...There are many points that can argued but it occurs to me that the sum total of any individual’s knowledge, defined by you, Creative as



is but a very tiny fraction, if existent at all, of the sum total of information which any given individual equates with knowledge.

If you see the same hair in the dark, what color is the hair?

If the range of light changes, it’s possible to see that same head of hair as green, do you believe me?

So let’s test your knowledge (which cannot be false) - What color do you see when you see the color white? What color do you see when you see the color black?

Perhaps you can explain why you call White ‘white’ and Black ‘black’ as being knowledge when that is actually a false belief?

What I am saying is that unless you can put together every single piece of knowledge (that is knowledge which cannot be false) with more certainty than you have judged your knowledge of color, then we have to accept what others have already tried to explain.

Man has had to go through these stages of knowledge being all that is available at the time and no way of acquiring the next level of knowledge at that time.

At this juncture I would like for you to convince me that we even have sufficient knowledge (knowledge that cannot be false) that is available to the masses of the world in order to prevent reliance on belief for the information that helps us survive, thrive, and advance as species?

In other words, how much of what you call knowledge could people in all regions of the world utilize to determine the falsehoods of their own beliefs – which they take for knowledge?

Or perhaps the discussion should not be about knowledge and its truth value rather, it might be better to discuss why changing the opinion of others is more logical than allowing them to continue believing their particular brand of falsehood, over our own.

I would adjust the definition to:

Knowledge is the sum total of all the information we choose to use in support, or justification, of our beliefs which we accept as true.

As I posted earlier - Adequate criterion for sufficient reason to believe something, is a matter of:

The methods of testing our information and assessing the outcomes are directly related to all the tools at our disposal including, education, intellectual ability, access to new information, and environmental factors including, the freedom to be at liberty to address falshoods, persuade others of the errors, and adapt to the social consequences.

There is bias attacthed to everything we believe...

You are correct that many people find no reason to believe 'unbelievable ideas' but there are many more people who think that what others view as 'unbelievable' is simply a matter of faith and/or lack of understanding/education.

Example: For those who find the idea of an involved 'god-creator' an unbelievable idea - can it also useless information?

We beleive that many good and bad value systems stem from such beliefs. So having information/knowledge of those beliefs is vital to understanding and relating to all those many poeple. It is ALL knowledge because it IS information that we can use, even if only to show the logic errors that occur between the many beliefs which cause discourse to sociability.

Edited to add: Associating colors to knowledge is an inadequate example. Colors come in all shades - at what point does red become pink, blue become purple, and yellow become orange?

How we develop our system of values is based on what we believe. Therefore, the phrase "to my knowledge..." indicates that we accept our beliefs to be 'true'.

The only real knowledge we have, is information which we have been unable to falisfy - so by your view, there can be no knowledge other than what we have been unable to falsified.

The problem, which we have all come accross, is that when people realize that 'knowledge' is only permanent until it is falsified, they are unwilling to accept and incorporated new information primarily becasue they either cannot understand the processes involved, or becasue their own 'beliefs'/'knowledge' have not been disproved by the new information.

Man's ability to believe is only restricted by his power of fantasy.

Man's ability to know is restricted by his perception of reality, by his reasoning power, and by his biasses. Since his reasoning power is limited, his power of observation is subjective, and his biasses are manifold for they are in the realm of belief, the ability of man to know is very murky. He will know, but he will never know if his knowledge is precise or not, or how accurate it is. He can hone his knowledge, and update it, but it will never be a final update, it always will stand a chance of further updates in the future.

Man can't know fully. His knowledge is partial. Furthermore man will never be able to know the size or shape of the fraction of his knowledge which could be considered fully accurate and therefore not subject to future updates.

wux:

Sufficient reason to beleive something: lack of contrary evidence.

For instance, many believe in god for lack of contrary evidence. Many beleive that the world will end next month, and that the Flyers will win the Stanley cup, for lack of contrary evidence.

Knowledge: is not an on-off thing. Knowledge moves on a continuous sliding scale, and a piece of knowledge is liable to move up or down the scale of certainty. For knowledge is only an amount of certainty that backs up a belief.

For instance: I know that the sun will rise tomorrow morning. Is this true knowledge? No, because the earth or the sun could be destroyed in the interim. So my knowledge only is so with a high probability of prediction.

Knowledge always involves a prediction value.

If i know a certain person or thing, or a certain rule, then it means that I can predict the behaviour of that person or that thing, and I can predict the behaviour of things or persons affected by a rule.

This means that I know how pain affects a person, but only to a point. I know some people reveal their sacrosanct secrets under torture, but I also know that a few of them do not. I also know that if I drop a pin, it will fall to the ground, and not fall up. But I don't know whether the pin would land with its point first, and if it does, does it get stuck in the floor like a thrown knife.

Knowledge is a faith which relies not only on lack of contrary evidence, but can be used as a tool to predict the future to a degree of precision.

Everything individuals believe is considered to be part of their knowledge base. Humans are naturally reluctant to change their beliefs for several reasons. One of the reasons to ignore new knowledge is because people are not given the tools or freedom to re-evaluate and change beliefs (and all knowledge is held, by belief).

