Is Knowledge rooted in perception?

Following up on the previous post, today’s introspective examination will turn to the idea of knowledge. Knowledge, truth, facts, beliefs. These are very similar words used by us. How do we know whether something is true? We might go through a series of observations, logical deductions, or we might have heard it from a reliable source. To us, it becomes knowledge, facts, truth or beliefs. Why discuss beliefs together with truth or knowledge? They are actually not so different after all. To see why, consider the possibility that your senses are being deceived by a demon, or inputted from a computer. Consider too about your chain of reasoning; why must you accept that ‘a’ implies ‘b’? Is it not a assumption on your part that it is so? Consider further that your supposed reliable sources, books/teachers/friends, that they themselves are perhaps wrong too. If a book presents you with a figure about a fact, perhaps about France’s GDP for last year, surely you cannot just accept that at face value, or you would accept everything that you read. If you say that you know that the book is reliable, compared to some other thrashy newspaper, then my question would be, how did you come to the conclusion that it is reliable? Even the most reliable source may slip up once in a while. To judge a certain source’s reliability by a certain set of rules is certainly arbitrary. After all, whoever said those rules were solid standards of reliability?

The idea that there is may be absolute truth is very tantalising for us who take comfort in the idea of rock solid foundations. However, the problem is that we are human, flawed. Our methods to ascertain this fact about absolute truth is itself in doubt because we cannot ascertain the absoluteness of our methods used. In other words, we cannot proof the correctness of our own methods by our own methods. This situation calls to mind about Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem. Essentially, Godel, a mathematician proved that given a set rules and system in math that is consistent internally(that means no clashes, no paradoxes, no kaboom when you try to divide by zero), there remains some theorems no matter how hard you try. You can only prove these theorem by introducing new rules, aka patching the system. But that would be cheating according to math. Anyways, the parallel is similar here – I cannot imagine a circular definition proving anything definitive. A word of caution here though, just because something cannot be proven in absolute terms, and can at most be defined circularly, does not mean it does not exist. Or that you are not allowed to believe in it. If that is the case, then you wouldn’t believe in 1+1=2. We certainly can believe whatever we want. However, we need to be mindful of its sources.

To see how knowledge is rooted in our unreliable perceptions, we first consider that the facts that we receive are as always, through our senses. We see this, we hear that, we feel it. So far, the easy part. Next, we need to consider other aspects of knowledge. For example, knowledge that is derived from those basic facts, via a series of deductions, connections, etc. If it appears that these knowledge are in itself rock solid, even if the foundation is not, think again. Consider the very logic reasoning that we use. Are we so sure that this procedure is free from flaws? Take the simplest logic deduction: A is B. B is C. Therefore, A is C. Do we have incontrovertible proof that this reasoning is sound? Did we not after all, assume that this is it? Surely we saw around that this was case, and therefore, assumed that because it occurred around us all the time, that it is the absolute truth.

To see further how logic may sometimes fail us, take a look at the following line of reasoning: Define a set A where there are no members inside. There is a curious property about this set, because this set is not a member of itself. Obviously, you say. Next, we define a set Z where the criterion for its members are any set that is not a member of itself. Clearly, A is a member of Z. In looking for the members of Z, we look through the list of possible sets, and.. what do have here? Z is on the list of sets to be considered. After all Z is a set. So, the problem is, is Z a member of itself? If its not, then Z should belong inside set Z. But then that would validate the consideration that Z is a member of itself. Wait a moment here, which means Z does not belong in itself.. We have fallen into the trap of self-reference. On a side note: lets look at a difference self-reference trap – consider the claim that some things are ‘necessary’ and others ‘a choice’. How would we draw up 2 lists of things, one titled ‘Necessary’ and another titled ‘Choice’? We would have to select a method, do we not? Would this not make the things of the list of ‘Necessary’ rather arbitrary? Different people would adopt different methods, and their lists of ‘Necessary’ would all differ. Which means nothing in the list of ‘Necessary’ is concrete, and that really all things belong into the big list of ‘Choice’. In the consideration of this list ‘Choice’, we come across this thing to be considered: About making a choice whether to make a choice. It certainly looks like its a necessary thing, you really need to make a choice about making choices. Even if you choose not to make choices, you are choosing. So this is a necessary thing, and belongs on the list of ‘Necessary’. Wait just a minute here, did you just try to pull a fast one on me? You chose to put choosing the necessity to make a choice into the list of ‘Necessary’?  So it really belongs in ‘Choice’ after all, and now we are forced to consider where does [‘Choosing the necessity to necessitate making a choice’ or in other words ‘Choosing to choose to choose’ ] belong. Clearly, we might have avoided this infinite spiral, by not asking the question about choosing to choose, and simply accepted that all things belong into the list ‘Choice’. But is it not weird that we are allowed to ask some questions and not allowed to ask others. Would this not block our passage to obtaining absolute truth? Similarly, in the above consideration about sets, we might have avoided that self reference trap, by not asking about sets that belong in themselves. But then again, it would be an arbitrary choice about able to ask some questions and not for others. Once again, absolute truth appears to be a choice, and does not seem so absolute after all.

