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Proving the limits of knowledge

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I got into a debate on Maclin Horton's blog, where he rants about Ayn Rand, after recently finishing Atlas Shrugged. I'm a bit stuck on how to respond to the following, that was posted by Rob G:

Ok, then -- you're a logical positivist, which tenet is equally self-refuting: you cannot prove by empiricism or logic or a combination of the two, that the only things you can know are what you know by empiricism and/or logic. It's still circular reasoning -- all you've done is make the circle bigger.

I've responded with the following, although it's not written particularly well and I do not think it will be persuasive:

Yes, it is an assumption, but it is a direct result of other assumptions - axioms - that are necessary to be able to make any statement or know anything. For examples: the law of noncontradiction, or the law of identity. You claim something can exist outside logic, but for you to even make that claim requires you to assume the tenets of logic - the axioms that I have stated above. That is why they are axiomatic. For you to even assert that you know something, and that you arrived at that knowledge with means that are outside reality, outside logic, outside of reason, requires you to assume the axioms of logic. You deny the very axioms that you utilize in making that denial.

I guess my problem is how to respond without appearing to define the limits of knowledge outright. While I agree that knowledge should be limited to that acquired by logic and reason combined with evidence, my purpose here is a persuasive argument, which does not resort to referencing that limitation, but which shows the problem with removing those limits. Any suggestions?

Edited by brian0918
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How about an experiment? You place a volunteer in an empty room, blindforlded and with ears plugged, instruct him to keep his mind a total blank, and see what knowledge he acquires in a period ranging from a few hours to three or four days.

Of course it's ridiculous.

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Why are you a logical positivist?

:D I don't know. He felt like applying a label, but failed in applying an accurate one, I guess. I just disregarded it as tangential and unimportant to the discussion.

Here is his latest reply to my post (see above):

No, Brian, I'm merely asserting that logic and/or empiricism alone cannot prove the notion that only logic and/or empiricism result in knowledge. To say otherwise is to argue in a circle.

There are other ways of knowing besides logic and empiricism. I suggest you read the work of the scientist/philosopher Michael Polanyi for more on this.

How does one even respond to such an assertion? Do I simply say he is co-opting the word "knowledge" for his own purposes? He could simply accuse me of doing the same.

Edited by brian0918
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Well, there are just so many errors and slovenlinesses in his statement that it makes me spit. To start, and ignoring his error about logical positivism, it is not true and you did not say that "the only things you can know are what you know by empiricism and/or logic". (I hope you did not). You do not "know things by empiricism", and you should not allow him to make that claim. In general, when a person claims that you say X or your argument depends on X, you should not ignore those errors since silence implies though does not entail agreement. Empiricism is a broad school of philosophy and it is ridiculous to think that anybody believes that you have to know that school of philosophy in order to know anything. The uses of "and/or" is a sign that you are dealing with someone who doesn't think that words actually mean anything -- "and" and "or" are not fungible. In fact, it must be "and" -- you cannot know anything using just logic. You must use logic and something, namely valid conclusions. Many valid conclusions directly derive from the experience of the senses -- all do reduce by a logical chain to the senses. The senses are self-evident, not in need of further justification.

The notion of "prove" presupposes -- logically depends on -- the validity of logic, the senses, existence, and the knowability of existence. A nihilist can simply say "no, no, no!" and that's the end of the discussion. This is why the only way to deal with a nihilist is to mock their berets, but they won't care, so just move on. If this joker isn't a nihilist (you might accuse him of nihilism to see if he is really a closet nihilist), then for him to ask for "proof", he has to have in mind what a "proof" is. Soon enough, if he puts any effort into it, he will discover that he must concede the validity of existence, knowledge of existence, logic, and man's method of gaining knowledge about existence (the senses).

You might also point out that argumentum ad vericudiam is the last resort of intellectual scoundrels (cf his ukaze to read Polanyi -- I'd suggest reading Feuerabend to get a real taste of nihilist epistemology). An appropriate counter would be that he should read David Stove and Leonard Peikoff.

