Other ways of knowing?

[Faizal_Ali]

@dga471

Then I would regard “God exists” as a knowledge as well. I

Only because you do not understand the difference between “knowledge” and “belief” or “opinion.”

[dga471 (Daniel)]

I don’t quite understand. We’ve established that:

1. You seem to agree that there is no way to conclusively show (using science or any other method) to a colorblind person that “redness” as a conscious experience exists,
2. You regard the fact that redness exists as knowledge, presumably because of what your sense of color tells you.
3. Previously, you objected to my characterization of the sensus divinatis (SD) by saying that I cannot convince you that it exists or is working properly, either by science or any other agreed upon method of knowing.
4. From 1 and 2, it is shown that objection 3 is defeated, since we have now established that if God exists and I perceive him using SD (a faculty that you don’t have), I don’t need to prove to you that my SD exists and is working properly in order to use it, similar to how I don’t need to prove to the obstinate colorblind person that my sense of color is working properly to be able to use it.
5. Thus, by your criteria, using my SD, I can call my belief in the existence of God as justified.
6. My belief in the existence of God is justified true belief, which thus counts as knowledge.

(Note that I’m using the JTB account of knowledge, even though it has its problems, just for the sake of simplification.)

EDIT: To expand on 4, we can call the belief that one’s faculties are functioning properly as a properly basic belief. You don’t need additional justification for your properly basic beliefs.

[Faizal_Ali]

@dga471

You seem to agree that there is no way to conclusively show (using science or any other method) to a colorblind person that “redness” as a conscious experience exists,

No, I do not.

A blind person would have lifetime of experience that clearly demonstrates to him that a sense called “sight” exists. The people around him would be constantly doing things like telling him to stop before he walks into a wall, etc. They could not do this if they were not able to sense things he could not.

In fact, someone raised a similar point to yours in a Facebook group. His point was easily refuted by posing a simple experiment, in which the blind person is given three balls of identical size and weight, but one is red and the other two black. The three balls are placed on a table, and the blind person is told which one is the red one. The sighted person then leaves the room, and the blind person can move then into any arrangement he wishes, being careful to keep track of the red one. The sighted person then returns to the room and, of course, picks out the red ball every time,

You cannot demonstrate your sensus divinatis in any similar manner. Can you?

[dga471 (Daniel)]

Let me quote again the relevant post:

@Faizal_Ali

I don’t feel I need to persuade you to justify my own position. Imagine if someone has been color blind since birth. What kind of evidence can you offer that person to show that the conscious experience of redness exists?

Maybe one cannot do that. In which it would not be possible for this person to know that redness exists.

So what?

Do you actually affirm what you said above, that it would not be possible for this person to know that redness exists? Or you’ve changed your mind?

@Faizal_Ali

The sighted person then returns to the room and, of course, picks out the red ball every time,

Note that we’re talking here about colorblindness, not general blindness.

The above example doesn’t prove that the experience of red exists. That only proves that there is some quality to the red ball that the color-sighted person is able to identify. But the colorblind person could conclude that this is nothing to do with redness, but say, because the “red” ball is brighter than the “black” ball, and that his vision is really only black and white, just like the colorblind person’s.

[Faizal_Ali]

@dga471

Do you actually affirm what you said above, that it would not be possible for this person to know that redness exists? Or you’ve changed your mind?

Yes, I’ve changed my mind. Your claim was wrong. I should not have agreed with it.

@dga471

The above example doesn’t prove that the experience of red exists. That only proves that there is some quality to the red ball that the color-sighted person is able to identify. But the colorblind person could conclude that this is nothing to do with redness, but say, because the “red” ball is brighter than the “black” ball, and that his vision is really only black and white, just like the colorblind person’s.

Sure, he could conclude that. And he would then have to also conclude that the 7 billion people of the world are all working together on a conspiracy to convince this one guy that a colour called red exists.

Which is why I consider logic and reason to also be necessary for knowledge.

[DaleCutler]

@Faizal_Ali

Which is why I consider logic and reason to also be necessary for knowledge.

You have neglected to include that what comes from the seven billion people is testimony.

[Mercer (John Mercer)]

@dga471

Given that 93% of people in the world are religious in some way, you can say that it is literally true that 93% of people sense God in some way.

“Religious” doesn’t mean “monotheistic.” More than 15% of those are Hindus, for example.

