How do we know? - Page 2

Ok not a bad idea but you expressed it wrong

"a letter be a letter" or a bus be a bus.
A bus is a *bus* because your relating two things which in a small context can be confirmed. A bus is a bus because it was named a bus.

However when you take the "how do we know anything" theory to proper things like "how do we know god exists" well we can never be 100% certain because we are all locked in subjectivity . To draw a definite conclusion is to increase your chances of being wrong. We can never be sure about anything of similar nature.

"does money bring happiness""
"destiny"
"did witches every exist"
"are their supernatural powers available to us"

And so it goes on those are just some lame examples, i guess this brings me back to "ignorance is bliss". Plead ignorant, and beleive that you are 100% right, youll be happier

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We know because we got told that, who was the first to say it? thats something i don't know..

We don't really know - and that's the truth. We only believe we know. What we believe we know we think we know. But we really don't know.

Seeing the subject had changed - I'll go along with instincts. Something that does not speak words within us tells us. Some times we missunderstand because we don't listen to the whole message or don't listen at all, but its there telling us without words.

I guess first thing to do is define what is knowledge.If any of you can answer that,you'll have some of the work cut out for you.

There are no absolutes.However,there are several ways of knowing :
a priory (before experience), a posteriory (after experience),empirical (what we can know by our 5 senses),
inductive knowledge,deductive knowledge,and many others that I'm too lazy to write.
If you have any other questions, reply this one.

stillmind

Certainly, no one here can answer that question in one post. There's a whole study of this exact issue, where people devote their lives to discovering how we know. It's called epistimology.

I'm not even going to begin to touch the issue, because I simply do not know enough about it. However, the answers to most philosophical questions can be found through asking more philosophical questions. Or, if not, at least you got somewhere and worked your mind. So, I pose some questions for you: In the garden of Eden, what was the source of knowledge? Can this be used as a logical base for determining how we know? If so, how? If not, why?

In my humble opinion,no.
There was no garden of eden,as far as i'm concern that's mystical rubbish and would fall inevitably on speculation,not to mention the realm of faith and religion.

Rene

Whether or not you agree with the bible doesn't change the fact that we can look to that as a ground for epistimology.

I'm not afraid to say it - please use smaller words. Some people like me can't speak "Big Wordish".

I don't believe in the garden of Eden, but I like the story. I relate it to us growing up. When we were little, we did not know we were naked and didn't care, then one day we discovered we were naked and was ashamed. This is why we wear clothes. We are the only animals on this earth who wear clothes and are ashamed of our nakedness. We are the only animals on this earth who have knowledge. Why does knowledge make you think you are naked and cause you to be ashamed of your nakedness. I don't know, but its weird, and I do on occasion wonder about it. This is what makes us different from the animals.

Alright, no one seemed to answer the fundamental question I put forth in my first post to this thread.

The idea is that the snake convinced Adam and Eve to eat the fruit of knowledge. What do these two things have in common?

Nature. We learn far more from nature than from anything else. It's our fundamental base of knowledge and our changing world by which we must measure what we know.

The wisdom and fundamental world knowledge of some of the 'uneducated' in underdeveloped parts of the world doesn't even compare to our schooling still. We've fallen away from nature and our Earth as a guider for how we know.

Try observation of the world around you. Not just people, but the balance of the universe. See how carefully balanced our world is and how we have the ability to continue to know so little about it. We can travel to the moon, but until we understand what and where we are, we know little.

What do you mean by "nature".
If you mean that we know how to walk/talk mainly through natural instincts, then yes.
But I don't think I understand what you mean, but do you mean nature teaching us. What IS nature to you and how does it teach us?

"Nature. We learn far more from nature than from anything else." We should, we could, but we don't. We are far from nature. We do not sleep under the stars and drink from the stream and eat from the fruits of the trees. This is the garden of eden, our knoweledge has removed us from this. But if we can learn to say, "I don't know" then will we return again to nature, the garden of eden and learn greater things then we could ever know.

