Does anyone know anything at all for sure?

Originally posted by bbarr
It is consistent with the totaliity of the content of your experiences that those experiences result from some Matrix-style manipulation of your neurology. Hence, there at least a very slight possibility that your "direct perceptions" are merely instances of it seeming to you as though you directly perceive whatever it is you take yourself to be perceiving. Hence you are not certain in an epistemic sense.

Before you know what your sensations are telling you about P, nevertheless you recognize P as distinct from anything else. Immediately your mind sets about gathering impressions of P (emotions, sensations, etc.) and collecting them in the memory. Before long the variegated multiplicity of impressions coalesce into a more utilitarian super-impression of P; i.e. a 'concept' of P. This concept can then be fitted with a name and bandied about by the intellect and fused with other concepts in order to grasp even more remote concepts, perhaps even concepts never directly arrived at experientially, only imagined. The concept of P itself, ever-growing towards exactitude, weathered by shifts of perspective, imperceptibly morphed by imperfections within an electro-biochemical medium, and tempered by exposure to tradition and the objectivity of consensus, remains inseparable from sensation. The vast knowledge objectively arrived at by people and recorded for posterity, gathering dust on shelves in libraries or transferred in 1's and 0's in perpetuity throughout an ever-renewed network of servers, is therefore also inseparable from sensation. What we claim to know is really not knowledge at all. Even the concept of ourselves, the 'I', is a super-impression, a coalesced multiplicity of ongoing impressions arising from sensation, of which we can hardly begin to say what it is in itself, our familiarity only engendering the illusion of surety. In the end, as in the beginning, we can never know any thing as self-evident.

However, if there is a 'higher' reality which does not present itself to our subjective realm of sensation, which nevertheless exists behind phenomena, loosely conceptualized as a first cause (the domino effect), and endlessly mischaracterized by our sensate-based conceptualizations, could such a reality ever be known as self-evident? I think it can. (I'd like to explore this more tonight, but it's time to turn in. Of course, I am referring here to faith, and I'm positing faith as a means of acquiring certain knowledge of truth (perhaps even knowledge of greater assurance than that acquired through sensation and observation).)

Originally posted by KellyJay
I said I believed it was a fact, I was going to go about my day as if
it is a fact, and act upon it as a fact, make my life fit into the idea
that it was a fact. If I found out otherwise, that I was mistaken, than
that would be a reality check upon my life. I did not say I could know
nothing as factual. It is because as you point out means I was acting
upon my faith that it was what I believed it to be.
Kelly

Are you refusing to answer my yes no questions then? You've got lots of "I did not say.." but no actual answers to my questions.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Are you refusing to answer my yes no questions then? You've got lots of "I did not say.." but no actual answers to my questions.

I work for a living, you will have to wait your turn.
Kelly

Originally posted by epiphinehas
However, if there is a 'higher' reality which does not present itself to our subjective realm of sensation, which nevertheless exists behind phenomena, loosely conceptualized as a first cause (the domino effect), and endlessly mischaracterized by our sensate-based conceptualizations, could such a reality ever be known as self-evident? I think it can. ( ...[text shortened]... even knowledge of greater assurance than that acquired through sensation and observation).)

If it does not present itself to our subjective realm of sensation, pray tell how it can be mischaracterised in conceptualisation?

You haven't offered any mechanism or even basic notion of how faith could be used to acquire certain knowledge (or indeed anything). You seem to be saying that there are other ways of gaining knowledge than by using the senses, what are they?

How could an insensible entity ever possibly be conceptualised?

Originally posted by epiphinehas
Before you know what your sensations are telling you about P, nevertheless you recognize P as distinct from anything else. Immediately your mind sets about gathering impressions of P (emotions, sensations, etc.) and collecting them in the memory. Before long the variegated multiplicity of impressions coalesce into a more utilitarian super-impression of ...[text shortened]... nowledge of greater assurance than that acquired through sensation and observation).)

While most of this is wrong (e.g., recognition of P as distinct already requires P to be conceptualized, so it can't be the first stage in a process of conceptualization), all of it is consistent with a Matrix-like explanation for the course of your experiences. Hence, you can't be certain that the deliverances of faith are veridical.

Originally posted by bbarr
While most of this is wrong (e.g., recognition of P as distinct already requires P to be conceptualized, so it can't be the first stage in a process of conceptualization), all of it is consistent with a Matrix-like explanation for the course of your experiences. Hence, you can't be certain that the deliverances of faith are veridical.

Recognition of P as distinct already requires P to be conceptualized

What is the first stage in a process of conceptualization, if not the EDIT: perception of distinctiveness? (Perhaps 'recognition' was not the right word.)

Originally posted by epiphinehas
[b]Recognition of P as distinct already requires P to be conceptualized

What is the first stage in a process of conceptualization, if not the sensation of distinctiveness? (Perhaps 'recognition' was not the right word.)[/b]

Perhaps perception would have played better.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
Perhaps perception would have played better.

Noted...

Originally posted by twhitehead
Are you refusing to answer my yes no questions then? You've got lots of "I did not say.." but no actual answers to my questions.

