Re: <djuno> & howabout <krici>? (Was Knowledge & Belief)

[Rob Zook <rzook@INFORMIX.COM>]

At 04:23 PM 12/31/97 -0600, Steven Belknap wrote:
>I suggested the change in thread name because we are being distracted by
>the semantics of natlangs, when what is at issue is the semantics of
>lojban.

Did you intend perhaps, to draw a comparison between "know" <djuno> and
"believe" <krici>? I thought <xusra> means "x1 asserts that x2 is true".


<snip>
>>If Jane says to me, "I know that it will snow tomorrow", I know she said
>>something to me, I directly observed said event. However, I do not know
>>that the snow will fall on her head tomorrow.
>>
>>I can say, "I know that it will snow tomorrow because I have done
>>the necessary meteorological research necessary to determine this, and
>>so I agree with Jane". But her saying she knows does not make me know it
>>also.
>
>What if the earth is hit by a giant meteor tonight, and instead of
>snowing tomorrow it rains molten ashes and lava? I assert that although
>one can "know" that it will snow tomorrow, one can not <djuno> that it
>will snow tomorrow or <djuno> that any future event in the physical
>universe will take place under an empirical epistemology.

Certainly one cannot know a future event with absolute certainty.
Usually, epistemology does not restrict itself to only absolutely
certainty or direct observation. The gismu list on the web page defines
<djuno> with an epistemological usage, and no further qualification:

djuno [ jun ju'o ] know
     x1 knows fact(s) x2 (du'u) about subject x3 by epistemology x4
     [words usable for epistemology typically have a du'u place; know how
     to - implying knowledge of method but not necessarily having the
     ability to practice (= tadjyju'o)] (cf. know/familiar with: se
     slabu, na'e cnino, na'e fange; cmavo list du'o, cilre, certu, facki,
     jijnu, jimpe, senpi, smadi, kakne, birti, mipri, morji, saske,
     viska)

So I would guess it refers to standard epistemological usage of "know".


>One can <djuno> that the savior is coming, that Windows 95 is better than
>Macintosh, or that Halle-Bopp is a spaceship which will take castrated
>people to the next level because these claims are not based on empirical
>observation or rational thinking, but instead are in the province of
>religion, delusion, or more generally, "faith". (I am not saying that
>these ideas are necessarily bad or wrong, just that they are not
>empirically-based.) Persons with such beliefs often point out that their
>predictions about such events represent an article of faith, and that
>part of their trial on earth is to have doubt about the validity of
>their creed, etc., etc.

Now, I would not call religious thinking irrational. Religion uses
reason as a tool just as science does. However, religion builds the
foundation of it's arguments on faith in the supernatural. Something
that cannot possibly ever "prove", the way a scientist can "prove" a
theorum. Remember the CompSci motto, GIGO - Garbage In Garbage Out
(Please, don't take that as a comparison of religion as garbage).

I personally, think that basing a true belief on faith in something non-
empirical does not seem justified. Other's disagree. Note that faith in
itself, does not make something unjustified. Science itself comes down to
faith; faith in ones thinking, faith in ones instruments, faith that one
has experiemented enough to prove the theorum (since one necessarily
stops before the infinite number of experiments needed to absolutely
prove a theorum).


>>>In any case, your definition of 'know' is at variance with the standard
>>>one, with which it certainly is possible to "know" that someone knows
>>>something. Go ask anyone on the street.
>>
>>In epistemology, "know" has a more specific meaning than casual use of
>>the word, although they seem _very_ similar. The epistemological
>>use involves justified true belief. A belief is not justified if you
>>do not have empirical testing of it, or sufficient logical arguments
>>to back it up. Admittedly, there does seem to exists dispute on what
>>"justified" refers to specifically.
<snip>
>It doesn't have to be justified the same way for everyone. There is no a
>priori universally agreed upon set of knowledge. Some people think that
>books which are thousands of years old, have been heavily edited by
>persons with economic and political agendas, and translated imperfectly
>from ancient languages are valid sources of knowledge. Other persons
>might insist on reproducibility of observations, consistency with a
>mathematical model, and elegance of formulation to be the basis of their
><djuno>.

As I said, some dispute about what "justified means, exists. However,
in epistemology one usually restricts the meaning of the word knowledge
to "justified true beliefs" where justified includes direct observation
_and_ logical arguments.

It's the logical arguments which causes the most disputes, I think.
One can use reason to build all sorts of fancifal notions, with
logic.


>It is certainly possible to "religionize" science, and use that
>as an epistemology. It is a rather odd thing to do, as "religionized"
>science (that is, taking the current working hypotheses of science and
>converting them to <djuno>) is no longer empirical.

Many would say that most scientists "know" their theories are correct,
long before they have proved them sufficiently to others. Not to their
discredit either. The human mind seems to possess a "need" for
certainty that we cannot always consciously control.


>Perhaps much of the apparent disagreement between empiricists and mystics
>is due to unfortunate definitional overloading of individual natlang
>predicates.

Without a doubt they certainly help to cause great confusion.


Rob Z.
--------------------------------------------------------
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Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.
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