How does one attain knowledge?

[WisdomTree]

[deleted].

 

[Resha Caner]

... the poll will deal with just three schools of thoughts.

What poll? And what 3 schools?

How does one attain knowledge? Knowledge is in the eye of the beholder, and the rest is largely an attempt to sell - usually by trying to justify an objective standard. In human terms I think that impossible.

 

[WisdomTree]

Sorry, there was supposed to be a poll, but the system crashed and now it won't let me add the poll.

 

[Resha Caner]

Sorry, there was supposed to be a poll, but the system crashed and now it won't let me add the poll.

Sometimes I have problems creating polls too. Just try again.

 

[Gracchus]

In any case, the question of how we attain knowledge can be better addressed by neurophysiology than by philosophy.

 

[TScott]

In any case, the question of how we attain knowledge can be better addressed by neurophysiology than by philosophy.

How exactly does neuroscience address knowledge?

Is knowledge just the processing of sensory input? Or is is it the accumulation of information stored in our memory? Or Both?

What about qualia? Isn't that included in knowledge. How does neurophysiology deal with qualia?

 

[WisdomTree]

How do you delete this thread?

 

[Redac]

How do you delete this thread?

Just PM a mod and have them close it or delete it.

 

[JonF]

In any case, the question of how we attain knowledge can be better addressed by neurophysiology than by philosophy.

Disagree. Neurophysichology isn't even equipped to define knowledge. I personally like Kant's transcendental idealism.

 

[Gracchus]

How exactly does neuroscience address knowledge?

By studying which areas of the brain are activated as we learn.

Is knowledge just the processing of sensory input? Or is is it the accumulation of information stored in our memory? Or Both?

a bit of both, I think.

What about qualia? Isn't that included in knowledge. How does neurophysiology deal with qualia?

I had to look that up! Thanks!

"qua·le (kwäl)
n. pl. qua·li·a (-l-)
A property, such as whiteness, considered independently from things having the property.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[From Latin qule, neuter of qulis, of what kind; see quality.]"

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.


When you see somethink white, your brain stores it. And when you see something that is "white" all those different areas where "white" things are stored form a committee, take a vote and return the opinion, "white".

In the real world, of course, qualia are not ever independent of the of the things having the property.

 

[Gracchus]

Disagree. Neurophysichology isn't even equipped to define knowledge. I personally like Kant's transcendental idealism.

You like it. How nice for both of you.

But neurophysiology, using MRI technology, can actually watch the brain while it thinks. We are beginning to understand the neurophysiology of "morality" and religion, and how those things evolved.

It must be a very scary idea for those who don't like to occasionally check their assumptions and reasoning against the real world.

 

[TScott]

By studying which areas of the brain are activated as we learn.

But what does that really tell us about knowledge. That's why I brought up qualia, because there are certain aspects of knowledge that are difficult for neurophysiology to deal with. IMO Neurophysiology deals with the syntax component of knowledge, but so far has not dealt with the semantical component. There is a certain subjectivity to our mind that in my opinion is key to the way we gain knowledge. That subjectivity is the major component of qualia-it's a component I don't think we can even put our finger on, let alone understand.

Try to explain to me what green looks like to you.

Describe the sensation you get when you hit your finger with a hammer.

You have the knowledge of green, you can remember the pain from the time you hit your finger, but trying to describe it is nearly impossible. It seems that knowledge we have that is processed entirely inside our mind, or almost entirely is easier for us to relate, but for some reason sensory information is more difficult.

Now, there are some philosophers in the field of neuroscience who have been grappling with the problem of qualia, and there are some neurobiologists who are now grudgingly listening to them. Of course, there is the problem of funding. In the field of AI there is not much interest in qualia, because frankly nobody cares about subjectivity when it comes to AI...all right I'm rambling now. That's enough!

 

[Gracchus]

Try to explain to me what green looks like to you.

Describe the sensation you get when you hit your finger with a hammer.

You have the knowledge of green, you can remember the pain from the time you hit your finger, but trying to describe it is nearly impossible. It seems that knowledge we have that is processed entirely inside our mind, or almost entirely is easier for us to relate, but for some reason sensory information is more difficult.

If I hit my finger with a hammer, certain centers in my brain, light up. If I see you hit your finger with a hammer, have\ing already had the same experience, those same centers in my brain will light up again. the neurons involved are called "mirror neurons", and are the bases of sympathy and empathy. Now it is true that what you experienced may not be what I experienced, but I'll bet we both found it unpleasant. Since similar experiences produce similar reactions, there is no reason to muddle about with quibbles over whether we experienced the same things.

And maybe we don't perceive the same thing when we see something "green", but unless we disagree about which things are green, there is no reason to draw distinctions.

 

[JonF]

It must be a very scary idea for those who don't like to occasionally check their assumptions and reasoning against the real world.

What is even scarier is when people don't bother to attempt to understand a post and give a generalized response that is no way relevant. Good attempt at being belittling though...

 

[TScott]

If I hit my finger with a hammer, certain centers in my brain, light up. If I see you hit your finger with a hammer, have\ing already had the same experience, those same centers in my brain will light up again. the neurons involved are called "mirror neurons", and are the bases of sympathy and empathy. Now it is true that what you experienced may not be what I experienced, but I'll bet we both found it unpleasant. Since similar experiences produce similar reactions, there is no reason to muddle about with quibbles over whether we experienced the same things.

