How do we know?

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The advent of the internet, social media, fake news channels like FOX, deconstructionism and now AI makes the matter of telling the real from the unreal more imperative and problematic than ever before. While waiting for others to chime in (which I hope you do anytime) let me just set the stage by identifying the various ways humans claim to obtain knowledge, and how I try to go about it:
(1) empiricism ( evidence provided by the five senses); (2) rationalism: evidence obtained by thinking about things in a logical way; (3) intuition: gut feelings or instinctive recognition; (4) revelation: direct communication from an outside supernatural source; (5) authority: communication from human experts; (6) existentialism (faith, will or risk-taking): a decision to bet on, and be committed to, a given outcome; and (7) pragmatism: believing something because "it works" for the believer. I personally use a combination of most of these.

I start with existentialism, or risk-taking in the face of uncertainty. I assume that "nothing is certain, not even that". (yes, I know about "assume making an ass of you and me', but I have to start somewhere. This means that life is inevitably a gamble, and faith, defined as intuitive risk-taking, is inevitable. Luther described "faith" as a "joyful bet". I'm willing to bet my life on various propositions I can't really prove. So I'm an Okie existentialist at heart.

But I'm a moderate existentialist--not the Kierkegaard "leap of faith" kind, nor the Sartre "pick a belief and commit yourself to it" kind. I prefer hops of faith, grounded on what seems to be reasonable and supported by the weight of substantial evidence. I operate on what Santayana called "animal faith", an assumption that the information from our senses is reasonably accurate and our logical faculties are intact. Yes we could be living in a Matrix-style virtual reality (as Oxford professor Nick Bostrom believes at a salary much bigger than mine.) I'm betting that he's wrong and I'm right. I make my decisions on the basis of reason, available substantial evidence, personal experience, intuition, and what the experts tell me--in full realization that all of these sources are fallible and might be wrong. Maybe the earth really is Flat, as the Flat Earthers say, or the moon landing was faked, as the Hare Krishnas say. I just don't think it's reasonable to believe that. I hold all my beliefs tentatively, subject to change on the basis of new evidence.

I should say something about intuition. Logicians rightly think of this as suspect as a way of knowing, because of our subjective cognitive biases. The Dangers of Intuition Yet I find it indispensable in settling close calls between alternatives. Intuition, or gut instinct, has been described as "a form of unconscious intelligence that is as needed as conscious intelligence.” 8 Truths About Intuition
Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, extols snap judgements, first impressions and intuitions as quicker and sometimes more effective than painstaking rational thought, but acknowledges that it can be distorted and misled. I find it indispensable in buying used cars and evaluating conspiracy theories.

I'm also a pragmatist, in borderline cases. Not the radical kind Bertrand Russell railed against, who think that truth is anything that "works" in our personal lives. But if I have to make a decision in an ambiguous situation where the choices are grim fatalism or suspension of judgment in the absence of complete information which is unobtainable in the forseeable future, I think it's important to act on the information available. Take elections, for example. If we require proof that a particular candidate is a saint or a scoundrel before we vote for or against said person, we'd end up staying home on election day, going fishin', or playing golf. Not a healthy attitude for democracy or the republic. We need to make decisions on the basis of the best information available. As a fan of ancient history, this is essential. While it would be great to have lots of hard evidence, like coins and monuments, such things are usually available only for royalty or major celebrities, and even for them, contemporaneous evidence is often scarce or non-existent. For the most important decisions of my life--like who to date or marry, what job to take, in what part of the country,etc.--evidence is also often thin or spotty. I make a distinction between doing science and doing life. Hard scientists usually don't get into lots of areas that are crucial to my life, cuz research funding isn't available and rigorous testing of refutable hypotheses isn't feasible. I go on the basis of the best evidence available, and often fly by the seat of my pants.

For much of what I believe, I have no "proof", in the sense of evidence that would convince any reasonable person. Instead, I try, as best I can, to rely on substantial evidence--legally defined as enough to convince a reasonable person, even though other reasonable persons might not be convinced. This is the standard used by administrative agencies for regulations about the safety of roads and bridges and the substances we're exposed to in the environment. Good enough for me.

And that brings us to experts. I admit to being impressed by the opinions of people with doctoral degrees who hold chairs at leading universities and have published in peer-reviewed journals, if they're opining in their areas of expertise and seem to be supported by most others who are similarly qualified. I have never been to the moon, lived in ancient times, been through the Holocaust, or done my own research on Covid, so I rely on what most of the experts tell us.