So, even the methods by which we further derive other knowledge are arbitrary and based on “common sense”. Are do we even know if anything is absolutely, really, really true? Looks like we have to take a lot of things on faith alone. Its a personal choice which things you want to believe, and which you do not want to believe in. You choose to believe in your senses, and hence about what you see about the world through these senses. There might be a real and absolute object right next to you. But because we necessarily perceive this object through a series of lens (in the metaphorical way), the object might appear different to you, and you have no way of telling its difference. Worse of all, everyone’s lens is different, because everyone have different beliefs, different perspectives, different perceptions and conceptions, and therefore the object appears differently(even if only slightly) from one another.

If I am really dreaming, I would want to be enjoying my dream as much as possible.

Can you articulate your most fundamental beliefs?

How do you answer the question: Who am I?

I do believe the above 2 questions are closely linked, for me at least. After all, I believe that 'I' is made up of the various choices that I make individually. These choices are made with some external influences, from the actions of other people, other events, and with some internal influences, my beliefs. Now, my beliefs are a choice too, because we cannot accurately say whether my beliefs are right or wrong. I simply chose to make those beliefs my own. On what reasons would I have those beliefs? Again, some could be attributed to my friends who have done their part to influence them, some could be attributed to the books I read for introducing new ideas and arguments, and yet some could be attributed to my own whims. Not everyone can articulate their most fundamental beliefs and even fewer can state concretely their reasons for having those beliefs, so the best way I feel, to go about doing this is through a series of introspective questions, philosophical ones that is.

For this post, well, I have decided to answer the question about cause and effect: Is change predictable and reversible? We can approach this by thinking about perhaps why does any change come about in any case. A change must apply to some 'thing' being changed, that is, we speak of 2 states of that 'thing' that are obviously different. The 'thing' was initially in this state, and then it was in that state. We can observe the 2 states and say they are different. Now consider a world, with nothing else, but only consisting of one object. It also seems extremely likely that this world is going to be constant, nothing is going to change. Because there does not exist a different state for these objects to move to, things are not going to change. We cannot even describe this object because we do not have something else to compare against. Now if several objects, all of them different, are introduced to this world, then things are likely to be more lively. Change is now possible, because there is something 'different' to change to. Therefore, things change because they are unequal. Of course, the assumption here is that they do that because they want to be attain equality. Things want to become identical, settle into equilibrium, they want to stop changing, and so they change.

So we can tell when change is going to occur on the basis that there is a possible immediate state that it wants to attain. In this sense, we could say change is predictable. But we often say for example, how the weather changes unexpectedly, or how the stocks in the market fluctuate unexpectedly. But perhaps that is due to our own limitations, for we are unable to identify all the possible states to change to, and their intermediate states. What about equally possible states? Like a pencil balanced on its tip, poised on either falling this way or that way, or perhaps a tossed coin that is spinning in mid air; which way is it going to land? If 2 changes are equally possible, then the object must be poised in an meta-stable condition. It would remain poised to change until something tips the balance, perhaps by moving it closer to one possible state than the other, or making one state slightly more possible than the other.

Now the question is whether changes are reversible? Now we need to careful how we think about 'reversible'. So far, we have a cause and it creates an effect. If by reversible we mean we start with an effect and we result in the cause that should have been the cause of that effect, then clearly this is not possible. A visual analogy to this confusing statement is 'running the tapes backward'. Broken eggs suddenly reassembling themselves or, dead people reviving suddenly after a fatal car accident. I should perhaps make this clearer by stating that when we talk about cause and effect, we are talking a pair of concepts that exist together, we cannot discuss one independently of the other. When I talk about a cause, I immediately imply that there is an effect, and when I talk about an effect, I immediately imply that there was a cause. There is a relationship: cause --> effect. And we cannot separate the 2 words apart, or try to do funny things to the arrow between them, like reversing it. Because 'cause-->effect' is a whole entity. An effect causing the cause that caused the effect is an impossibility. An egg fell of the table and broke. Breaking is the effect and falling off the table is the cause. Therefore automatically, when I say that the egg falling off the table is a cause, I imply that there is an effect. I may not have told you about this effect, but you know that an effect exists. Alternatively, when I tell you that the broken egg is an effect, you can infer that there is a cause, but you do not know what cause since I have not told you that. Moreover, given both the cause and effect, you could infer what happened, that the egg fell off the table and caused it to break, in that sequence. You do not infer that the egg broke so it fell off the table. Another way to think about this is why did a change occur in the first place? Because there was an impetus for this change. For the change to reverse itself, is to go uphill against the impetus, something impossible. If the change reversed itself, then there must been no impetus in the first place to cause the change, of which the object would have remained constant in the first place.