I don't know what the snake represents, on that one, I'm clueless.

yes. good questions.
i like the original post so ill get to that one last. first i'll deal with the adam and eve dilema. First, i think that it is important to read the bible passage in genesis. it is known as the second creation story--this is because it comes after the first one, the one that starts the bible with "in the beginning." Anyhow, when you start to dig into any reading you must know a few important things. 1) who wrote it 2) when did the author write it 3) who did the author write it for.
ok. a lot that information is not available at your local library. but luckily that passage in genesis is with a couple other readings, and it gives us an idea of what the old testament is. What my take on the bible is that it is an etiological piece of literature. meaning it is answering the questions why are the things the way they are. and even tho i am a catholic, i dont believe in this idea of original sin. but the original sin is the reason for the way things are now. if you read the adam and eve passage, at the end we have God's punishment, and how the punishment is that women live under men because eve gave adam the apple. and that mankind have to cultivate the soil.. . you know all the stuff like that. and at the time that this was written, thats the way ppl lived life. women died during childbirth, and ppl striggled to live off the land.

...so that is what the 2nd genesis story is. its not really meant to hold any symbolic value i dont think. even tho it is easy to attribute other things to the characters in the story.

next we have the idea of how do we know that our toes are our toes...bus bus, poop, poo. and so on. always go back to the beginning when trying to solve a problem. for this problem we get to go back to the first language of humans. and at this time, life was still very primitive. you get up, hunt, eat, sleep. and thats life. and while they were together(families, for the most part, maybe moving in packs of 2, 3, or 4 families) they probably had simple ways of communicating. maybe they mimicked bird sounds, or water sounds for ceertain purposes. you know.... mimicking is usually the begining of something. and from then on they probably drew out plans for attacking a fast bird or something. id ont know what the exact process was but over time, the way of communicating started to develop. its just the idea of symbols...attributing one thing to somehting else...and that is meaning. and those symbols are words. and those words are language. at least thats how i see it.

Hi, I recently joined , and just turned 15

Many People Have asked why did God Create Us Humans, Why did God create the Universe and so on. But we have to understand that incentive,reason,benefit etc are all HUMAN emotions, and are not real i.e in REALITY OF GOD. God Didn't create us to be happy or for his own benefit, he just created us. It is a bit like a sculpture who sculpts in a prison. He knows his work will never be sold, but still he makes things, not for his own benefit, but JUST makes it.
People also ask that what is the purpose of life. Well, maybe life itself is the purpose of life! But that is a bit too vague I think. Life is not Purposeless, and will not keep on going on. Everything we see around us, is unreal. This idea does not come from the Matrix, for even IF we were being ruled by machines, the machines would also be unreal! This whole Universe and all of it's laws are unreal, like time etc. It is bit like a programmer who programms a video game. He can programm the video game that when the A button is pressed, then the person inside will jump and NOT fire. For the person inside the laws apply and evrything is real, but in the programmers reality it is not real and he may change the rules, but althougth he may set any sort of bizzare rules, he still ha s to follow them. You can take the programmer as being God and The game as being the Universe.
So after this universe ends, a select few of human kind will go on to the' Real ' world, maybe the world of angels or spirits etc. OUR lif's purpose is that we move on to the Real world.
People also ask what happened before the universe. Its like asking what went on inside a computer before it was invented! Nothing happened before this universe, yet everything! There was no material world, only the 'real' world.And after all of this finishes, only that will be left.

quote:

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We don't really know - and that's the truth. We only believe we know. What we believe we know we think we know. But we really don't know.

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quote:

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There are no absolutes.However,there are several ways of knowing :
a priory (before experience), a posteriory (after experience),empirical (what we can know by our 5 senses),
inductive knowledge,deductive knowledge,and many others that I'm too lazy to write.

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quote:

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Nature. We learn far more from nature than from anything else. It's our fundamental base of knowledge and our changing world by which we must measure what we know.

The wisdom and fundamental world knowledge of some of the 'uneducated' in underdeveloped parts of the world doesn't even compare to our schooling still. We've fallen away from nature and our Earth as a guider for how we know.

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Thanks for the input guys. I have qouted some of the things that have helped me understand my own question and some of my thought proccess.

Em