What do we know, and how?

I am interested in what we actually know and how we know it.

This post will discuss gleanings from several books about what it is to know something, and what it is to know what is true.  They offer what might be called tours of the histories of these subjects.

Simon Winchester (Knowing What We Know:  the Transmission of Knowledge from Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic offers some history going back to Plato’s Theatetus, which argues that there is Justified True Belief. Winchester summarizes Plato’s argument about this:  you see an animal which you declare is a camel, believing this to be true.  Knowing that there will be skeptics, you seek outside information to confirm this for yourself and them:  You cite the humps and general physical description, Google up a photo labelled “camel,” and cite public knowledge that camels are known to live in the area.  Thus you justify your belief:  you assert that you are right that this is a camel.  Winchester knows that there have been arguments against this form of reasoning since Plato’s time, and provides some of that history.

He briefly discusses religious faith as another means of “knowing,” but quickly moves into the Renaissance and its substitution of reason for faith¹.  There has been much discussion about whether it is necessary or right to insist that the two must always be mutually exclusive in one’s life, or whether they contribute together to a full understanding and experience of life. I  will probably weave that into later posts.

For now let us follow him into more contemporary thought as represented by “information scientists’” Theory of Knowledge, which presents four “streams”:  Data, Information, Knowledge, and Wisdom.  To illuminate the differences, he quotes a poem from T.S. Eliot’s play The Rock.

The Eagle soars in the summit of Heaven,
The Hunter with his dogs pursues his circuit.
O perpetual revolution of configured stars,
O perpetual recurrence of determined seasons,
O world of spring and autumn, birth and dying!
The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.
All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,
All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,
But nearness to death no nearer to God .
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries
Bring us farther from God and nearer to the Dust.

I have already written a short post about wisdom² which I define as

The ability to not only be well- informed about a few specific matters and about things in general (past and present),

nor to simply synthesize information,

but to have enough experience in the gut and head to look out at the broad horizon (future) and get a sense of what to do next.

but in this post, it is knowledge that interests me.

There is a presumption that that which we know is true.  Truth, Justified True Belief, and the Knowledge of the DIKW variety, are closely related, but one wonders where truth fits in.

I turn to the nature of truth as described by Robin Reames (The Ancient Art of Thinking for Yourself: the Power of Rhetoric in Polarized Times). She writes that in Plato’s time the written word was not yet common.  Argument, reasoning in public debate or during instruction or conversation, were conducted orally.  The force of a presentation through clever rhetoric and persuasion, emotionally evocative words especially in metaphor, and emotional presentation, won over the audience.  Counter-arguments were cast in the same molds.  Truth was found in the winning argument.  There was not the opportunity to examine the line of thought and the meaning of the words after a speech before coming to a conclusion about the matter, because it was not written.  It was not facts, but strength of oral presentation, which established truth.  Reames says that as writing became more common it was possible for some to consider the argument more carefully, especially the facts.

Knowing what was true then, was a matter of either having one’s own possession of facts and/or being persuaded.  I would suggest that being persuaded by something in writing is a surer source of knowledge than hearing an oration.  If the orator has an established reputation for truth and honesty as demonstrated by the texts of speeches, then one can sit back and enjoy the entertainment of good oratory and rhetoric (very rare, indeed).  Nonetheless, the dangers of effective rhetoric are real, as illustrated by her book and others.³

There are some things which we accept as knowledge even though not proven to us; they are taught in schools, with authority, compulsory attendance, and an expectation that in order to “pass,” we must regurgitate what is taught. Much of it is common, of course, such as a basic concept of the nature of electricity and light.  While further education may expose us to the more complex understandings of those natures, we generally accept that scientific evidence has demonstrated those truths, even thought we may not have personally, watched the experiments nor understood the mathematics which provided the information.  We “know” these things, just as faithful people before us “knew” all about God. (I’m not being facetious here, but maybe a little glib.)

Norman Farb and Zindel Segal (Better in Every Sense: How the New Science of Sensation Can Help You Reclaim Your Life) accept the interpretation that the brain predicts what’s going to happen, as a means of preparing the body’s systems to act.⁴ These two from the University of Toronto, argue that the mind settles into the Default Mode Network (DMN), or House of Habit, which cause the predictions to be assumed.  We know how things normally work, and therefore assume they will continue to do so unless new perceptions arise which force the mind to change its assumptions and predictions, and develop new strategies and courses.  DMN is closely related to “decision bias,” which plans to use previous events and decisions to meet current circumstances, and brushes aside new information or opinion.  They use the rest of the book to suggest ways of “foraging,”, i.e., extending the mind’s perceptions to re-evaluate matters, change our perception of not just the new information but its context, and improve our ability to navigate life with reduced risk.  We can know more.