Now some of you will have the nagging irritation in the back of the mind, about effects without cause. I counter that by repeating that effects must have a cause. But, there's a big BUT, that something just is without cause or effect. Lets take the broken egg thing again. I can point to the broken egg, and say, that it was like that, or it just is, or that it was like that already. I am neither saying the existence of an effect, nor a cause. I am saying that it exists, just like that, without putting any question of its existence across to you. If you are confused, then consider this: things that 'just are' or that 'just exist' may have a reason for their existence, or they may not. We do not know, and cannot claim that we know everything about every object's reason for existing. We are free to wonder about their reason though, and sometimes we succeed in finding out their reason, and therefore find out the cause and effect chain. To stubbornly claim everything is an effect, and therefore must have a cause, is stupid if you do not know if everything really have a cause or not. We are free to think about the 'what if scenario' though; what if this thing was an effect, then what would be its cause? We may or may not find it, but we cannot continue to cling to this belief without a reason.

Now, lets think about 'reversible' in another way. An effect could become a cause, and therefore cause another effect. This effect may actually the first cause and therefore it appears we are back to where we started. Lets take a pendulum. When displaced from equilibrium position, say, to the left, there is a cause started. Gravity pulls the bob back towards the equilibirium position, and there is an effect. The bob ends up now on the right of the equilibrium position. The effect has set up a 'cause' Gravity pulls the bob back towards the equilibirium position, and the effect is that the bob ends up left of the equilibirium position, back where are started. In this sense, some changes are indeed reversible, because the chains of cause and effect apply to to the same state. That state could be both cause and effect. Now we need to be careful how we extend how chains of cause and effect, because of the way the arrow points between these 2. We can easily say effect causing another effect and so on and so forth. But we need to be more careful about how we say that a cause had another cause, and another cause. This represents the limit of our knowledge that we do not know whether the cause had a cause. To say an effect had an effect, is not such a limitation. Because even if an effect does not cause a effect, we can make it so, through external influence and thus state that the effect now has an effect. But unfortunately, we cannot make a cause have a cause, by any external intervention, thus we cannot insist all the time that a cause have a cause. Arguments about a first cause therefore have a flaw, if they insist that a cause have a cause, then why stop at a first cause? Why not extend the chain in that direction indefinitely?

天之道，损有余而补不足，是故须胜实，不足胜有余。天地之相分，阴阳之候列，变化之由表，死生之兆彰，不谋而遗迹自同，勿约而幽冥斯契。

Inconsistency

It seems people are hardly ever consistent. If we were rational, then we would be logically consistent beings. So game theorists and economists say. Of course, those smart people for whom thinking is as easy as breathing, forget that for quite alot of people thinking is an effort. There are costs and benefits. Some people are lazy to think for themselves, because thinking requires time and concentration. Therefore, when the situation is such that it allows for easy application of logic and reason, people use their brains. When the situation is complex and difficult, lazy people stop using their brains, and anyhow come to their own conclusion through haphazard reasoning. Heck, people even fail to apply their beliefs consistently.

Take for example, if you ask people the simple question whether they think the means is more important over the results, or otherwise, they would be able to solidly give you an answer on the spot. They would quote some examples, argue fluently through and then you would think they are rock solid in their beliefs. But on closer examination, it seems these people are not rock solid as you will like to think, because they apply their beliefs only when they feel like it. That is, when the situation is such that it allows for easy application of their beliefs. You can find this out easily by putting through series of different situations. All of them actually have the basic argument whether the means is more important over the results.

For instance, if you murder someone, that is a really bad isn't it? If you instigate someone to murder, are you wrong? After all, you did not personally wield the knife. So what is wrong here? If you cheat, that's bad isn't it? If you take an item from somebody who actually obtained that item through cheating, is it wrong? If you take an item from that somebody who cheated, but you had no knowledge whether he cheated, is it still wrong? If you knew he actually cheated and stole it, but you pretended that you lack this knowledge of him cheating(for example, by telling yourself that he actually got it my legitimate means), is it still wrong to take the item for yourself? In pursuit of your goals, which is more important to you, your goal or the route that you took to get there? If you say your goals are more important to you, then what if the route that you are taking if just too costly and too long for you? If all routes are just as costly, what then? If you the route that you are taking is more important, than what are you working for? Why are you even on this path?

Different people answer differently to these questions. It is no use arguing over them, for it is each individuals' choice. But there are alot of people who are not even steadfast in their own beliefs and choices. They answer inconsistently to the above questions and hence reveal the holes in their beliefs.

People are always taking the easy way out. They will listen to what they want to hear, apply their beliefs when it gives them favourable results, and stop applying their beliefs when it is going to bring them bad results. These people are actually perfectly capable of applying good logic and reasoning, but are not doing so because they think it is too hard for them. Politicians are forever doing this, maybe partly because they hate to be cornered about their beliefs. So they evade, dodge, never giving a straight and firm stand in their beliefs. In their evading and dodging, they apply their beliefs and reasoning inconsistently, so that they may appear in the best light for that particular issue. The problem arises when several issues have the same basic question but are so disguised into some complex thing that they failed to identify it properly. Then that is it. Trap sprung, and they are now trapped by their own inconsistent beliefs.

Oh, people do not answer the same for similar questions, and no, they certainly would not act similarly in what is actually a similar situation.

My answer to the means over result question? I value both equally, and therefore concept of relative importance for the 2 does not stand. But relative to other things, they are certainly important, because I value logic, and sound reasoning.