Russian Brain in a Jar

Epistemology is the study of knowledge.

When you don’t think about knowledge, you may believe that you know what it is, but when you start thinking about it, you realize it is more complex than a single believe.

It is common to believe that knowledge is a storage for perceived experiences and ideas. That something gets put in, and then retrieved later. The information gets stored on a  hard disk we call memory, and the search engine of the mind works differently within each person. Some even think that education is about sharpening that retrieval of the mind, and about storing as much ideas and information into that mind as possible.

First of all, knowledge is an active agent. It affects everything you do, and it becomes everything you do. The information does not only come from the outside. There are some that are internal, seemingly from birth, for an example the knowledge about needing to feed, and then later on, when learning logic and math, it seems that you discover an internal truth, not receiving external revelations.

We also wonder what memory is. How do you retrieve information stored within memory, and how is it stored, how do you select what to store, and why? Is it true that everything you have observed, and perhaps everything you have perceived, gets stored within that memory, and all you need is a technical skill to retrieve it? How can we tell the difference between a fading memory and an active imagination?

Theory has distinguished between two types of memory: A priori, which is knowledge regardless of experiences, and A posteriori, which is knowledge depending on experiences. When you have established that difference, you may ask yourself, which type of knowledge is more valuable? Some may go to extreme measures and claim that either of those two is valuable and the other has no value, and that is how you start getting furious oppositions, such as between science, which is A posteriori knowledge, and religion, which is perhaps based on A priori knowledge. There are some that believe neither is possible, that there simply is no knowledge. Those people we call sceptics. Then there are those who believe both have value, and that being sensitive to context is important when evaluating those values.

Which authority knows more about the truth to this claim: 1+2 = 3. Would that authority come from inside the person, or from outside? Would a brain in a jar know?

We can say that A priori is first hand knowledge, where the authority is yourself, and A posteriori second-hand knowledge is where the authority is something external. What makes this complicated is that sometimes it is hard to tell the difference between what is internal and what is external. Your organs for retrieving information from the outside, for an example, are they an authority or a connection to external authority? Could you know something if you had no perceiving organs active?

As you can hopefully see by now, or have discovered, that epistemology is a fruitful study, and often confusing, since it is, just like logic, about something we take for granted. We may assume that it all simply is there. But what if that’s not true?

Aren’t you a little curious about knowing if all your knowledge is true knowledge or not, or a set of believes that have resemblance to knowledge, but do in no way represent something known, but merely believed about the world?

Aren’t you a little curious about the relationship between knowing and believing?

Can there be any knowledge without belief? If not, does that believe have to pass through some requirements to become knowledge? Would that knowledge ever become absolute certainty? Can we be certain about anything at all?

As you may see, thinking about knowledge generates challenging questions, better dealt with by dialogue, or at least by thinking, to start with.

Do you know what you know, what you believe, what you don’t know, and what you don’t believe?

Picture: The Personal Webpage of Steve Mahler

A fragment of our starry sky
Source: Hubblesite.org

Metaphysics is a study about the world, untainted by any assumptions, theological or scientific, unless it specifically states it. Legend says that the name was given by Aristotle because he ordered it before a book about physics, but Metaphysics could be understood as what comes before physics. I don’t go with that entertaining notion.

Meta also refers to a study within a study. So, meta physics would be the study of physics within physics. Or perhaps without physics?

The meaning of the word is not necessarily the same as the meaning of the concept.

If you have ever wondered about the world, you have done some initial metaphysics. If you continue wondering about the world, and study your ideas with logic, then you start doing metaphysics.

Who hasn’t looked up at the sky on a starry night and wondered how big the world is, and if you knew truly how big it was, would that essentially change all our believes about the world?

I have gone to a conference where the subject was ‘the world’. Different experts discussed the concept, but none of their ideas were close to mine, even though what they discussed in my opinion, were fragments of the world.