And maybe we don't perceive the same thing when we see something "green", but unless we disagree about which things are green, there is no reason to draw distinctions.

but you are just telling me about the mechanical aspects of the knowledge of the color green. Explain to me in words what it looks like.

Look, I have a friend I grew up with that was blind from birth. I remember talking to him one time about the car I wanted. I was telling him how cool it looked. I described its shape and lines to him and I told him that it was bright red. He asked me what red looked like. Then I remembered that this was a favorite line of his whenever someone would tell him the color of something. There was no way to explain what the color red looked like.
That's the deal. Thats qualia.

Same with trying to explain what it feels like to hit your finger with a hammer. Sure you can demonstrate what it feels like but try to explain the experience in words. You can say that it's a sharp pain but you can't explain what a sharp pain feels like.

That's qualia, and that's a major component of knowledge that we do not understand. It's the subjectivity of our psyche that helps us be creative, and we're not sure how it works.

 

[WonderBeat]

Attaining knowledge is realizing that this world was over a long, long, long time ago...

 

[KCfromNC]

but you are just telling me about the mechanical aspects of the knowledge of the color green. Explain to me in words what it looks like.

I'll ignore the fact that green isn't an object, so there's no "it" to talk about.

It's light with a wavelength of around 510nm, and it looks like those things which emit or reflect that frequency of light. But I imagine you're asking a different question here, so I'll let you elaborate.

Look, I have a friend I grew up with that was blind from birth. I remember talking to him one time about the car I wanted. I was telling him how cool it looked. I described its shape and lines to him and I told him that it was bright red. He asked me what red looked like. Then I remembered that this was a favorite line of his whenever someone would tell him the color of something. There was no way to explain what the color red looked like.
That's the deal. Thats qualia.

OK, certain people can't know certain things due to problems in their nervous system. I don't think that's particularly controversial.

Same with trying to explain what it feels like to hit your finger with a hammer. Sure you can demonstrate what it feels like but try to explain the experience in words. You can say that it's a sharp pain but you can't explain what a sharp pain feels like.

You seem to be talking about inherent problems in language. There's no question these things can be known and it's the brain doing the knowing, but it's hard to communicate them without some sort of shared experience. I'm not sure how that's supposed to be an objection to the idea that neuroscience can tell us how the brain acquires and stores knowledge.

 

[Resha Caner]

You seem to be talking about inherent problems in language. There's no question these things can be known and it's the brain doing the knowing, but it's hard to communicate them without some sort of shared experience. I'm not sure how that's supposed to be an objection to the idea that neuroscience can tell us how the brain acquires and stores knowledge.

Yeah, neuroscience can tell us some things about how the brain acquires and stores knowledge. The interesting tension I see here is that some may be trying to restrict the definition of knowledge just to what neuroscience can say while others are expanding the definition beyond what neuroscience can say.

It may be somewhat secondary to the OP, but the root of the problem involves issues of defining what knowledge is and mind-body questions about whether the mind is more than the brain.

I'm not an expert in neuroscience, but my understanding is that while brains are generally the same, they are not specifically the same. So, while the knowledge that being hit by a hammer is painful may be stored in similar parts of the brain, the specifics of how it is stored is different for each person ... and one neuron may serve multiple functions (i.e. store multiple bits of information) in ways unique to the individual.

The question I don't think neuroscience is answering then, is why individuals choose these unique structures for the information ... which leads to philosophical questions like:
* Why do people respond differently to being hit by the hammer?
* Why are pain thresholds different for different people?

Or, with respect to the green question:
* Why do some people like green while others are ambivalent toward it and yet others dislike it?

So, do these opinions constitute knowledge?

 

[Spaceman_Spiff]

By killing and eating the brain of someone smarter than you.

 

[TScott]

I'll ignore the fact that green isn't an object, so there's no "it" to talk about.

See, what we're talking about is knowledge. I'm sure you aren't thinking that knowledge can only be about "objects" are you? I mean, a simultaneous linear equation is certainly not an "object" now is it, KC? However, I can describe an equation to you in perfect detail. What I am discussing here is a component of knowledge that neuroscience is trying to understand and that is the component known as qualia.

It's light with a wavelength of around 510nm, and it looks like those things which emit or reflect that frequency of light. But I imagine you're asking a different question here, so I'll let you elaborate.

Yeah, the question is what does green look like? Explain to me what green, or any other color, looks like.

You seem to be talking about inherent problems in language. There's no question these things can be known and it's the brain doing the knowing, but it's hard to communicate them without some sort of shared experience.

Has nothing to do with sharing an experience, but instead has to do with the way we process information. Don't share, just explain to yourself in your mind what green looks like. You may be able to picture green, you may be able to "see" a green lime, for example, but how can you describe "green".

It probably seems like "so what?", but to people who are trying to understand how the human mind works this stuff is an important challenge. It goes to the root of what exactly is consciousness. We can build artificial minds, computers, and they can store knowledge without being conscious of the knowledge they contain. Computers work with syntax only, there is nothing semantical about the way a computer processes information. With humans there are other dynamics involved with the way we process information and obtain knowledge, semantics being one. This is where we get the personal preference that Resha is describing.