Can I conclude from your statement that you accept there are other means for acquiring knowledge besides science?
Hmmm. I'ld rather say that I'm not ruling it out.
I wouldn't know what such methods would look like and / or how they could be more reliable then science...
I'm just saying,
at this point, given what we know and understand, I'ld say that science is the best method we know of.
And that, while you think science is more reliable, these methods are at least not random?
Would entirely depend on the method. I can't answer that question without going into specifics.
I would agree with that for many cases, but not necessarily all - for example the simple case I gave earlier of knowing someone's name. It seems people sometimes confuse metaphorical uses of terms like "hypothesize" and "test" and then conclude all kinds of things are science.
Disagree. Someone's name is registered in official documents. You can thus verify someone's name with those documents.
Having said that, it's not really the same thing. A name is, after all, just a label. Reality doesn't change if Bart changes his name into Tom.
A scientific test for someone's name would involve the ability to identify the specific construct in the brain that retains a name in memory
No. It would involve looking at his passport / id / drivers license / etc.
You would then need to know the reliability of identifying that construct. You might be required to test for the construct in the brains of multiple people who know the person.
Nope. Because all those people could be wrong about the name. The person in question could have told 5 independent third parties a different name each time.
The correct name, will be found on the official documents. And it wouldn't matter what people would claim the name to be. The correct name is on that document.
A second, less intrusive method might be a statistical study regarding how often people lie about their name (or the name of others). You could then ask the requisite number of people until a consistent answer with the desired confidence level emerged.
But both of those are laborious, intrusive, expensive approaches, and I'm not convinced the results would be any more reliable than simply asking a person their name.
And all of these approaches would become futile, if you would just read what it says on the person's official id / passport / drivers license. And you could even double check if those things are actually real or forgeries.
I agree with the second part. We can't know in and of ourselves. That would require us to be all-knowing. The best we could ever do is trust that something else is all-knowing.
I wouldn't use the word "trust" here. Since there would be no way to find out, the correct word is "believe". You would just have to take someone on their word that he/she is all-knowing.
But maybe we could produce some good conjectures ... though I expect the result would be pretty useless. For example, we could imagine the "universe" as the container of all things. As such, it contains all knowledge and all power.
I think this is an equivocation problem.
When we talk about what the universe
contains, in this context it would be "information and energy".
"all-knowing" would then be something like "having access / being aware of ALL that information".
"all-powerfull" would then be the ability to manipulate / work with all the energy available.
So let's talk degrees of knowing then. Can we know that something knows more or is more powerful than we are?
That seems obvious.
For example, I don't require any special arguments or reasons or whatever, to realise that ,let's say, a Stephen Hawking is vastly more knowledgeable concerning physics then I am.
I think knowing who created something would generally be a good way to identify those with more knowledge/power than us. In order for an engineer to produce a successful prototype of an automobile, he has to know a lot about the mechanics of how it operates, and therefore very likely knows more about automobiles than the average person.
Agreed in terms of the engineer being more knowledgeable then the average non-engineer, concerning engineering.
However, disagree in terms of being "more powerfull".
An engineer has the exact same "power" at his disposable as the next random human.
We are all human with physical human limits (assuming healthy people with no disabilities).
An engineer doesn't have some special limbs that allow him to swing a hammer more efficiently or something.
There is, on principle, nothing that an engineer can physically accomplish that any other human isn't physically able to accomplish as well.
That would further mean he has more ability (more power) to manipulate how an automobile performs.
I don't understand "power" in that sense. To me, that still falls under being more knowledgeable concerning engineering principles.
So, do you think we could then identify what has the maximum possible knowledge/power? If not, of what you know, what do you think has the most knowledge/power?
Humans. Some humans are more knowledgeable in some area's as opposed to others, but will be less knowledgeable in others.
For example... Hawking knows more about physics then I do. But I'll be a million dollars that I'll know more about the anime series Dragonball.
Dawkins knows more about biology then me, but I'll know more about software engineer then him.
So within the group of humans, I think the "more knowledge" thingy, evens out if we don't limit ourselves to any specific field.
Power-wise... Same. In the end, we all have virtually the same biological build-up. We all have pretty much the same potential.
So, to conclude... of all the entities that I am currently aware of... I'ld say we humans are the most knowledgeable and the most powerfull.