Another reason people do not accept new information is because they cannot (or will not) accept responsibility for previous actions that were based on faulty beliefs. Egocentrism is at play in all individuals, but it can be overcome to some degree under certain conditions.



How beliefs are formed is of little consequence if skepticism is punished, as it is in almost every ‘tribe’ or collective. Sometimes the punishment is something as simple as ostracism. Simple it may be, but extremely effective – we all need to be accepted and valued by some social group, which is why we have so many sub-culture in the U.S. As BraveLady inferred, individualistic societies have a greater range of social units to choose from than do collectivist societies.

When an individual recognizes an error in their knowledge base , he has to be able to consider a wide range of consequences for accepting the new information, specifically – how will incorporating the new information change his values and his behavior, and what will be the effects to self and others.

It is far less difficult to recognize errors in our knowledge than it is to pursue honest introspection objectively. It is even more difficult to make changes, upon introspection, that could upset the status quo and bring down wrath upon others and/or self.
So to answer the question in the next quote:



Our ability to see the errors in our beliefs simply requires skepticism (asking questions, even just of one’s self). The more information we are exposed to, the greater our ability to question current beliefs. But questioning requires both the ability to be objectively introspective and the liberty to adapt while still being an accepted and valued part of a social unit.

There are not many indivdualist cultures, most of the world is gathered into collectivist units. Collectivism limits our ability to change beliefs, which those in the United States can better understand simply by observing the various religious groups.

Information is abunant in the U.S. - but those who are strongly affiliated with collectivist social units, are the least likely to accept new information if it requires adapting to beliefs outside of the collective.

I did dissect the OP in the quote above, just to have the main points in front of me as I consider the scenario of the virgin sacrifice to the volcano god.

We would have to consider how the idea of such a sacrifice evolved. Likely the tribe was strongly patriarcical, possibly holding women in high regard, especially virgins.

So thinking like a man about the fire of desire, and what it takes to soothe the flame, a leader might possibly consider that the volcano god was a male. First, becasue of it's great strength and power, and secondly because of the great 'heat' it generated from 'below'.

The rational conclusion might be to give the burning god a virgin to soothe its desire. It would be easy to convince other males of this idea, because they could relate. It would not be necessary to convince the women of a strongly patriarchical system, as they are not normally allowed to dissent.

If the fist attempt seemed to work, there would be little reason to question the rational basis of the idea - and so it becomes the thing to do.

If the ritual fails to soothe the volcano god, it's very likely that the egocentrism within the patriarcical system would prohibit the consideration of having been wrong in the first place, so there must be another answer. This time the answer may not be as logical, because the answer must also serve as justification for the continuance of the ritual so that system of patriarchy does not suffer.

Aha- it must be the woman, she must not have been pure.

We learn a great deal through the collective and traditionally accepted knowledge of the tribe. As children we believe because, by nature, we are dependent for our knowledge on the elders of the tribe. Later, through trial and error and even more rational thought, an individual may begin to question the logic and the beliefs however, once again, due to our natural tendancies for social accord and personal well-being, we don't rock the boat.

So I would say that part of the criterion for belief is a natural tendancy to maintain social accord, along with limited freedom for dissention and in part due to an inability to come up with a more rational idea without exposing one's self to loss of status or upsetting the status quo of the tribe.

So, the lack of freedom to think and act for one's self (without negative reprocussion)allows for the continuance of irrational tribal behavior. At the same time, those who have the status of being in authority (parents, elders, males/females, leaders) are believed.

Dragoness:

In the scenario you gave, the volcano god and his anger would be knowledge that is verifiable to the people that live there by the eruptions and lack of ability to know any better.

Man has had to go through these stages of knowledge being all that is available at the time and no way of acquiring the next level of knowledge at that time.

Lack of ability to know any better is the key to a situation like this. Once they had the ability to know better and chose to believe the past disproven information anyway then they are "believers" and that is not knowledge anymore. At this stage it becomes tradition, superstition, stubbornness, political and social control, etc... But not knowledge.

If one just doesn't have the vision to see the next level of knowledge though and is ignorant because of this, that would be the part of the equation that gets messy. Is their own personal lack of vision their fault?

Good luck finding the answer to the criterion of knowledge....

People still kill each other over religion and politics.....(all those f**kers swear that they are right)

Hate to bust your bubble brother, but, you may be giving humanity a bit too much credit.

There is no criterion except for personally set standards.

Bushido:

Hmmm, is it logical. I think logic devoid of a causal understanding can be done properly and still end with a false conclusion.

The natives did not understand the causal relationships involved. Their knowledge base did not include the methods needed to make an informed decision about the eruption's cause.

The belief structure of animism setup a framework that made sense of what they saw occurring.

It may be true that a few skeptics existed who may have not had any better methods for determining why the volcano erupted but were not satisfied with the answers (perhaps one of them KNEW a specific sacrifice was REALLY a virgin, but did not appease the "gods".)

It is this doubt that leads to new understandings. It is doubt that drives the desire to find methods to test understandings.