Some defined the world as a sphere, a globe, frictions. They were obviously being “Earth-centric”, assuming that nothing discussed within their scope went beyond Earth, even though one lecturer mentioned that we used our imagination to see what the world is, and added that we could imagine ourselves traveling through space and zooming to Earth, and then ending in a leaf on a tree. I liked that thought. But it was “Earth-centric”.

Our world is as big as our awareness of it, and our awareness of the world, changes how we experience it.

A person who thinks the world is nothing but his own neighborhood isn’t exactly on the same level as a person who thinks the world is a country, who isn’t on the same level as the one who thinks the world is the Earth, who isn’t on the same level as the one who includes space and the unknown in his world view.

When you think about the world, you quickly start wondering about the difference between time and space, changes and the permanent, everything and nothing, realities and possibilities; and you may even start thinking about whether time is something permanent or changing. If you start thinking about that, you will never end.

Metaphysics is where you find wonder, and wonder is where all philosophy begins.

Religion, science and mythology are attempts to answer metaphysical questions. Every scientific thesis is at heart a metaphysical question and statement about the world, that will either be proven true or false; or failing to do so.

When Thor, the god of the weather in Nordic myths, swings his hammer in the sky while riding a chariot driven by giant goats that can fly, it is trying to explain what storms are, and you only attempt to explain what storms are if you have ever wondered.

We could say the same about the surprisingly fruitful subject of Nothingness. If you haven’t given it a thought, you may imagine that thinking about Nothing is a play with words, or mere nonsense, or something that will leave you nowhere, wherever that is.

My experience with Nothingness, is that it is just as complex a concept as Time, Space, Everything, Possibilities, and so on.

Imagine the concept of nothingness:

• What would be seen if there was no light in the world?
• What would be left to touch if there were no objects?
• Are Emptiness and Nothing the same phenomena?
• Can Nothing even be a phenomena?
• Is Nothing possibly an absence of a phenomena?

Allow yourself the luxury to think about it. You may believe that it’s worthless, both before and after doing it. But my experience is different. It’s access into a metaphysical understanding of the world, where you may discover why religion and science came into being in the first place.

Formally, Metaphysics splits into various different areas:

1. Ontology: The Study of Being
2. Theology: The Study of the Divine Order
3. Science: The Study of the Universal Order
4. Cosmology: The Study of the Universe

Hopefully, we get to explore these areas further, in later articles.

Thinking about thinking

Logic is the philosophical study of thought and reason. The aim of logic is to build arguments that infallibly correlate with what is true.

We should teach logic at primary school, secondary school, preparatory school and at all university levels. To start teaching logic at kindergarten would not be far-fetched either. I have heard many people claim that math and grammar teach logic indirectly.

Is it true?

Grammar studies the structure of language. While structure of language is correct or incorrect, it has nothing to do with if the sentence turns out  true or false, or how true sentences connect, or how you can discover a falsehood through pure logic.

Mathematics, however, practice reasoning skills. That is true. However, mathematics only explore a narrow field within logic, neglecting what I consider the most important subject of them all: Critical thinking.

Critical thinking (sometimes called Argumentation) is an international educational movement that promotes teaching logic. It encompasses Informal logic, Formal logic, Symbolic logic and Mathematical logic.

But we do all think, don’t we? And if we do think, why would we have to learn it?

Well, that is the choice, isn’t it?

If you want to think well, you must study logic; but if you want to know why you would want to study logic, you would have to reason, right? Catch 22, anyone?

I love the way Matthew Lipman introduces logic to children through his philosophical novel, Harry Stottlemeier’s Discovery, where Harry, a young boy about 10 years old, is sitting by his desk in the classroom while the teacher is talking about planets. For some reason, Harry’s mind wanders away from the discussion in the classroom, but when the teacher asks him a question, and he gives the wrong answer, and the class laughs at him, he feels shame for now having reasoned well, and decides not to make that happen again. So he starts constructing rules for his own reasoning.

The first rule he discovers is that if you turn a true sentence around that starts with “All”, it will become false, unless both the first part of the sentence and the second part contain same meaning. He plays around with sentences like:

All dogs are mammals

After turning it around he gets:

All mammals are dogs

He continues exploring, and so will the student do who reads the novel.

