The Ivory Tower and the pursuit of knowledge

[reedfish]

I would advise pondering the meaning of these 3 verbs:

1- thinking
2- believing
3- knowing

Thinking is a general hypothesis. Believing is considering the hypothesis to be true. Knowing is proving the hypothesis.

Any 5 year old can imagine a scenario in which any "proven" thing turns out to be innaccurate. For example, humans live for 1 million years. And they dream for 100 years at a time. So, your entire life is a dream. When you'll wake up, you'll realize this universe does not really exist and you'll be in a whole different reality with purple dinosaurs with pink stripes.

I can't prove that, of course. But the beauty of it is you can't disprove it either And it's just an exagerrated example, I'm sure you could come up with something more "credible" that still puts a big ???????? on everything we think we "know".

Sooooo... Be careful when you say you "know" something

"Knowing is delusion;
Not knowing is confusion"

Step out of the knowing/not knowing duality and the problem is solved!

*High-fives* Agua del Cielo

*High-fives* Agua del Cielo

kenv - greetings!

I don't have to be right, I don't have to be wrong. I just have to be. How do I know you "know", and how do you know I know or don't know? And then when we get done debating that, the question becomes "why does it matter?" I either know or don't know, and I have no idea how much I know. What I do "know" is I have a working hypothesis on how the world works that is under constant refinement that satisfies me in the moment. Then again, I could be totally wrong!