TRUTH

Originally posted by thesonofsaul
I never said that. If you are going to twist people's words you should get better at it. I certainly believe what I say is true. However, I come to that conclusion though assumtion/intuition, so I certainly can't be sure about it on an intellectual/logical level. In other words, I believe that what I say is true, I just don't know that wha ...[text shortened]... as I do not follow anyone blindly, I would not want anyone to follow me blindly.

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Are you saying that nobody can know anything for sure?

Originally posted by dj2becker
Are you saying that nobody can know anything for sure?

No. It's beyond me though. People certainly can believe they know for sure. Whether they do or not <shrug> I've never been convinced of that, past human terms of perspective, of course (the sailboat is white, that sort of thing).

Care to reiterate you question again, of are you actually going to say what is on your mind?

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Originally posted by Coletti
But what you are left with is less real than the abstract concepts. Perceptions are merely physically sensations, stimuli to the brain, with no objective truth. If that is what you consider real, then reality does not include reason or knowledge or language.

Ultimate reality (to mean anything) should be based on knowledge, and knowledge is proposition ...[text shortened]... dge - it is in fact, those mental concepts that we reason about and communicate by language.

You seem to be equating thoughts/concepts with some type of concrete reality, without which, nothing can be known. How can mental concepts ever be regarded as ultimate reality? They are colored by our attachments, our aversions, and our indifference.

If your assertion was true, then one hundred persons experiencing the same event would give only one description of that event. There would be no variance in the perception and understanding of the event. You will find that one hundred persons will give one hundred differing accounts with some similarities owing much to common conditioning.

Originally posted by eagles54
You seem to be equating thoughts/concepts with some type of concrete reality, without which, nothing can be known. How can mental concepts ever be regarded as ultimate reality? They are colored by our attachments, our aversions, and our indifference.

If your assertion was true, then one hundred persons experiencing the same event would give only one desc ...[text shortened]... ll give one hundred differing accounts with some similarities owing much to common conditioning.

That is the rub isn't it? If reality is NOT concepts and thoughts, what is it, and how can we know it?

Remember - I am not arguing for perception as the source of ultimate reality. Perception can not account for knowledge as you have pointed out.

What is reality and how can we know it?

Originally posted by Coletti
That is the rub isn't it? If reality is NOT concepts and thoughts, what is it, and how can we know it?

Remember - I am not arguing for perception as the source of ultimate reality. Perception can not account for knowledge as you have pointed out.

What is reality and how can we know it?

How indeed?

Originally posted by Coletti
What is reality and how can we know it?

Since the ground of experience is the mind, then that is where to look - inwardly.

Originally posted by eagles54
Since the ground of experience is the mind, then that is where to look - inwardly.

But experience does not give us knowledge - only sensation. Experience is unreliable.

Originally posted by Coletti
That is the rub isn't it? If reality is NOT concepts and thoughts, what is it, and how can we know it?

Remember - I am not arguing for perception as the source of ultimate reality. Perception can not account for knowledge as you have pointed out.

What is reality and how can we know it?

There is a Zen saying: “Don’t seek the truth; just drop all your opinions.” Then you may find yourself “face to face” with the truth that is reality unmediated by thoughts, prior to all words or images or thoughts. And if you try to describe it—your words may point to it, like “a finger pointing at the moon,” but the words are never It. Words may offer helpful pictures, but the picture is not the reality it represents.

If one is looking inwardly, they still need to look beyond thoughts and other “mind-makings”:

Behind the makings of your mind,
before all thoughts, images or words,
can you find an “I” that is not just another thought,
another making of your mind?

Originally posted by Coletti
But experience does not give us knowledge - only sensation. Experience is unreliable.

Experience based on conflicting emotions is unreliable, yes, but experience based on a mind free of such emotions is not. I believe it is possible to be free of conflicting emotions.

Originally posted by eagles54
Experience based on conflicting emotions is unreliable, yes, but experience based on a mind free of such emotions is not. I believe it is possible to be free of conflicting emotions.

Experience itself is merely images and emotions recorded into memory. These things are not actual knowledge. Facts are true propositions. We can not experience propositions. Knowledge is known (or knowable) facts. At most, experience can only be used to support what we believe to be knowledge. The experience can not give us knowledge itself.

Originally posted by Coletti
The experience can not give us knowledge itself.

What is this "knowledge" you keep mentioning and how can it be gained except through experience? Is it something that exists outside of human experience?

Originally posted by eagles54
What is this "knowledge" you keep mentioning and how can it be gained except through experience? Is it something that exists outside of human experience?

If we can not know a fact, it is not knowledge. And if we can not speak a fact, then we do not know it.

Knowledge is known of knowable facts. Facts are true propositions. The only sense in which we "experience" knowledge is when we use language to share knowledge, or we use reason to discover knowledge that is new to us.

Experience through sensory inputs is not intelligible. We must have a priori knowledge in order to examine experience to make it intelligible and communicable.

Originally posted by Coletti
Experience itself is merely images and emotions recorded into memory. These things are not actual knowledge. Facts are true propositions. We can not experience propositions. Knowledge is known (or knowable) facts. At most, experience can only be used to support what we believe to be knowledge. The experience can not give us knowledge itself.

To bring this back into a NT context: there are three basic words used for knowledge, episteme (from which we get epistemology), oida (or eidos) and gnosis.

Episteme generally refers to intelligence, understanding, learning, insight, etc.

Eidos can refer to seeing/perception, appearance, form, notion or idea.

Gnosis is used for esoteric or "mystical" knowledge, direct knowing or recognition, sexual intimacy, etc. It does not seem to mean "propositional" knowledge. An example of the use of gnosis is in the first letter of John: "Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love." (4:8)

It seems to me that your statements would pertain to episteme (and perhaps to eidos), but not to gnosis.

NOTE: None of this has anything to do with what came to be called "gnosticism," in terms of early Christian heresies.

on another forum I frequent, someone said this...

"There are two positions: one, that the world derives from truth. People who hold this position are constantly seeking the great universal truth from which all else follows, the source of both meaning and existance, the pure light of the unlimited intellect, the magic power that having access to the fundamental truth will grant.

The other position is that truth derives from the world; that truth is something we extract from the world. People who hold this position are constantly seeking small truths that reflect how the world works. While these truths are powerful and allow us to manipulate parts of the world in useful ways, they remain dependant on the world; should the world change, the truths will change. There is no single, cosmic truth, save for the recognition that all truths are simply abstract approximations of the world".

In Peace, M

Originally posted by vistesd

To bring this back into a NT context: there are three basic words used for knowledge, episteme (from which we get epistemology), oida (or eidos) and gnosis.

Episteme generally refers to intelligenc ...[text shortened]... be called "gnosticism," in terms of early Christian heresies.

I found over 220 uses of know using the Greek ginosko (as used in 1Joh 4:8). In some cases it was a meant to know someone or somebody. It often was translated "aware" and it usually had to do with something that just became known.

As far as mystery - whenever the Bible speaks of mystery - that is knowledge revealed the was once unknown. It all cases I looked at - what was known, or the person was made aware of, or the mystery revealed - was some propositional knowledge. In other words, it was not "mystical" knowledge that we can not understand or articulate, but simple revealed knowledge that can be said in simple propositions.

It also was used in relationships - to know God. And it means to understand, or have knowledge about. Again, it is not so esoteric. To know someone means to know and understand true propositions about that person.

Do a word search on mystery in the New Testament. You will see that it is almost always used in terms of something that was once unknown but is now revealed. It never means something we can not understand (but it can refer to things that are hidden from others).