L03 -- Kinds of Knowledge

Google doc page =>

https://commoncog.com/four-theories-of-truth/

What's all this about?

Denial of Christianity entails the acceptance or denial of many other things. You can't, at least not logically, simply reject Christianity and then go about your business as if little or nothing has changed.

When you reject Christianity, you implicitly are accepting some other viewpoint . . . even if you don't notice it. In thought, as in physically reality, when you 'look' at things, you must look from somewhere and not nowhere, or everywhere.

For example, it's common that when young people reject Christianity, they implicitly are adopting some form of the Zeitgeist, or spirit of the age. These days, the Zeitgeist includes things like religious naturalism, post-modernist socialism or Marxism, and LGBQ+ critical theory, or non-theistic 'spirituality'. Often, their viewpoint is rather vague and not at all clearly thought out. But vague or not, it is still a viewpoint that contains a variety of philosophical and theological positions!

The fact -- that rejection of Christianity is inevitably accompanied by the adoption of something modern (usually) and non-Christian -- is commonly and unsurprisingly overlooked by those hostile to Christianity. But it is also -- surprisingly -- overlooked by many Christians, as well.

And hardly anyone notices how absolutely important this fact is.

Why?

It is important because people -- both Christian and not -- often act and think as if their lives can continue fairly normally if Christianity is rejected. After all, there's still science, right? Maybe, maybe not. But even without Christianity, there are still good people, right?

Wrong!

As Dostoevsky wrote, over 100 years ago, "if there is no God, then everything is allowed".

One of the marks of great writers, like Dostoevsky, is that they can say many things in a sentence, or even a phrase. Unfortunately, it sometimes takes great readers to really grasp what great writers have said. Fortunately, Dostoevsky's phrase as often been 'unpacked' skillfully, so all we need to understand it is a little research.

If there is no God, then there is no standard of right and wrong. There are laws, changed by lobbyists before the fact, and by influence and bribes afterwards. There are 'social standards' that vary with the times, so that what was utterly execrable 50 years ago is not only tolerated now, but is even lauded. And there is personal preference, that is logically indistinguishable from a preference for "medium roast" instead of "dark roast". But none of these things are "right and wrong".

"If there is no God, then everything is allowed." Murder (of unborn children), rape (of female cell-mates of 'trans' prisoners), institutionalized theft (by medical drug and health insurance companies), and more.

And though that is bad enough, it does not end there: if there is no God, then the concepts of truth, beauty, morality, hope, courage and love are denied and have no meaning.

Often, both non-Christians AND Christians seem to think one can deny God, and then go on with life. But this is only possible, because God DOES exist, and DOES order the universe. In other words, right and wrong do exist, even if people deny that they do, or deny God who is the source of all that is good. Science can continue because God does maintain -- mostly -- an orderly universe that mostly operate according to patterns we call "scientific law".

If we carefully examine what disbelief in God actually entails . . . the end point is NIHILISM, an absurd position.

But, to grasp this for yourself and to be able to apply this understanding to your own thinking, and your conversations with others there are foundational ideas that must be first grasped, and added to your intellectual toolbox.

Much of this understanding has a 'chicken or egg' quality, with no clear starting point. In part, this problem arises because we already began to have knowledge, long before we began to consider how knowledge is possible, and how to distinguish 'true knowledge' from 'false knowledge'. So, what weare now doing is trying to understand and correct what we have already done. As we circle through the loop, What do we know? and How can we know? and What do we know wrongly?, we will have to use the child's tests for knowledge:

Does what is said correspond with what is seen or sensed? The stove is NOT hot, Mommy. I just touched it!
Does what is said cohere with what else has been said?
But Mommy, that's not true. Daddy told me that the fireplace is fake, and that there is no chimney for Santa Claus to come down!

These two 'childish' evaluations actual are the same as 2 of the 4 common philosophical explanations of truth:

The correspondence theory
The coherence theory
AND
The pragmatic theory (does it 'work' for me?)

Sensation: Hot!
Pattern recognition: Another doggie!
Linguistic assimilation of assignment: Mama!
- Names, proper and common: Dada!; doggie AND another doggie
- Metaphors, derived from names: Be mean: woof like a dog!
Logical derivation: It's not FAIR; he went first last time!
Calculation: Mama, Sib ate the pie. There was 3/4 when you put it up, and there's only 1/4 when I got it back down!
Social interpretation: Mama, I don't think Sarah likes me; she moves away when I come near.
Investigative experience: Mama, did you know the insides of the mushrooms in the back are yellow, but turn blue after a minute?

Sensation - Patterns - Language - Logic - Calculation - Social - Investigation

S P L L C S I

Sensation does not have to be named, to be known. However, it cannot be communicated until it is named. Deny either valid non-phantom sensation OR the naming of sensations, and you deny all communication.
=> NIHILISM
Pattern recognition moves beyond sensation -- brown, hairy, dark eyes, 4 leg extensions, etc. -- to form an idea of something beyond discrete sensations. Without pattern recognition, language can 'go' nowhere. But why do meaningful patterns exist?
=> NIHILISM
The first step of language is naming. Proper names identify an individual; common names place an individual in a class. Historically, philosophers have spent a LOT of time trying to decide which comes first, the individual or the class. IThis may or may not have been valuable. However, what is clear is that both adults and children can recognize individuals and place them in classes. The question, How is this possible? is often examined in a rather arcane manner. But it can be considered in a more practical and immediate manner: how can a 3 year old easily recognize that a brown dog and a white dog are in the same class? In schools and colleges today, post-modernism asserts that both naming and classing are individual activities lacking universal validity. This conclusion denies the existence of truth, logic, and reason and becomes an Ouroboros
=> NIHILISM
Rules of logic ranges from the simple, "'No' means no! (Law of Identity) to the incomprehensibly complex. Practical evaluation suggests that conclusions reached by short logical series, which employ the simplest and most fundamental rules are more likely to be true than long series which depend on complex and challenged rules.

All kinds of knowledge require that the patterns our brains produce can correspond to the patterns in the external world.

This seems obvious to us: OF COURSE, we can understand the world. And in a way, it is an "OF COURSE": if we could not, in some sense, understand the world, we would die.

But considered 'scientifically', it's not obvious at all.

Why would the laws of physical force, and the laws of hydraulics, and the laws of electrical fields correspond to each other?
Why would it be possible to build language on metaphors?
Why are human minds designed to assimilate language and use it to describe the world to others?
Why is the world designed so that language works?
Why do the 'laws' of physics remain constant, so far as we can tell?
Why are we convinced that "wrong" exists -- at a minimum, when others do US wrong?

Science has no clue, whatsoever, about any of these.

In fact, science knows far less than most people suppose:

So-called "dark matter" and "dark energy" are merely placeholders for hoped-for future verifiable scientific theories which explain what is observed. But at present, there is ZERO scientific understanding o f
Evolution does not have any influence on the world at large, and offers no explanation.