Happy Easter

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,
 

No it isn’t a red herring for reasons I keep explaining and you keep ignoring. Certainty at a colloquial, everyday, functional level is fine. At an absolute level though you cannot have epistemic certainty unless you know every possible thing that could be, ie omniscience.

This shouldn’t be difficult to understand.   

Don’t be daft. If I had a complicated maths problem I wouldn’t know the answer, but I’d know there is one.
     
See above.

Why isn’t it true?

Oh dear. Again – “God’s” existence is your realty. Your reality is bounded by your ability to understand it. That ability is limited. Thus the claim “god is” cannot be epistemically certain (unless you’re also omniscient).   

Wrong again – see above. All I’m saying here is that there can be no absolute positions when our ability to understand reality isn’t also total.

Why is this difficult for you to grasp?

It's not about anybody in particular's 'reality' it's about knowledge and knowing what we don't know, that being the collective we of course. We know we don't know regarding God's existence. And that is it.

We can see from this that omniscience has nothing to do with it.

Please stop talking bollocks.

[Gordon]

It's not about anybody in particular's 'reality' it's about knowledge and knowing what we don't know, that being the collective we of course. We know we don't know regarding God's existence. And that is it.

Unless you have some method at hand to demonstrate "God's existence" then you are just begging the question.

Please stop talking bollocks.

My irony meter has just exploded - again.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Unless you have some method at hand to demonstrate "God's existence" then you are just begging the question.

My irony meter has just exploded - again.

This thread isn't about that it's about whether the existence of God is an unknown unknown or a known unknown.........or a known known or an unknown known (Yes, I thought that when Hillside first brought it up.)

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

It's not about anybody in particulars 'reality' it's about knowledge and knowing what we don't know, that being the collective we of course. We know we don't know regarding God's existence. And that is it.

We can see from this that omniscience has nothing to do with it.

Please stop talking bollocks.

Please stop being so dull witted or so dishonest that you won't address the argument that's undoing you. I'll try it a different way: everything we call knowledge rests on axioms. Axioms are foundational statements used as the basis for argument that cannot themselves be demonstrated to be true. "I exist" for example is an axiom - I can't step outside of myself to demonstrate its truth, so I just have to take it as axiomatically true if I'm to proceed.

Still with me? OK then...

...so all we understand to be true rests on axioms, as do the tools and methods we employ to justify our understandings - logic and reason included. The problem with that though is that we can't apply any tools and methods to the axioms themselves - there's no way to drill down to verify them (if there was they wouldn't be axioms), and it's quite possible therefore that they're wrong. 

So why does all this matter? For the most part it doesn't – we live our lives with gradations of truth claims from objective to subjective, and the former allow us to cure diseases and make rockets while the latter allow (some of) us to spout faith claims on websites. And that's fine so far as it goes, but it doesn't justify reaching outside that spectrum of belief types to claim absolute truths. To do that you'd need to know not only that your reasoning was correct, but also that the axioms on which it rests are correct, and then the axioms you find below the first ones, and then the axioms beneath those ones, and then... it's only when you'd have non-axiom reliant truths that you'd be able to justify absolutist truth claims.

And do you know what that would be called? Yep - omniscience.

Do you get it now?         

 

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

This thread isn't about that it's about whether the existence of God is an unknown unknown or a known unknown.........or a known known or an unknown known (Yes, I thought that when Hillside first brought it up.)

No it isn't. It's about whether the statement "god absolutely is" (or for that matter anything else absolutely is) can ever be made without eliminating the possibility of unknown unknowns - ie. omniscience. The most someone could say for this purpose is something like, "within the bounds of human ability to understand things, god is" though that person would still have all his work ahead of him to shift that claim from a subjective faith statement to an objective fact.       

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

Please stop being so dull witted or so dishonest that you won't address the argument that's undoing you. I'll try it a different way: everything we call knowledge rests on axioms. Axioms are foundational statements used as the basis for argument that cannot themselves be demonstrated to be true. "I exist" for example is an axiom - I can't step outside of myself to demonstrate its truth, so I just have to take it as axiomatically true if I'm to proceed.

Still with me? OK then...

...so all we understand to be true rests on axioms, as so do the tools and methods we employ to justify our understandings of the world - logic and reason included. The problem with that though is that we can't apply any tools and methods to the axioms themselves - there's no way to drill into them to verify them (if there was they wouldn't be axioms), and it's quite possible therefore that they're wrong. 