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I would also point out that the idea of proof presupposes logic, and nothing can--by definition--be proved by any other means. Of course, there are other sources of information, which are the senses and emotions. And there is no proof that there are no other forms of gaining information. The burden of proof (or, more precisely, the burden of demonstration) rests on anyone who claims that there are more.

For instance, perhaps we can sense infrared or nutrinos, but we just have to focus our minds appropriately or maybe we need some kind of surgery to make the sense organs active. I don't know, I don't care. I have never sensed it or found reason to believe that anyone can understand anything beyond the five(ish) senses, logic, and emotions.

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Emotions aren't sources of information -- they are automated responses to information. The senses, likewise, aren't sources of information. Reality is the only source of information, and the senses perceive reality and pass those signals on to the mind which converts the signals into information.

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They may be automated response to information, but they are sensed directly, like the senses. There is no intermediary, and so in that way they are like information--even if the information is only a function of objective reality and one's self.

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For instance, perhaps we can sense infrared or nutrinos, but we just have to focus our minds appropriately or maybe we need some kind of surgery to make the sense organs active. I don't know, I don't care. I have never sensed it or found reason to believe that anyone can understand anything beyond the five(ish) senses, logic, and emotions.

Why even entertain such a notion? Of course we can't see in the infrared or sense neutrinos, and we have the proof to back it up. On a self-evident level, we observe that in the presence of such phenomena, we cannot perceive them. We can go a step further and compare the perceptual limits of our senses to the physical qualities of infrared light and neutrinos, where we find that the two are totally out of our perceptual range.

For any other bizarre notions about other sources of knowledge or extensions of man's senses, you said the key words at the end: there's no reason to believe it.

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They may be automated response to information, but they are sensed directly, like the senses. There is no intermediary, and so in that way they are like information--even if the information is only a function of objective reality and one's self.

I don't understand what you mean by saying the senses are sensed. The senses (eyes, ears, nose, skin, mouth) sense, but there is no other instrument apart from the sensory organs that senses the sensory organs. It sounds like you think that the mind senses the senses, but it does not; the mind is incapable of sensing. The mind directs the senses and processes the senses' data.

You're right that emotions are sensed directly -- by the mind, and specifically by introspection. But that does not change the fact that emotions are not sources of information. What information can one elicit from an emotion itself, without reference to the source of that emotion? When something triggers anger in a person, the trigger is the source of information, not the emotional response. Keep in mind that without reality as the context for the source of all information, you wouldn't be able to identify your emotions. When you feel some emotional impulse, it's your grasp of reality that tells you what emotion you're feeling. It's the source of your recognition of what they are.

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Why even entertain such a notion?

I don't--I leave it up to any potential claimant to give me reason to entertain or believe it. The point is that we have no proof that we understand anything other than our five-ish senses, logic, and emotions.

You point is (presumably) that you know that you had a feeling of lust, but you cannot use that emotion to learning anything about the supposed object of your lust.

Something like that.

I don't understand what you mean by saying the senses are sensed. The senses (eyes, ears, nose, skin, mouth) sense, but there is no other instrument apart from the sensory organs that senses the sensory organs. It sounds like you think that the mind senses the senses, but it does not; the mind is incapable of sensing. The mind directs the senses and processes the senses' data.

No, that's just taking my grammar too literally. To be more metaphysically, grammatically precise, the sensations are sensed.

You're right that emotions are sensed directly -- by the mind, and specifically by introspection. But that does not change the fact that emotions are not sources of information.

I would disagree. Just like a patch of red in your visual field is a source of information, I think the feeling of love is also information--if, vacuously, the information that is the unique feeling of love. For instance, you may encounter an alien race (or other being) that does not feel love, and so you have unique information about the feeling of love. Moreover, to feel love is a product of yourself and the object of your love, and so it is information about both. Suppose I am a new character in Atlas Shrugged and all that you know about me is that I love Dagny; the narrator tells you that I feel a tightening in my chest when I think of her accomplishments, an entirely self-serving desire to have her body and its peerless mind at my command; that it is all one specific, defined, and conscious feeling like a white-hot point in my mind. Certainly one can only feel that feeling if you first use your unfeeling, rational mind to understand who Dagny is and who I am. But from that isolated information about the feeling which I have, you can know something about both Dagny and me. It is in both of these senses that I mean feelings are information.

