Can we have absolute knowledge of reality?

Uncertainty Principle says No.

samonedo said:

How can a person be absolutely sure of anything, if humans are not all-knowing? Does the word "faith" equate "100% sure"?

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The question is incoherent. As soon as you said "absolute", "knowledge", and "reality", you have already made tons of assumptions behind those notions that require a great deal of knowledge on your part. You will need to explain what you mean by those notions and then rephrase the question. My bet is that as soon as you start unpacking them, you will answer your own question.

By the way, for those who still doubt the external reality and knowledge, I always suggest putting a gun to the head and trying to pull the trigger. See how fast you'll do it with the premise that there is no absolute knowledge of what's going to happen....


DJP

We have at best a provisional understanding of reality, but our planes fly and our planet doesn't explode, so I have no complaints.

DJPavel said:

By the way, for those who still doubt the external reality and knowledge, I always suggest putting a gun to the head and trying to pull the trigger. See how fast you'll do it with the premise that there is no absolute knowledge of what's going to happen....

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Reasonable and justifiable caution cannot be extrapolated into knowledge and overwhelmingly probable outcomes cannot be called certainty.

funyun said:

Reasonable and justifiable caution cannot be extrapolated into knowledge

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Then what do you mean by "knowledge". Please elaborate, as I'm confused by your comment.

funyun said:

and overwhelmingly probable outcomes cannot be called certainty.

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While an individual outcome cannot be certain, the fact that shots from your gun follow a probability distribution *is* certain. If I have enough information about your gun, I can find a specific probability that my brains would be blown off if I pull the trigger, with certainty. This probabilty *is* the kind of knowledge that allowed me to survive and have this conversation. I can't see any other kind of knowledge there to be had. To talk about Platonic ideal certainties is really kind of old and boring these days, unless you simply have fascination with them and disregard their usefullness. I can myself artificially create a few categories and then pigeonhole everything I can think of into them - not impressive and productive any longer, in my opinion of course.

DJP

DJPavel said:

Then what do you mean by "knowledge". Please elaborate, as I'm confused by your comment.
While an individual outcome cannot be certain, the fact that shots from your gun follow a probability distribution *is* certain. If I have enough information about your gun, I can find a specific probability that my brains would be blown off if I pull the trigger, with certainty. This probabilty *is* the kind of knowledge that allowed me to survive and have this conversation. I can't see any other kind of knowledge there to be had. To talk about Platonic ideal certainties is really kind of old and boring these days, unless you simply have fascination with them and disregard their usefullness. I can myself artificially create a few categories and then pigeonhole everything I can think of into them - not impressive and productive any longer, in my opinion of course.

DJP

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I think he's talking about knowledge in this sort of classical, absolute sense. Is this the true world, is the chair on which you sit real, and so on and so forth.

samonedo said:

How can a person be absolutely sure of anything, if humans are not all-knowing? Does the word "faith" equate "100% sure"?

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We can be absolutely sure that one plus one equals two. We can also be absolutely sure we cannot be absolutly sure.

Does that include that statement.

elman said:

We can be absolutely sure that one plus one equals two. We can also be absolutely sure we cannot be absolutly sure.

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No, you can't. It's context dependent. For example, 1c (C is a constant for speed of light) + 1C does NOT equal 2C. In fact, any one measurement unit of speed plus another does NOT equal two of those units. 1 liter of alcohol plus 1 liter of water does NOT yield 2 liters of liquid; 1 drop of water combined with another drop do not give you 2 drops...

We use number abstractions to denote specific things for specific purposes. We do the same things with categories, but those categories have nothing to do with reality. For example, we consider that a coin toss is random, and we use it as such. However, we know that if we had enough information and tools to calculate the initial velocity, positions, air density, etc. we would predict what the coin will show when dropped. It's the same thing with categories such as "relative" and "absolute", "physical" and "metaphysical", etc. We artificially create these categories to classify things we would like to differentiate, but these categories have nothing to do with reality, just like the biological life classification into kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species. This classification is NOT real, it's artificially made to serve a specific purpose.

The only difference between the life classification and universals-particulars is that the latter is our tradition inherited from a long time ago (Plato) and is so ingrained in our mentality that it is difficult to let it go. I would say that the whole field of Metaphysics is pretty much dead now. The terms like "ontology" and "metaphysical" are really used for linguistic practical purposes to talk about interesting notions at their "denoting" level. Mentioning these terms doesn't imply that there is some thing in itself behind this notion in question on some other level of reality.

If you disagree, I'd like you to take one well establsihed category, such as relative/absolute and justify the existence of this category on a metaphysical level, the level outside the practical purpose of this category to address a specific human need.