So why does all this matter? For the most part it doesn't – we live our lives with gradations of truth claims from objective to subjective, and the former allow us to cure diseases and make rockets while the latter cause (some of) us to spout faith claims on websites. And that's fine so far as it goes, but it doesn't justify reaching outside that spectrum of belief types to claim absolute truths. To do that you'd need to know not only that your reasoning was correct, but also that the axioms on which it rests are correct, and then the axioms you find below the first ones, and then the axioms beneath those ones, and then... it's only when you'd have non-axiom reliant truths that you'd be able to justify absolutist truth claims.

And do you know what that would be called? Yep - omniscience.

Do you get it now?         

 

I'm afraid just defining omniscience doesn't justify it's appearence in the context of our argument.

No truth claims are involved here merely Knowledge claims the claim being that collectively we don't know whether God exists and hence we know we don't know. That, is a known unknown.
,
And that's it...... The turd that not even you could polish.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

I'm afraid just defining omniscience doesn't justify it's appearence in the context of our argument.

No truth claims are involved here merely Knowledge claims the claim being that collectively we don't know whether God exists and hence we know we don't know. That, is a known unknown.
,
And that's it...... The turd that not even you could polish.

Why not just for once try to reply to what I actually just said? 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

No it isn't. It's about whether the statement "god absolutely is"     

Let me stop you there. I have been arguing on this thread that collectively we do not know whether God exists.  God either absolutely is or He absolutely isn't and that is, collectively a known unknown.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

Let me stop you there. I have been arguing...

To my recollection you've never actually argued anything...

...on this thread that collectively we do not know whether God exists.

Or individually either. That test is failed because no-one can take the claim "god is" from the subjective (faith/guessing) to the objective (fact). 

If that is something you wish to discuss try someone else. God either absolutely is or He absolutely isn't and that is, collectively a known unknown.

But whether "God" absolutely is or isn't is unknowable without eliminating the unknowns unknowns that could determine our knowledge of that. That's why - like any other truth claim - "god is" is bounded by human capacity to map reality. If you want to confine yourself to that capacity though (as you must unless you claim omniscience) then you have your original problem still of bridging the subjective/objective divide to arrive at a provisional truth.         

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Again this is about a ''we'' to stick with the language of Donald Rumsfeld knowing that ''we'' don't Know if God exists. In other words we don't have to be omniscient to know we don't know. So any mention of omniscience is non sequitur.

Do you know that you can't know? Do you know that there are unknown unknowns in this regard or this context? At the end of the day though ''we'' Know that ''we'' don't know whether there is a God or not.

It seems to me that If you encountered God, you would say that really I don't know i've encountered God....so I will act as if I haven't(Good luck with that.) But then again how would you know that you haven't? Taking such a line looks very much like ''preference''.

 Stepping back though if that is your position that looks like a case of God dodging par excellence in my opinion.

[BeRational]

Let me stop you there. I have been arguing on this thread that collectively we do not know whether God exists.  God either absolutely is or He absolutely isn't and that is, collectively a known unknown.

I agree that either a god exists, or a god does not exist.

Those options exclude any middle ground.

It does not get us very far though, as it says nothing about the possibility that a god exists.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

Again this is about a ''we'' to stick with the language of Donald Rumsfeld knowing that ''we'' don't Know if God exists. In other words we don't have to be omniscient to know we don't know. So any mention of omniscience is non sequitur.

Again, if anyone wants to claim “god exists” in an absolute sense then he has an even bigger problem than someone who would claim “god exists” bounded by human ability to understand anything.   

Capiche?

Do you know that you can't know? Do you know that there are unknown unknowns in this regard or this context? At the end of the day though ''we'' Know that ''we'' don't know whether there is a God or not.

FFS. Yet again – the issue here is that you cannot eliminate the possibility of unknown unknowns that could change your mind about something. That’s all.

Just write that down over and over again until it sinks in.

It seems to me that If you encountered God, you would say that really I don't know i've encountered God....so I will act as if I haven't(Good luck with that.) But then again how would you know that you haven't? Taking such a line looks very much like ''preference''.

Presumably the god in which you believe would have at its disposal the means to persuade me beyond reasonable doubt of its existence. 

Stepping back though if that is your position that looks like a case of God dodging par excellence in my opinion.