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I don't--I leave it up to any potential claimant to give me reason to entertain or believe it. The point is that we have no proof that we understand anything other than our five-ish senses, logic, and emotions.

Well, you said "perhaps we can sense" infrared light or neutrinos, and "maybe we just have to" focus our minds in a certain way, and "I don't know." So you are entertaining the notion that the perception of such phenomena may be possible, when what you should be saying is, "Such perception is impossible to man, and I know exactly why it is impossible." I'm not trying to pick on you or use your words against you, but it is important to reject an attribute that contradicts a thing's nature, rather than to say, "maybe it could -- I don't know and I don't care."

No, that's just taking my grammar too literally. To be more metaphysically, grammatically precise, the sensations are sensed.

Ahh, fine, sensations are sensed, yes.

I would disagree. Just like a patch of red in your visual field is a source of information, I think the feeling of love is also information--if, vacuously, the information that is the unique feeling of love. For instance, you may encounter an alien race (or other being) that does not feel love, and so you have unique information about the feeling of love. Moreover, to feel love is a product of yourself and the object of your love, and so it is information about both. Suppose I am a new character in Atlas Shrugged and all that you know about me is that I love Dagny; the narrator tells you that I feel a tightening in my chest when I think of her accomplishments, an entirely self-serving desire to have her body and its peerless mind at my command; that it is all one specific, defined, and conscious feeling like a white-hot point in my mind. Certainly one can only feel that feeling if you first use your unfeeling, rational mind to understand who Dagny is and who I am. But from that isolated information about the feeling which I have, you can know something about both Dagny and me. It is in both of these senses that I mean feelings are information.

Notice how in all of your discussion of emotions, you always have to name the referents of those emotions to get your point across. You always have to refer to the sources of said emotions. That should tell you that emotions are not true sources of information. Were you to attempt to gain information from your emotions, the thoughts running through your mind would go like: Hate... Joy... Fear... Anger... Tranquility... Uncertainty... Bliss, etc. What kind of information is that? What is that train of impulses telling you? Information presupposes some entity identified by a consciousness. And yet, emotions are automated responses of the subconscious, and by that fact bypass any process of conscious identification. If this weren't the case, every time you experienced something that produced an emotion, you would consciously go, "Hmm, I wonder how I should feel about that," just like you treat ideas by going, "Hmm, I wonder what I should think about that." But you don't do that with feelings. You experience something and boom! -- you get a feeling, without any conscious thought.

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Ok, then -- you're a logical positivist, which tenet is equally self-refuting: you cannot prove by empiricism or logic or a combination of the two, that the only things you can know are what you know by empiricism and/or logic. It's still circular reasoning -- all you've done is make the circle bigger.

This sounds like it's based on the belief that you can know things based on intuition or other mystical means.

What does it mean to know something? Knowledge amounts to a collection of concepts and the relationship between them. The formation of concepts requires conscious thought and the application of reason to observations. In order for the concepts and the resulting knowledge to be valid (useful in other situations), the observations need to be based in reality. This process can be confirmed in reality by simple observation.

Intuition is described as the process of knowing something without thinking about it. But if no thought was involved, then how could the underlying concepts be formed? Did some mystic force reach into your mind? Intuition is more properly described as a feeling that you know something. Feelings are not the same as knowledge; feelings are your reaction to thoughts and sensory input. They are generated by the mind, rather than being inputs into it as the senses are. Feelings do not require reason, and do not involve concepts; they therefore cannot be knowledge. Again, this can be confirmed through simple observation of reality.

Also, logic (which usually means deductive reasoning) is not the only way of knowing things. Inductive reasoning can be applied to simple observation as well. Knowing that the sky is blue, for example, does not require logic. And empiricism involves clinging to facts and rejecting concepts; facts are not knowledge, so empiricism can't be used as a way to know things.

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