How about I'll make up one right now. Let's say zukaluna is everything we can talk about and meta-zukaluna is evryething we cannot talk about. Now I'm going to argue for the existence of things outside our perception (things we can't talk about) because the notion of "zukaluna" now presumes the existence of "meta-zukaluna". Once you buy into the category, the conclusion of the things outside our reality becomes the necessity. Would I convince you with the existence of other reality with such argument?? I hope not! But that's exactly what the category of "meta-physics" has done to our mentality. The only difference between my category and physics/metaphysics is that the latter came from the revered sources like Plato, Descarte, Kant and other rationalists. How can you question these guys?!?!?

As far as I'm concerned, there are more interesting things for philosphers these days than pondering old age metaphysics, such as weirdness of Quantum Mechanics and the "hard problem" of consciousness. It's time to let the absolute notions go, just like we did with the four elements, the flatness of the Earth, and being the center of the Universe.....


DJP

People cannot be sure of anything. I'm not sure people exist, but I see them often enough to think they do. It's the same with gravity. We can only assume things exist if they happen often enough. Any good scientist will tell you they don't have perfect knowledge.

AuraTwilight said:

Uncertainty Principle says No.

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The uncertainty principle states that an observer cannot know both the mass and position of an atom.

How can a person be absolutely sure of anything, if humans are not all-knowing? Does the word "faith" equate "100% sure"?

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The only 100% guarantee is that your mind exists.

Faith implies a process other then reason to arrive at a conclusion.

It is an attempt at logic, not logic itself.

redmartian89 said:

The only 100% guarantee is that your mind exists.

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But we cannot conclude that the mind is any sort of persistent self. For all we know, it could merely be a bundle of perceptions.

I agree with RecoveringPhilosophers statement on the first page.

But;

But we cannot conclude that the mind is any sort of persistent self. For all we know, it could merely be a bundle of perceptions.

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This is true, but cognitive science blends both philosophical and scientific branches to study the nature of the self, or atleast certain formalities of its composition. It does exist(if your not an idealist), even if it is a bundle of perceptions.

What is called into question with this recent upbringing within this quest for the nature of self(since such concepts of personality have been called into question; which is, multiple-personality-disorder, lack of identity, etc) is the consciousness in-itself. And it seems philosophy has shifted much of its study of the self towards both the;as you call it, bundle of perceptions, and the consciousness. And knit-picks between the two.

I don't think anything can be determined absolutely except for the realization of personal existence.

I hesitate to use the word "mind", but what I mean is close enough. I can't prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that this entire world that I've been seeing has not been an elaborate dream of mine, but the fact that I'm considering it means some type of personal existence is present.

There are no absolutes. In everything we do there will always be some small amount of error. We can do our best to compensate for it and to reduce it, but it will be there.

For social reality this uncertainty is even greater. People view their own society in different ways, look at the vastness of the political spectrum. None of these groups are necessarily wrong, if their body of people can actually live in their society. But this doesn't mean that another idea won't work either. In the west we have adopted a republic system of government, but who's to say that socialism or a dictatorship couldn't work? In a particularly small society a pure democracy may be possible, but in a country of millions this is too impractical.

At best, we can have 100% certainty that our own minds exist since it is logically impossible to question your own existence without existing.

But since everything else is based off of how our mind interprets what comes from outside, we can never have absolute 100% certainty if anything else exists.

samonedo said:

Can we have absolute knowledge of reality?

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I don´t even know what that is supposed to mean "absolute knowledge of reality". A lot of definition work would have to be done first.

For me, this does not seem to be an issue or goal anyways. Rather, I am busy finding explanations that make sense to me for that which I perceive.

samonedo said:

How can a person be absolutely sure of anything, if humans are not all-knowing?

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I don´t see how not being all-knowing would necessarily exclude knowing some things for sure.

Does the word "faith" equate "100% sure"?

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There are many different meanings applied to the word "faith" out there. As far as I can see, religion sort of defines it as being certain although having no compelling reason to be certain.

samonedo said:

How can a person be absolutely sure of anything, if humans are not all-knowing? Does the word "faith" equate "100% sure"?

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I sweat. I breathe. I bleed. I'm aware. Reality is real, if not in this world, then in teh waking world (but I doubt that this is a dream), if you're going to go all "Matrix" world on us.

samonedo said:

Does the word "faith" equate "100% sure"?

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Faith faith does not equate to "100% sure". If you are 100% sure of something, you don't have to have faith in it or believe it, because you know it. Faith is an easy way to fill the gaps of knowledge when you aren't 100% sure.