Of course, there remains the fact that some things which we have known in the past, are simply wrong. But it is only new research which proves they were wrong, and provides something new to know.  The sources, particularly science and history, got it wrong earlier; now we must know new things.  Hence the blog title “upon reconsidering.”  At this point, I heartily recommend that the reader read the altogether brilliant post on facts by William M. Goodman, PhD Facts. Just the facts. – Upon reconsidering…

As we learn new things, and ponder what we used to know, we may want to store the old knowledge somewhere (think of Niels Bohr’s model of the atom which is still taught as a beginning place) because you never know what might be of use again later (like odd pieces of wood which might prove useful in a future project).  We may also reconsider whether we did things based on the wrong knowledge, which need correction, or perhaps, repentance. We may also need to gather our scattered thoughts and establish a fundamental mindset, a general opinion or philosophy about how the world works and where we can find meaning in it – we need to establish new myths for ourselves.  As I wrote in an earlier post⁵

Mythos is the foundational belief, upon which we stand as we explain life to ourselves. It is to some extent based upon history, particularly our own living of it, and upon faith (the hope which is validated by our experience so far). When we have not accurately perceived the past, finding or forming a personal or cultural foundational myth is as difficult as being sure of the reliability of the literal ground upon which we stand [one thinks of sinkholes]. So now I find that I must not only work very hard to learn about what is new, and consider whether to give informed consent to it as part of my framework of reference for my life and Life around me. I must also re-learn some of the past, and consider whether to give informed consent to that as well. Additionally, I must examine the potentials in the future through the lens of a re-worked past. “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it,” wrote (or said) Edmund Burke. Perhaps this is an impossible expectation.

Sometimes there are impediments to thinking, such as being under the influence of anesthetics, alcohol,  recreational drugs, and sleep apnea;  (for some people including myself) severe colds; “brain fog” due to COVID; and (for some) migraine headaches.

Of course, we recognize that being sure of the information we receive is ever more difficult because of deliberate misinformation and disinformation. 

Apparently in a time when we in democracies need most to be able to think for ourselves, take in information, and analyze complex matters, we are to believe that most of us if not all are inherently unable to do so….  But we who do have individual thoughts may be able to influence those others, not because we are authoritative nor perhaps persuasive in any way, but simply because we are heard by people near us. The task is to influence others more than they influence us on a certain matter. Informed Consent in Our Lives – Upon reconsidering…

I don’t have any new information or useful opinion on this beyond what I wrote in 2018 and 2021⁶

Finally, we must consider whether we accurately remember things (see Why We Remember: Unlocking Memory’s Power to Hold On To What Matters, Charon Ranganath, PhD and books cited earlier).  Even semantic memory (facts) is not something stored in a lump somewhere, ready to be extracted in just the way it was stored.  Every act of remembering may change the memory itself, stored in neurons in more than one piece and place, contextualized, and brought together by your mind as the mind is now, not as it was when you stored it.  Probably reliable regarding things you memorized such as the table of elements, but not absolutely faultless.

Ranganath writes:

…I have learned that there isn’t one answer to why we remember, because there isn’t a single mechanism or principle that explains all the ways we are changed by and can call upon the past.

…When we treat memory as if I should be a literal record of the pat, we end up with unrealistic expectations….We remain prisoners of an incomplete past, oblivious to the ways in which the past has shaped our understanding of the present and future decisions.

It is a profound claim to know something.  We should remember this while arguing with people. It might help us develop some humility, which could make for easier communication with people, especially when disagreeing.

And of course, it is a powerful challenge to the concept of informed consent, which is the point of this blog.  But that’s why we reconsider.

¹ For a wonderful, deep discussion of this see Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age.

²  Wisdom – my shortest blog post ever – Upon reconsidering…

³  Gaining distance from the public uproar by understanding rhetoric – Upon reconsidering…

⁴ The Knowledge illusion: Why We Never Think Alone, Steven A. Sloman; The Influential Mind: What the Brain Reveals About Our Power to Change Others, Tari Sharot; Strange Contagion: Inside the Surprising Science of Infectious Behaviors and Viral Emotions and What They Tell Us About Ourselves, Lee Daniel Kravetz;  How Emotions Are Made: the Secret Life of the Brain, Lisa Feldman Barrett; Connected: the Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives, Nicholas A. Christakis; The Secret Life of the Mind: How Your Brain Thinks, Feels, and Decides, Mariano Sigman; Human, Michael S. Gazzaniga; Descartes’s Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain, Antonio Damasio;  and others Upon being in a nervous state and State – Upon reconsidering… 

⁵ Re-learning history – Upon reconsidering…

⁶  Informed Consent in Our Lives – Upon reconsidering…; Restraint and Civic Virtue – Upon reconsidering…