It does make it easier to debate points I do make instead of those
I do not.
Kelly

Originally posted by twhitehead
But you haven't answered the question. You were asked whether you could know if something is a fact. You said you knew about the 10 dollar bill. Then you admitted that you did not actually know that that was a fact.
So are you simply avoiding answering the question? Because there sure isn't a definite answer in any of your posts.
Lets make it easy:
Is ...[text shortened]... es or no.
If yes are you willing to tell us what it is. Yes or no.
If yes then lets have it.

You are asking a broad question, facts reside in reality, if you are
attempting to make 'non reality items facts' you will never get it.
As was talked about earlier I had a ten dollar bill in my wallet that
was later accepted at Starbucks for a cold coffee drink. Anything
you want to test if it is a fact or not is going to have to dealt with on
its own merits, a test for X may not be good enough for Y. So if you
are looking for a broad answer that will fit all things at all times I'm
not going to be able to give you one, neither will anyone else.
Kelly

Originally posted by epiphinehas
[b]Recognition of P as distinct already requires P to be conceptualized

What is the first stage in a process of conceptualization, if not the EDIT: perception of distinctiveness? (Perhaps 'recognition' was not the right word.)[/b]

If there is a first stage, it is probably just causal. The non-conceptual content of a sensation would probably just cause you to believe that you are having such a sensation (where the content of the belief is, of course, conceptually articulated). Of course, you could claim (as I'm finding more and more plausible) that conceptualization at least partially occurs prior to sensations becoming conscious; that is, that our sensations come into consciousness already at least partially conceptualized. This way, you can make sense of inferring from the sensation to a belief. I don't know how you would go about inferring from something without conceptual content to a belief that has conceptual content.

Originally posted by Starrman
If it does not present itself to our subjective realm of sensation, pray tell how it can be mischaracterised in conceptualisation?

You haven't offered any mechanism or even basic notion of how faith could be used to acquire certain knowledge (or indeed anything). You seem to be saying that there are other ways of gaining knowledge than by using the senses, what are they?

How could an insensible entity ever possibly be conceptualised?

If it does not present itself to our subjective realm of sensation, pray tell how it can be mischaracterised in conceptualisation? How could an insensible entity ever possibly be conceptualised?

If you opened the bible for the first time and read the opening verse to yourself, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," you would be presented with three options: the narrator either made it up, received it from someone else, or witnessed the event first hand; regardless of which, each of the words in that statement will have concepts applied to them (whether accurately or not). Most significantly, the word 'God' leaves an enormous vacuum for the application of concepts. Since we, being finite/created things, cannot conceive an uncreated being, we instead apply the concepts gathered from observable phenomena to that which is the inscrutible source of all phenomena. Doing so involves an unavoidable, prescribed level of misconceptualization. We may seek to conceptualize what God is in himself, but if we were to be honest with ourselves, we must admit that 'God' cannot be to our minds any more than darkness and nothingness.

You haven't offered any mechanism or even basic notion of how faith could be used to acquire certain knowledge (or indeed anything). You seem to be saying that there are other ways of gaining knowledge than by using the senses, what are they?

What faith is, is the assurance of the reality which it touches. If there were no reality, faith would not exist, and there would be no certainty. As it stands, faith is the assurance provided by God's reality and rests in him. If he were not there, then faith in him would not provide its own inward assurances. After all, if God is real, he is more real than anything which we can perceive with our five senses.

Knowledge of God is imparted through the darkness of faith. That darkness itself, the conceptual vacuum, is the uncertain element, whereas God provides assurance (faith) in his reality through that darkness. Such an event is called, intuition, and is the direct perception of truth. Biblically speaking, intuition is a function of the human spirit; the human spirit being distinct from soul (mind, will and emotions) and body. Faith, far from being merely an opinion without proof, is the direct perception (intuition) of God via the human spirit.

Originally posted by bbarr
If there is a first stage, it is probably just causal. The non-conceptual content of a sensation would probably just cause you to believe that you are having such a sensation (where the content of the belief is, of course, conceptually articulated). Of course, you could claim (as I'm finding more and more plausible) that conceptualization at least partially ...[text shortened]... t inferring from something without conceptual content to a belief that has conceptual content.

Of course, you could claim (as I'm finding more and more plausible) that conceptualization at least partially occurs prior to sensations becoming conscious; that is, that our sensations come into consciousness already at least partially conceptualized.

Which would make sense, considering our whole being is already geared toward assimilating organ-specific sensory information.

Originally posted by bbarr
If there is a first stage, it is probably just causal. The non-conceptual content of a sensation would probably just cause you to believe that you are having such a sensation (where the content of the belief is, of course, conceptually articulated). Of course, you could claim (as I'm finding more and more plausible) that conceptualization at least partially t inferring from something without conceptual content to a belief that has conceptual content.

I don't know how you would go about inferring from something without conceptual content to a belief that has conceptual content.

Well, that’s the whole problem of trying to “eff” the ineffable.

My personal opinion is that our brain immediately tries to translate the experience of the ineffable into such content—visions, auditions, descriptions of the divine, etc. Although the Zen masters (and people like Krishnamurti) advise ignoring such translations as “makkyo,” I think that—whether you’re talking about the Upanishads or Jesus or St. Paul or Meister Eckhart or Lao Tzu—such conceptual expressions can themselves act as “fingers pointing at the moon.”

An icon points to the ineffable mystery; an idol attempts to circumscribe and define it.