons of shit, the thing to remember that all knowledge is contextual. And before I bad-mouthed Socrates in this post, I googled about and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_that_I_know_nothing.
I think you're missing the point man, even down to the fact of whether or not Socrates did in fact say this. No one knows!
-------------------- Let it be seen that you are nothing. And in knowing that you are nothing... there is nothing to lose, there is nothing to gain. What can happen to you? Something can happen to the body, but it will either heal or it won't. What's the big deal? Let life knock you to bits. Let life take you apart. Let life destroy you. It will only destroy what you are not. --Jac O'keeffe
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falcon



Registered: 04/01/02
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No, in order to communicate, knowledge is essential.
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Jokeshopbeard
Humble Student

Registered: 11/30/11
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Loc: Deep in the system
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Re: Can we know anything? [Re: falcon]
#22264346 - 09/20/15 11:25 AM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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Of course, but I think what DQ was hinting at was something rather more ethereal. I'll wait for his opinion on this.
-------------------- Let it be seen that you are nothing. And in knowing that you are nothing... there is nothing to lose, there is nothing to gain. What can happen to you? Something can happen to the body, but it will either heal or it won't. What's the big deal? Let life knock you to bits. Let life take you apart. Let life destroy you. It will only destroy what you are not. --Jac O'keeffe
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falcon



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Yep.
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DividedQuantum
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Registered: 12/06/13
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Re: Can we know anything? [Re: falcon]
#22264438 - 09/20/15 11:46 AM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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Well I think I was trying to suggest a distinction between relative and absolute knowledge. Yes, the world is filled with information in the form of knowledge. A university library is filled with billions of bits of information. However, not one of us knows the first thing about why we are here. I think we can touch on deeper truths, as I suggested, but to my mind the truth is really beyond us. Quantum electrodynamics is quite possibly the most fundamental knowledge we have. Fields, photons, electrons, quarks, energy levels, etc. But why fields? Why photons? What theory lies hidden beneath this one? Will there ever even be a final theory of physics? We really don't know.
I think you'll find, on a little bit of reflection, that all of our knowledge is quite relative, provisional and conditional. Sure we know about black holes. But when you start asking questions, much along the line a child does, the whole thing falls apart after about three questions.
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
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Jokeshopbeard
Humble Student

Registered: 11/30/11
Posts: 26,088
Loc: Deep in the system
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Quote:
DividedQuantum said: But when you start asking questions, much along the line a child does, the whole thing falls apart after about three questions.
I think there's something really quite beautiful about that.
-------------------- Let it be seen that you are nothing. And in knowing that you are nothing... there is nothing to lose, there is nothing to gain. What can happen to you? Something can happen to the body, but it will either heal or it won't. What's the big deal? Let life knock you to bits. Let life take you apart. Let life destroy you. It will only destroy what you are not. --Jac O'keeffe
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connectedcosmos
Neti Neti



Registered: 02/07/15
Posts: 7,426
Loc: The Pathless Path
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Are we not meant to know? Lol
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 54. The true nature of things is to be known personally , through the eyes of clear illumination and not through a sage : what the moon exactly is , is to be known with one's own eyes ; can another make him know it?
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Jokeshopbeard
Humble Student

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I don't think that we are. It's fun to try though.
-------------------- Let it be seen that you are nothing. And in knowing that you are nothing... there is nothing to lose, there is nothing to gain. What can happen to you? Something can happen to the body, but it will either heal or it won't. What's the big deal? Let life knock you to bits. Let life take you apart. Let life destroy you. It will only destroy what you are not. --Jac O'keeffe
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connectedcosmos
Neti Neti



Registered: 02/07/15
Posts: 7,426
Loc: The Pathless Path
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Always fun to try with more answers comes more questions life is so beautiful and complex
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 54. The true nature of things is to be known personally , through the eyes of clear illumination and not through a sage : what the moon exactly is , is to be known with one's own eyes ; can another make him know it?
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DividedQuantum
Outer Head


Registered: 12/06/13
Posts: 9,819
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Quote:
connectedcosmos said: Always fun to try with more answers comes more questions life is so beautiful and complex
Well said.
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
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caman
The Sauntering Stranger



Registered: 10/19/14
Posts: 414
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Excellent post DividedQuantum! It was a huge blow to my ego the first time I ate psilocybin mushrooms, only to realize I literally knew nothing. Since then its been an adventure of trying to find out as much as I possibly can know (but as you said, can we truly know anything?).
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In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true is true or becomes true, within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended. In the mind, there are no limits.- John C. Lilly
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falcon



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Quote:
I think you'll find, on a little bit of reflection, that all of our knowledge is quite relative, provisional and conditional. Sure we know about black holes. But when you start asking questions, much along the line a child does, the whole thing falls apart after about three questions.
I don't think it falls apart, the knowledge that is relative, provisional and conditional has utility. What it doesn't have is support at the edges of what is known. So we know that some knowledge can have utility. This is truth. Even if you change what the understanding of the way things are patterned, we know within a given set of understandings that the knowledge it contains has utility.
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DividedQuantum
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Re: Can we know anything? [Re: falcon]
#22265531 - 09/20/15 03:34 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
falcon said: I don't think it falls apart, the knowledge that is relative, provisional and conditional has utility. What it doesn't have is support at the edges of what is known. So we know that some knowledge can have utility. This is truth. Even if you change what the understanding of the way things are patterned, we know within a given set of understandings that the knowledge it contains has utility.
I don't disagree with you. I think we are in possession of a few truths by those criteria. I have little doubt that Newton's laws are true. However, through later theories we have refined those truths into newer, more precise truths. I see no reason at all why this won't happen again. Like you say, it doesn't make the older notions false, especially concerning their utility.
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
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falcon



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I see no reason why it wouldn't happen again either. I also think absolute truth is probably unknowable, not because of a lack of ability to understand, but because eventually we'll reach a place where phenomena can't be tested.
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Jokeshopbeard
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Re: Can we know anything? [Re: falcon]
#22265731 - 09/20/15 04:13 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
falcon said: I also think absolute truth is probably unknowable
I don't think that our species were ever meant to know absolute truth. Like, in a comical sense, I can imagine that the moment we knew absolute truth the whole fucking universe would implode.
-------------------- Let it be seen that you are nothing. And in knowing that you are nothing... there is nothing to lose, there is nothing to gain. What can happen to you? Something can happen to the body, but it will either heal or it won't. What's the big deal? Let life knock you to bits. Let life take you apart. Let life destroy you. It will only destroy what you are not. --Jac O'keeffe
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Thanatos10
Stranger



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Our knowledge is a shifting landscape with each new discovery. So knowledge in this sense is relative to the time period. But if you want to get weird we still haven't worked out why we laugh or why we blush. Even humor itself is a field people can't really explain.
As for why we are here, that might be a question you don't want to know the answer to. We could very well be an accident in the chain of evolution. I don't even know why we bother with that one, what would it change?
-------------------- As lightless oblivion devours you, drown in the ever-blooming darkness.
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