As for revelation, if I experienced that, I might rely on it too. As a matter of fact, I'm a Christian because of a conversion experience in which a passage from Genesis popped into my head and triggered a lengthy series of cascading thoughts that brought me to Jesus. I reserve judgment as to whether the source of this was external/supernatural or internal/psychological--perhaps a psychotic break. I liked the effects and, as a good existentialist/pragmatist, decided to go with it. More common claims of revelation come from other people quoting prophets whose messages from on high have been recorded in sacred books. These I tend to evaluate on the basis of their merits, historical context and supporting evidence. I find the Bible and other scriptures full of insightful knowledge, but also lots of more questionable material that I take with a grain of salt.

 

To put it in a nutshell, I feel that this world is corrupted by a disease called greed.
A person winning the lottery can go from near poverty, to unimaginable wealth, but all to often, will blow the lot on eating out, fast cars, holidays and prestigious property, rather then secure their future. In some cases ending up worse off than when they started.

This mentality, goes from individuals, to families, to entire countries.
Then when it all becomes unsustainable, they look for someone else to blame.

 

Yes, in talking about how we know, we should also be aware of the barriers to full knowledge, which I take to be the human condition. Even I am subject to them. Each major sub-field of psychology has its own take on those, and I think they're all partly right. All of them are focused on the non-rational (or irrational) side of human consciousness. The "filters" you mention sound closest to the "ego defense" mechanisms which the Freudian psychoanalysts identified, ten of the most common being: (1) denial--not the "long river in Africa", but simply denying unwelcome facts; (2) displacement. taking negative feelings against a person out on an innocent but less threatening actor; e.g, being mad at the boss and beating the wife or kicking the dog; (3) repression. blocking unpleasant information from the conscious mind and burying it in the unconscious; (4) sublimation. finding acceptable outlets for unacceptable urges; e.g., beating a pillow as a release for anger; (5) rationalization. inventing good reasons to justify things done for not so good reasons; (6) intellectualization. using reasoning to avoid uncomfortable emotions; (7) reaction formation. expressing the opposite of one's true feelings; e.g, acting macho to conceal insecurities about one's masculinity; (8) regression. reverting to childish behaviors that were comforting in the past; (9) projection. attributing one's own undesirable characteristics to others; and (10) acting out. using violent actions instead of words to convey feelings.

Besides these psychoanalytic mechanisms, there are the ones identified by the behavioral psychologists : behavioral conditioning and social learning. Much of our behavior and outlook is shaped by reflexes and associations developed early on from parental training, peer influences and teaching by trusted authorities. Our political and religious beliefs and values are powerfully influenced by these agents.

Then there are the cognitive psychologists, who identify mechanisms governing our perceptions. Among the most potent of these are: (1) what Schermer calls patternicity, or the tendency to perceive patterns, even when none are there; (2) what he calls "agenticity", or the tendency to perceive agency in encounters with our envorinment; (3) cognitive mapping, or the need to form a comprehensive view of reality ; (4) the quest for cognitive balance and avoidance of cognitive dissonance; and (4) groupthink and related pressures for cognitive conformity.

To Be Continued.

 

As a panendeist, I agree that we're all inter-related, and that there seems to be a pervasive presence in all things--immanent, as well as transcendent. But I think it's obvious that we are also distinct entities with separate sensory systems and wills. While our senses are sometimes unreliable and distorted, I find it necessary to bet on them , along with reason and intuition, as sources of evidence. Santayna calls it "animal faith"--an evolutionary instinct that has gotten us by for eons. Our bodies are aware of those parts of the environment we come in contact with--and can hear, touch, feel, taste, or smell--or that we learn about from the experiences of others and from experts who have tested things in laboratories.

Other "knowledge" I regard as speculative, and I seriously doubt that any mortal has knowledge of the entire universe. People may think they do, but I suspect they're hallucinating. Such claims often follow bouts with peyote, amanita muscaria, LSD, etc., or sometimes schizophrenia, temporal lobe epilepsy, manic episodes, etc. When I read Revelation, I often think they must have had good drugs on Patmos! Since I'm given to natural mystical experiences myself that I choose to act upon, I wont be too hard on the phenomenon. A friend, looking at my art, asked if I'd done a lot of drugs in the past. When I said no, he commented : "That's probably a good thing!" Which may be true. I'm on a natural high much of the time. But in general, I think skepticism, empiricism, reason and science are a good things. We may be living in a matrix-style virtual reality, but we'll never know, and believing that won't get us far!

 

we don't "KNOW". period. our egos make stuff up because they refuse to accept that they don't.
not everyone has that problem, however. and we don't have to know, or even pretend, to recognize non-physical things,
even self aware non-physical beings, are not limited to the boundaries of what we have yet imagined.
only human dictators depend upon being feared. the capacities of such non-physical beings, should they choose to exist, do not.