[Mercer (John Mercer)]

@DaleCutler

You have neglected to include that what comes from the seven billion people is testimony .

Do you accept the testimony of Hindus about their multitude of gods?

[DaleCutler]

The point was about the testimony of billions about the direct observation type of knowledge, namely the color red. So you are making a category error in making the comparison.

[DaleCutler]

(I don’t know if you’ve read the whole thread, but counterfeit faiths has already been addressed.)

[Mercer (John Mercer)]

@dga471

OK. Then I would regard “God exists” as a knowledge as well. It doesn’t matter than you disagree: you’re like the obstinate colorblind person who unfortunately does not have the correct faculties to sense the color red.

Do any colorblind people deny that the color red exists?

There’s little need to use the noun “people,” as people with red-green color blindness are virtually all male and therefore more obstinate, providing an even better test of your analogy.

[Mercer (John Mercer)]

@DaleCutler

(I don’t know if you’ve read the whole thread, but counterfeit faiths has already been addressed.)

Do you think that your skepticism and denial of others’ faith testimony lets you off the hook?

@DaleCutler

Skepticism and denialism is easy, and it lets us off the hook.

[DaleCutler]

@Mercer

Do any colorblind people deny that the color red exists?

That isn’t really the question at hand. The question is do they have real knowledge and if so where does it come from.

[DaleCutler]

@Mercer

Do you think that your skepticism and denial of others’ faith testimony lets you off the hook?

My denial is not denialism, the mere and insistent but easy denial that testimony can be a source of truth (i.e., true knowledge) and the also easy denial that there is any other evidence, but it is based on a number of other things, part of which is here and here, earlier in this thread, and others elsewhere.

[Rumraket (Mikkel R.)]

@dga471

OK. Then I would regard “God exists” as a knowledge as well.

Why? Presumably you are here referring to your purported experience of God. What is that experience like? It feels good, you feel awe and wonder, connection, appreciation, humbled, love?

Why is that evidence for the existence of God? People who don’t believe in God experience those feelings too in all manner of situations. I don’t see why those experience are most likely on the hypothesis that a God exists. I think you’ve elsewhere basically conceded that you are merely interpreting those experiences as being from God.

[Rumraket (Mikkel R.)]

@DaleCutler

You have neglected to include that what comes from the seven billion people is testimony .

Of what? Testimony of what? You’re playing fast and loose with what it is they are actually testifying to experience. You call it God, but what is it they experience? It’s good feelings that they like. Love, awe and wonder, a sense of connection and appreciation, and so forth.

Is that testimony of God? No, that’s just testimony of good feelings. And different religious people interpret their good feelings as having different types of religious significance and origins. Some think it’s benevolent extraterrestrial alien civilizations with telepathic powers. Some think it’s from Gods (some times more than one). Some think it’s their dead ancestors. Some think it’s other types of spirits (like animal spirits). Some think it’s Kim Jong Un. Some think the sun and moon are communicating with them.

If anything, this makes it evidence against being from God since these feelings can be invoked and experienced under any religious persuasion, and people’s surrounding culture and upbringing is a highly successful predictor of the way in which they will interpret the significance of these feelings.
You have no evidence that these feelings have a divine origin, so you can’t claim to know they’re from God. So you don’t have knowledge of God, you have a belief in God and some positive experiences that you then interpret as being from God. That’s it.

[Faizal_Ali]

@DaleCutler

You have neglected to include that what comes from the seven billion people is testimony .

Yes.

I have not denied that testimony is a source of data.

It is not a source of knowledge.

As I said in the companion thread: The reading of a thermometer is also a source of data that we use to gain knowledge. It would be silly, though, to describe thermometers as a separate category of sources of knowledge, alongside math, logic and science. Right?

[DaleCutler]

And as I said in the other thread,

@DaleCutler

A factor that you have not accounted for is the personal. I have a will, the motion of air molecules does not. You have observed nothing about my mind and affections that I have not chosen to reveal to you. The symbols on the screen are placed there at my discretion. You can only trust that I am telling the truth and you have no alternative way of detecting it. It is a qualitatively different means of acquiring knowledge.

[DaleCutler]

@Rumraket

Testimony of what?

The existence of the color of red. That was the context.

@DaleCutler

The point was about the testimony of billions about the direct observation type of knowledge, namely the color red.

Testimony about God or from God are other categories.