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Unfolding Nature Shop: Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order

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Are certain things unknowable?
    #5184401 -

This question was addressed by Nathaniel Branden in The Objectivist Newsletter (January 1963), wherein he wrote:
Quote:
The concept of the 'unknowable' does not mean: that which is unknown at present. It means: that which, by its nature, cannot be known. To claim that a thing is unknowable entails a logical contradiction.

To claim that a thing is unknowable, one must first know that it exists--but then one already has knowledge of it, to that extent. Further, to pronounce a thing unknowable, one would have to know enough about it to justify one pronouncement--but then the pronouncement and the justification would be in contradiction. If one makes such a pronouncement, or any pronouncement, without knowledge to justify it, then this is plain irrationalism.

The assertion that a thing is unknowable carries the necessary epistemological implication that the speaker is omniscient--that he has total knowledge of everything in the universe and, from his unique vantage point, is able to proclaim that certain things are inherently beyond the reach of man's knowledge and understanding.

The idea of the 'unknowable' is indefensible--and its spokesmen can have no other purpose than to permit themselves flights into mysticism: to permit themselves beliefs for which, they have no justification."



To exist presupposes percievability; to claim that something can exist without a means of percieving it is a fallacy. This may seem essentially the same as Branden's [the author above] position, yet upon further inspection, we will see that it is not.

It is irrational to claim that some particular thing is unknowable because you would first have to know about it to make that claim, in which case, it would no longer be unknowable. But does this mean that to exist presupposes being knowable? Does it mean that to claim that something might exist without a means of knowing it is a fantasy? No, all it means is that one cannot claim that some particular thing is unknowable, because one would have to possess enough knowledge to make the claim.

It certainly does not follow that something cannot exist which by its nature [and the nature of our cognition] is inherently beyond our ability to grasp and identify. A thing's existence does not require that it be knowable, even if the claim that it is unknowable requires it. Still less does Branden's position imply that to exist presupposes perceivability - that to claim that something might exist without a means of perceiving it is fantasy - for something can be known inferentially without being perceivable such as, for example, quanta or photons.

If anything were actually "unknowable" it would bear no relationship of any kind to the rest of the universe, it would not affect or be affected by anything else in any manner whatever, it would exact no causes and bear no consequences - in short, it would not exist.

Every existent must interact with reality, and - in principle - we could become aware of any and every existent [knowing THAT it is, not WHAT it is] through inference.

Hence, a natural impossibility: It is impossible for an existent to be unknowable.

...and that, is how it's done, Dip.



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Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love.

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Re: Are certain things unknowable? [Re: SkorpivoMusterion]
    #5184456 -

I just best guess it. If up until this point something that has been sought by all of mankind has not yielded to any degree. I consider it unknowable, and I don't fret about it.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: Are certain things unknowable? [Re: Icelander]
    #5184497 -

If up until this point something that has been sought by all of mankind has not yielded to any degree. I consider it unknowable, and I don't fret about it.

Unknowable, as defined: that which, by its nature, cannot be known ?

If so, provide an example.




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Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love.

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Re: Are certain things unknowable? [Re: SkorpivoMusterion]
    #5184640 -

Is this different than falsifiability?


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Note: In desperate need of a cure...

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Re: Are certain things unknowable? [Re: SkorpivoMusterion]
    #5184689 -

God, Tao , the meaning of life, etc.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: Are certain things unknowable? [Re: Icelander]
    #5184699 -

The Tao is very knowable...hell, there is a users manual to it.


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"A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda

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Re: Are certain things unknowable? [Re: Icelander]
    #5184704 -

We must define those terms if we are to make progress. At any rate, if God and Tao exists, then they are knowable, whether inferentially or directly. Otherwise there would not be so much literature on such subjects.

Does a meaning have a meaning?



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Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love.

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Re: Are certain things unknowable? [Re: Sclorch]
    #5184718 -

Sclorch said:
Is this different than falsifiability?


Different, but not without implicit relations between the two, IMO.



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Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love.

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Re: Are certain things unknowable? [Re: Huehuecoyotl]
    #5184728 -

Huehuecoyotl said:
The Tao is very knowable...hell, there is a users manual to it.


The Tao that can be spoken of is not the eternal Tao.


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Re: Are certain things unknowable? [Re: SkorpivoMusterion]
    #5184729 -

What is knowledge?

Knowledge is information confirmed by the experience; anything that is consistently and ultimately outside the experience is, by definition, unknowable.

Under this definition, any objective reality is unknowable, along with any consciousness other than your own.

To realize that something is unknowable does not require omniscience, but simply requires the knowledge of the boundaries of our experience, and the realization that anything outside of those boundaries is empirically impossible to confirm. We can make conjectures and label this knowledge, but in fact any statements about the so-called "absolute reality" are prejudices based on a subjective and entirely personal system of being.

However, like with time in general relativity, knowledge is not absolute, but is very subjective. We are each our own center of being, and the experience surrounds only us. Therefore, if indeed other people around us have consciousness (which is unknowable to every individual in itself) then it is possible for something unknowable to one human being to be completely knowable to the other, based upon the system on which the individual attains knowledge. To put it in psychedelics terms, we would call this, "the doors of perception", and every person's threshold varies in size and shape. Information which can slip through one person's threshold will inevitably bounce off someone else's.

Therefore, if you are not a solipsist, before starting a conversation as such, you must realize whether you are talking about information unknowable to your experience, or unknowable to all experiences. Both are subjective in nature, but the latter presumably has a wider threshold.

Then, there is also the case of information which in itself is logically impossible, and could not be known because it cannot exist, but that would be an entirely different line of thought. In the prior discussion, I assume we are talking about information which has the possibility of existing, but can never be empirically confirmed.