Except “goddodging” is a piece of mindless fuckwittery for reasons that have been explained to you countless times. Only if this god finally showed up and presented to me good reason to think there wasn’t some other cause for the experience could I be accused of it. For now though – as ever – you can’t dodge something you’ve been given no good reason to think exists in the first place.

But then you knew that already didn’t you.   

[bluehillside Retd.]

BR,

I agree that either a god exists, or a god does not exist.

Those options exclude any middle ground.

It does not get us very far though, as it says nothing about the possibility that a god exists.
Report to moderator

Yes, anything could be said to exist or not. That's not the point though - the point concerns the status of our knowledge about that, despite Vlad's endless diversions from it. 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I agree that either a god exists, or a god does not exist.

Those options exclude any middle ground.

It does not get us very far though, as it says nothing about the possibility that a god exists.

That is a question of is ''the notion of a God unreasonable or illogical''

Is the answer to that a Known Known, an unknown unknown or a known unknown for you?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Except “goddodging” is a piece of mindless fuckwittery for reasons that have been explained to you countless times.

But that is all undone by the positing of the unknown known.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

That is a question of is ''the notion of a God unreasonable or illogical''

Is the answer to that a Known Known, an unknown unknown or a known unknown for you?

Dear god but you struggle. The “notion of a God” is unreasonable/illogical in that it fails to cohere the tests we have for either reason or loigic. It’s magic land stuff. That’s a known known.

That though has nothing whatever to do with the discussion - namely that someone can’t claim absolute, epistemic certainty for the statement “god is” because they cannot eliminate the possibility of information that might falsify the claim (unless that is they can demonstrate too their omniscience).

But that is all undone by the positing of the unknown known.

No it isn’t – see above.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

Dear god but you struggle. The “notion of a God” is unreasonable/illogical in that it fails to cohere the tests we have for either reason or loigic. It’s magic land stuff. That’s a known known.

That contradicts your previous arguments on this thread about reason and logic and unknown unknowns.

Your contribution to this thread has merely been to Gaslight.

[Gordon]

But that is all undone by the positing of the unknown known.

Can you give us an example of an 'unknown known'?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

That contradicts your previous arguments on this thread about reason and logic and unknown unknowns.

Your contribution to this thread has merely been to Gaslight.

Except it does no such thing. Reason and logic are fine as they are (you should try them one day), but only provided you don't overreach into absolutes. Why? Because, like everything else, they rest on axioms. Why is that that hard for you to grasp?

Perhaps if I try even shorter words for you: human understanding is bounded by the limits of our ability to understand.   

Have you got it now?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

Except it does no such thing. Reason and logic are fine as they are (you should try them one day), but only provided you don't overreach into absolutes. Why? Because, like everything else, they rest on axioms. Why is that that hard for you to grasp?

Perhaps if I try even shorter words for you: human understanding is bounded by the limits of our ability to understand.   

Have you got it now?

Vlad,

Except it does no such thing. Reason and logic are fine as they are (you should try them one day), but only provided you don't overreach into absolutes. Why? Because, like everything else, they rest on axioms. Why is that that hard for you to grasp?

Perhaps if I try even shorter words for you: human understanding is bounded by the limits of our ability to understand.   

Have you got it now?

You have undone yourself with regards appealing to Logic and reason with your theory of unknown unknowns.

You have undone your argument previous to that by finding De Grasse Tyson simulated universe theory logically sound.

Nobody seems to be joining in your argument, a testament I would imagine of not wanting be as far up one's own fundament as your argumentation seems to be at this point.

It would be wrong of me to continue with you.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

You have undone yourself with regards appealing to Logic and reason with your theory of unknown unknowns.

I don’t know what’s wrong with you, I really don’t. There’s nothing wrong with logic – it’s hugely valuable in fact – just as long as you don’t rely on it to overreach beyond its remit. I’ve told you why that is several times now – if you still lack the wit or decency to address that, that’s a matter for you.   

You have undone your argument previous to that by finding De Grasse Tyson simulated universe theory logically sound.

FFS. Lots of arguments are logically sound. How does that change anything?

Nobody seems to be joining in your argument, a testament I would imagine of not wanting be as far up one's own fundament as your argumentation seems to be at this point.

More a testament to people knowing you have no interest in engaging with anything openly or honestly. 

It would be wrong of me to continue with you.