My daughter just started reading this novel for herself. She is twelve. She told me that the day after she couldn’t help thinking about turning sentences around, and she loved doing it. It was fun. And she talked with her friends about this theory, and they attempted their own sentences. So she is spreading philosophy among 12 year olds.

She has discovered a sense of wonder about generalizations. It’s a first step into a bright new world.

I couldn’t be more proud of her.

Picture: C Squares

The Tree of Life in "Avatar"

Since philosophy is a human activity, done by millions of people, throughout centuries, that tree has become rather large, and those branches are reaching pretty far. They are, however, very far from touching the sun or becoming the final knowledge of these five different areas of human values.

Those values are: Thought, Knowledge, Justice, Beauty, and World. All philosophy aims for discovering the truth about these values and all those values and facts implicated and connected with these five areas of humanity.

If you think about it, those values I just mentioned are not facts, they are all ideas manifested in philosophy, the history of civilization, and reflected in each person. We may call the perspective each person has on those values: perspective or opinion, but a perspective or an opinion are never universally true or false, merely proper and convincing for the person in case or not. Philosophy attempts to reach beyond that singular perspective, to find the truth about those values from everyone who has anything to say something about it, struggling to find true knowledge and not a shallow believe.

Those five ares are:

1. On Thought and Truth: Logic
2. On Knowledge and Belief: Epistemology
3. On Justice and Right: Ethics
4. On Beauty and Attention: Aesthetics
5. On World and Possibilities: Metaphysics

You may wonder what tools we use to study those values, and yes, paradoxically, we use thought to study what thought is, and trust our thinking while studying all the other branches as well. Logic, actually, is the foundation for the study of all sciences. We must think during all investigations, which makes me wonder why educational curriculum worldwide does not put more emphasis on logic as a subject. Some may believe that mathematics teaches logic, while that is not true. Mathematics is only a small part of the area of logic, and we would be better off if everyone became more familiar with its wonders.

Perhaps the greatest problem with studying thinking, is how confusing it becomes at times, and within education and society there is more inclination towards stability and security, even though the stability and security happens to be false by itself. A false stability and security do however, give you a sense of security, and that sense of security may actually be one of the main reasons logic and philosophy are not universally taught at school. Philosophy and logic introduce doubts about fundamental ideas, and there are some people in power, in most societies and at most times, who might feel threatened by critical thought, and the manifestations of doubt.

Image: From “Avatar” (2009)

A philosopher asks questions and attempts to answer them. All those questions people ask and normally do not find time to think about. Philosophers think about those ideas together. Philosophy is basically a search engine and every single human being on earth is a site with relevant information. What is cool, is that the greatest sites reach back thousands of years, and are just as valid today as they were then.

Philosophical answers, hypothesis, theories, or systems are developed over time, and probably never completed with a final fixation. What happens to the philosopher while trying to answer those questions, and finding the questions worth asking, is an interesting process, since that person experiences an increased sharpness of mind, deeper understanding of language, and a higher sense of wonder. When a question has been answered, perhaps roused by philosopher’s wonder, what remains is an answer, but also a continuing sense of wonder that goes on into further questions about the new discovery.

Philosophy seems to have no end. Possibly it has no beginning either. It is like a flow that goes on from generation to generation, always bringing fresh water from a clear mountain river to searching minds. Taking the water directly from the source is one of those things that make philosophy so remarkable. If you just drink what has been through the system over and over again, you are likely to survive, but will your mind truly live, if you don’t give it the freedom to access those significant questions, and let it participate in the challenge instead of merely receiving answers that are possibly not even true?

The philosopher becomes a more thoughtful person. Ideas start to click. Dots get connected. Thoughts start doubting thoughts. Confirming others. Opinions become bread that can be sliced through with the sharp blades of reason. Some opinions, the most stubborn ones, turn to rock, that break the blade, but since philosophy is such a flexible creature, it can change shape and might hollow that rock with time.

Watch this video. It introduces in 15 minutes what philosophy is about. If you find it attractive, stick around.