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So long as you are praised think only that you are not yet on your own path but on that of another.

Edited by Ravus (01/15/06 08:44 PM)

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Re: Are certain things unknowable? [Re: Ravus]
    #5184796 -

Welcome back Ravus. :thumbup:


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: Are certain things unknowable? [Re: Ravus]
    #5184829 -

What is knowledge?

Knowledge is information confirmed by the experience; anything that is consistently and ultimately outside the experience is, by definition, unknowable.

Again, if you mean unknowable as in: that which, by its nature, cannot be known, then your conclusion does not follow. Many things which were once outside of man's experience, are now known today. This is because, although such information was once not known, it was knowable.

Under this definition, any objective reality is unknowable, along with any consciousness other than your own.

Under that definition, objective reality is knowable, through man's consciousness and means of cognition.

statements about the so-called "absolute reality" are prejudices based on a subjective and entirely personal system of being.

Prejudices? No, statements that deny the validity of man's cognitive tools to learn facts and objective knowledge about nature and reality is a prejudice. It is an epistemological prejudice based on an irrational and anti-philisophical systems of thinking.


knowledge is not absolute, but is very subjective.

Concepts nor values are "intrinsic" to external reality, nor are they merely "subjective" [by which I means arbitrary or created by [one's] feelings, desires, 'intuitions,' or whims]. Rather, valid concepts and values are, determined by the nature of reality, but to be discovered by man's mind.


Therefore, if indeed other people around us have consciousness (which is unknowable to every individual in itself) then it is impossible for something unknowable to one human being to be completely knowable to the other, based upon the system on which the individual attains knowledge.

IF[?] other people have a faculty of perception, then it is impossible for something to be unknowable to one human being to be completely knowable to the other? This doesn't make sense.


Then, there is also the case of information which in itself is logically impossible, and could not be known because it cannot exist, but that would be an entirely different line of thought. In the prior discussion, I assume we are talking about information which has the possibility of existing, but can never be empirically confirmed.

I think you had it at the beginning. I am talking about any existent that is [as defined above] unknowable - therefore, non-existent. If it is, by nature, unknowable [not to be confused with merely currently not-known], then it does not exist.




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Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love.

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Re: Are certain things unknowable? [Re: Silversoul]
    #5184849 -

Paradigm said:
Huehuecoyotl said:
The Tao is very knowable...hell, there is a users manual to it.


The Tao that can be spoken of is not the eternal Tao.


Exactly.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: Are certain things unknowable? [Re: Icelander]
    #5184861 -

Yet, as evidenced by communication of the Eternal Tao, there is inferential knowledge of the Eternal Tao. Thus, it is knowable, because it exists. If it did not exist, in one form or another, then there could not [not to be confused with "would not"] be any knowledge or communication of it.



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Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love.

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Re: Are certain things unknowable? [Re: SkorpivoMusterion]
    #5184882 -

Hi Ravus

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Re: Are certain things unknowable? [Re: SkorpivoMusterion]
    #5184958 -

SkorpivoMusterion said:
Knowledge is information confirmed by the experience; anything that is consistently and ultimately outside the experience is, by definition, unknowable.

Under this definition, any objective reality is unknowable, along with any consciousness other than your own.

Under that definition, objective reality is knowable, through man's consciousness and means of cognition.


Under that definition, only our experiences-of-reality (interaction-with-reality, interpretation-of-reality, etc) appears to be knowable. Our nervous system receives various input from our environment and we create a 'model' or 'map' [figuratively] of that environment which allows us to navigate through it. "The map should not be confused with the territory." (See: Naive realism)

Edited by MushmanTheManic (01/15/06 07:57 PM)

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Re: Are certain things unknowable? [Re: SkorpivoMusterion]
    #5185027 -

SkorpivoMusterion said:
Yet, as evidenced by communication of the Eternal Tao, there is inferential knowledge of the Eternal Tao. Thus, it is knowable, because it exists. If it did not exist, in one form or another, then there could not [not to be confused with "would not"] be any knowledge or communication of it.




If it is knowable then tell me what the Eternal Tao is?

If all you can say is "it is that which is unknowable" then you are just playing word games.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: Are certain things unknowable? [Re: MushmanTheManic]
    #5185044 -

The fact that we have a cognitive system which employs our faculty of perception and senses, does not change the fact that reality is knowable. It is what makes our knowledge of reality possible. Man percieves reality directly, not some kind of effects different from it. We percieve reality by means of its effects on our organs of perception. Nor can one reply that man's perception of reality, since it is mediated by the senses, is only "indirect." What then would "direct perception" denote? It would have to denote a grasp of reality attained without benefit of any means.

Every knowledge involves two crucial elements: the object of cognition and the means of cognition - what do I know? and how do I know it? The "how" cannot be used to negate the "what," or the "what" the "how" - not if one understands that A is A and consciousness is consciousness.



--------------------
Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love.

Edited by SkorpivoMusterion (01/15/06 08:38 PM)

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Re: Are certain things unknowable? [Re: Icelander]
    #5185059 -

I asked you before to define your terms if we are to make any progress. I am not the one who brought up these terms, therefore, the burden of defining these terms rests upon you [or someone else].




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Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love.

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Re: Are certain things unknowable? [Re: SkorpivoMusterion]
    #5185104 -

Sorry I'm not really very good at this kind of debate. That's why I said earlier that I don't fret about this stuff. I doesn't have practical application in my life. For you it might be the meaning of life.

If something is unknowable by your defination, my guess is we would never know it. But what purpose does this bit of knowledge serve?


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Unfolding Nature Shop: Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order

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