It’s wrong of you to continue with anyone when you have absolutely fuck all to contribute here.

For the last time: human understanding is bounded by the limits of our ability to understand.  

Finally try to address that or don’t – it’s not my job to educate you. 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Can you give us an example of an 'unknown known'?

Whose us?

 Certainly, Any behaviour or attitude which can be observed, recorded and that we refuse to acknowledge and are in denial of. E.g. when someone on this forum is outed for having homophobic behaviour but does not acknowledge said behaviour. Since the unknown unknown schtick was invented by Donald Rumsfeld the terms known knowns, and known unknowns and unknown knowns emerged.

Now the thing is about the above is that if you say that these have existed before Donald Rumsfeld then that in itself would be an example of an unknown known.

Philosopher Slavoj Žižek says of the unknown known, It is that which one intentionally refuses to acknowledge that one knows: "If Rumsfeld thinks that the main dangers in the confrontation with Iraq were the 'unknown unknowns', that is, the threats from Saddam whose nature we cannot even suspect, then the Abu Ghraib scandal shows that the main dangers lie in the "unknown knowns"—the disavowed beliefs, suppositions and obscene practices we pretend not to know about, even though they form the background of our public values.''

There is also the concept of tacit knowledge, knowledge which we may act on, but not be aware of or able to articulate.

Can you give an example of an unknown unknown?

[Gordon]

Whose us?

Your adoring readership here.

Certainly, Any behaviour or attitude which can be observed, recorded and that we refuse to acknowledge and are in denial of. E.g. when someone on this forum is outed for having homophobic behaviour but does not acknowledge said behaviour. Since the unknown unknown schtick was invented by Donald Rumsfeld the terms known knowns, and known unknowns and unknown knowns emerged.

That sounds more like Freudian mental defence mechanisms than anything to do with intersubjective knowledge. Since you seem keen on the term 'unknown known' perhaps you should unpack how you interpret it since it does appear that its use could result in a contradiction, a bit like an 'open door that is closed'.

Now the thing is about the above is that if you say that these have existed before Donald Rumsfeld then that in itself would be an example of an unknown known.

I haven't said any such thing: I'd just like you to outline how something can be both 'unknown' and 'known', in that order, at the same time.

Philosopher Slavoj Žižek says of the unknown known, It is that which one intentionally refuses to acknowledge that one knows: "If Rumsfeld thinks that the main dangers in the confrontation with Iraq were the 'unknown unknowns', that is, the threats from Saddam whose nature we cannot even suspect, then the Abu Ghraib scandal shows that the main dangers lie in the "unknown knowns"—the disavowed beliefs, suppositions and obscene practices we pretend not to know about, even though they form the background of our public values.''

Again this definition seems to be more about the limitations of people to acknowledge, understand or have insight regarding certain matters.

There is also the concept of tacit knowledge, knowledge which we may act on, but not be aware of or able to articulate.

You mean like lucky guesses, instinctive reactions and subconscious activity - you seem to be using these terms to refer exclusively to aspects of human nature.

Can you give an example of an unknown unknown?

No - since I lack specific knowledge of what is currently unknown (else whatever it was would be known). The best I can do is acknowledge that, since people don't seem to be omniscient, there may be aspects of the universe that we (our species) at this point in history are not even aware are aspects of the universe.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Your adoring readership here.

That sounds more like Freudian mental defence mechanisms than anything to do with intersubjective knowledge.

Yes but surely you can deny behaviour or knowledge to yourself which others know about you intersubjectively.

This might help

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johari_window

[Gordon]

Yes but surely you can deny behaviour or knowledge to yourself which others know about you intersubjectively.

This might help

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johari_window

I'm puzzled that you seem to want to confine discussions of the 'unknown/known' permutations to mental states, and we already do know that people can lack insight into themselves in various ways that may be apparent to others: my earlier mention of Freudian mental defence mechanisms is an example of this.

https://www.simplypsychology.org/defense-mechanisms.html

The issue of 'unknown unknowns' is simply an acknowledgement that since we (our species) doesn't already know 'everything about everything' then there may be aspects that we are simply unaware of currently whereas 'known unknowns' imply that we have an awareness of a 'something', via methods to confirm that there is indeed a 'something', but that we don't yet have a full understanding of that 'something': for example we know that homing pigeons 'home' but the precise mechanisms they use to do so isn't yet fully understood.