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From: laura@l5.uucp (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Rigorous Mortis
Message-ID: <136@l5.uucp>
Date: Sat, 21-Sep-85 13:13:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: l5.136
Posted: Sat Sep 21 13:13:54 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 25-Sep-85 08:17:49 EDT
References: <103@l5.uucp> <1544@umcp-cs.UUCP> <109@l5.uucp> <1697@pyuxd.UUCP> <125@l5.uucp> <1721@pyuxd.UUCP>
Reply-To: laura@l5.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Organization: Ell-Five [Consultants], San Francisco
Lines: 70

Rich is trying to find an objective way of measuring whether or not I am
hungry.
>If I was really seeking serious proof that you were hungry, I could certainly
>find an objective way of verifying it.  Of course, it would take a lot of
>data.
>It would take an analysis of the current state of your digestive system,
>knowledge of how long it's been since you last ate (sometimes the brain simply
>wants food as a sensation experience without actually being hungry), and
>data on the break points at which your body sends messages that your require
>food. 
This is a good try, but remember that I promised to be as unfuriating as
possible. So I say that I am hungry. You get out your measuring aparatus and
say ``how can you be hungry? you just ate a huge dinner two hours ago!''. I
say ``no, your equipment is malfunctioning.'' You go off an test your
equpiment and report that it is working fine. I say ``well, it can't be: you
see there is this evil plot to starve me to death -- all equipment will fail
to measure whether or not I am hungry because that is the way that this plot
works.'' ``But you *just* ate dinner!'' ``Pure illusion and deception
implanted in your mind. You can't underestimate the damager-god (oops, wrong
article!) after all''.

And so it goes. At some point you will be forced to choose to believe me or
to believe your equipment.  If all the objective evidence that you can
garner points to the fact that I am not hungry then  it will be most
reasonable for you to assume that I am lying.  But in making that assumption 
you are implicitly professing a belief in objective reality. But how can
you defend that belief without saying either that it is self-evident or
that it is possible to construct a consistent set of beliefs while using this
belief which is also consistent with the evidence of your senses?
>
>By definition, you are saying, it is only to be called knowledge if it is
>certain to be true. 

No. By definition knowledge is true. no claims are made on whether or not
this is certain, though!  The verification is your problem, and there are
true statements which are impossible to verify. (try verifying ``Alexander
the Great had 12 illegitimate children'' and ``there is an objective reality''
now. You run into snags).
>At bottom level, true knowledge IS self-evident,
>representing a consistently accurate model of the world.  Subjective beliefs,
>very often, do not stand up to that scrutiny, and are not "self-evident"
>at bottom level, but rather self-contradictory.
>
That is immaterial to the discussion at hand -- if there are any subjective
beliefs that stand up to that scrutiny then those are the ones that I want
to deal with. If you say that bottom-level true knowledge is self-evident,
then you are making a statement of belief. HOW DO YOU KNOW WHETHER IT IS TRUE?
Ihave long believed that consistency *is* truth -- that is when you say that
X is true you could just as well have said that X is consistent with all
available evidence.  But this is  belief -- and definitely not shared by
everyone.
>> But those things that are self-evident are true in a way that is verified
>> differently than those things which are objectively true.
>
>Not at all.  If you get to the bottom level, they are verified in exactly
>the same way.  Often, we choose not to go to the root level, and assume
>the veracity of certain things, owing to the tediousness of a redundancy
>we feel is not worthwhile in every case.  That of course leaves us very
>open to being out and out wrong.
>
I don't think that this is the case. I don't think that I verify ``there
is an objective reality and it is not all an illusion produced by the
damager-god'' at all -- I either believe it or I do not because I think
that it is self-evident or it is not. I actually think that I determine
whether or not I am hungry the same way, but I could be wrong about that
one.
-- 
Laura Creighton		(note new address!)
sun!l5!laura		(that is ell-five, not fifteen)
l5!laura@lll-crg.arpa