I Know All Knowledge is (only) an Insight
The word knowledge seems to be interpreted as an enduring state of one who is aware of, or understands, a certain proposition. This person seems to do this over time. If one has memorized something, they "know" it.
However, it seems to me, if knowledge requires a certain relation of knower to object of knowledge, then we do not have knowledge which is enduring, for our thoughts erupt and die, they are issued by a thinker and then pass to memory (sometimes), but they do not endure and our memory is NOT certain. Therefore, if we can have knowledge at all, we can only have knowledge as an insight.
In this theory, knowledge exists for only a moment when the conscious mind focuses entirely on the long chain of reasoning (barely perceived by the intuition or unconscious mind) in among the multitude of relations on the logical matrix of Meaning. This is the instant of understanding, or insight. When one "connects all the dots", when one apprehends the Form in the Realm of the Forms, when one "sees" or understands something. Its like a current of electricity running up and down a chain of items in perceived consciousness (content) and unperceived intuition (nebulous form) in the logical matrix of relations. In fact, biologically it is probably exactly that.
And so, I repeat, Knowledge is NOT continuous but instantaneous, because memory is fallible. Therefore, intutition plays as much as a role in knowledge as reason does.
When one rights down a systematic theory they are not writing down knowledge but a map of / too knowledge. The systematic writing (the "theory" is the map of a place, not The place itself).
In essence then, historically we have (2) different classes of knowledge that we have been forever confusing: 1) The old conception that knowledge endures, it (aided by memory) lasts over time. We may forget, but if we don't knowledge is enduring. I know something when I have memorized it. The problem is true knowledge requires certainty, or it's not knowledge. If you must ask someone if they understand something (ie: empirically test them) as your method of determining whether or not they have knowledge of some fact then they do not have knowledge and nor do you, for if it was not certain that knowledge was possessed, then it was not knowledge, and if you have to remember if they proved it, then you still don't know for memory is fallible.
This is contrasted by 2) the knowledge of the insight, when one for a brief moment understands the relation between "I think; I am" and proposition, X, Y, Z, Zprime, etc, to the proposition in question. That only lasts (for mortals such as us who exist in linear time) an instant. We may remember having that thought, we may remember most of the chain of inferences / relations, and rememberring or focusing on it again may cause us to have the insight again (we "see" it, we understand it again for an instant), but we simply do not "know" that object of knowledge over a continued time. Humans don't exist that way. We are finite and our memory is fallible. Our experience is a collection of random events stitched together by our subconciousness. It only SEEMS continuous, when in fact we have no reason to believe it is other than it's consistency, IF it has consistency. For many people experience does not have consistency to some degree, and it is to that degree they are irrational or insane.
Knowledge therefore is like a fluorescent light, which appears to be enduring but really if one is observant enough and paying attention, they notice that there are gaps in the flashes of light, 60 per second, or so I am told - the light is an illusion, it is not enduring but flashing too fast to tell it apart. Similarly, any "certain" proposition which I "know" to be true in the chain of propositions of my beliefs is only so when I perceive its relation to the whole (and all the way down to an indubitable assertion, like "I think; I am") in one perception. The moment after that perception it (or part of it) slips back into the dim recesses of intuition or memory, and I no longer know what I knew. But meditating on that chain of inference may cause another insight to occur, and doing so more often may cause my consciousness to have a proclivity to recognizing that pattern, and such be "close to hand" so to speak in my consciousness. Like english is for me, for example, which I do not know but I can do (intuitively).
However, it seems to me, if knowledge requires a certain relation of knower to object of knowledge, then we do not have knowledge which is enduring, for our thoughts erupt and die, they are issued by a thinker and then pass to memory (sometimes), but they do not endure and our memory is NOT certain. Therefore, if we can have knowledge at all, we can only have knowledge as an insight.
In this theory, knowledge exists for only a moment when the conscious mind focuses entirely on the long chain of reasoning (barely perceived by the intuition or unconscious mind) in among the multitude of relations on the logical matrix of Meaning. This is the instant of understanding, or insight. When one "connects all the dots", when one apprehends the Form in the Realm of the Forms, when one "sees" or understands something. Its like a current of electricity running up and down a chain of items in perceived consciousness (content) and unperceived intuition (nebulous form) in the logical matrix of relations. In fact, biologically it is probably exactly that.
And so, I repeat, Knowledge is NOT continuous but instantaneous, because memory is fallible. Therefore, intutition plays as much as a role in knowledge as reason does.
When one rights down a systematic theory they are not writing down knowledge but a map of / too knowledge. The systematic writing (the "theory" is the map of a place, not The place itself).
In essence then, historically we have (2) different classes of knowledge that we have been forever confusing: 1) The old conception that knowledge endures, it (aided by memory) lasts over time. We may forget, but if we don't knowledge is enduring. I know something when I have memorized it. The problem is true knowledge requires certainty, or it's not knowledge. If you must ask someone if they understand something (ie: empirically test them) as your method of determining whether or not they have knowledge of some fact then they do not have knowledge and nor do you, for if it was not certain that knowledge was possessed, then it was not knowledge, and if you have to remember if they proved it, then you still don't know for memory is fallible.
This is contrasted by 2) the knowledge of the insight, when one for a brief moment understands the relation between "I think; I am" and proposition, X, Y, Z, Zprime, etc, to the proposition in question. That only lasts (for mortals such as us who exist in linear time) an instant. We may remember having that thought, we may remember most of the chain of inferences / relations, and rememberring or focusing on it again may cause us to have the insight again (we "see" it, we understand it again for an instant), but we simply do not "know" that object of knowledge over a continued time. Humans don't exist that way. We are finite and our memory is fallible. Our experience is a collection of random events stitched together by our subconciousness. It only SEEMS continuous, when in fact we have no reason to believe it is other than it's consistency, IF it has consistency. For many people experience does not have consistency to some degree, and it is to that degree they are irrational or insane.
Knowledge therefore is like a fluorescent light, which appears to be enduring but really if one is observant enough and paying attention, they notice that there are gaps in the flashes of light, 60 per second, or so I am told - the light is an illusion, it is not enduring but flashing too fast to tell it apart. Similarly, any "certain" proposition which I "know" to be true in the chain of propositions of my beliefs is only so when I perceive its relation to the whole (and all the way down to an indubitable assertion, like "I think; I am") in one perception. The moment after that perception it (or part of it) slips back into the dim recesses of intuition or memory, and I no longer know what I knew. But meditating on that chain of inference may cause another insight to occur, and doing so more often may cause my consciousness to have a proclivity to recognizing that pattern, and such be "close to hand" so to speak in my consciousness. Like english is for me, for example, which I do not know but I can do (intuitively).
posted by JB @ 1:54 PM
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