The book "Mistakes Were Made (but not by me)" by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson helped me wrap my mind around accepting that I don't know things. It is a very good read.
Things you KNOW, don't know and don't know you don't (know)
by Terry 28 Replies latest jw friends
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Terry
2. Unknown knowns
That appears to me to be an antinomy. Can you give me an example of an unknown known? Or, as philosophers say: can you instantiate it?
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EntirelyPossible
Terry, why do you have to overcomplicate the simple? You can take a hammer and turn it into a Rube Golberg machine that involves pulleys, ropes, a mouse picking up a piece of cheese and a nuclear reactor to drive a nail, my friend.
An unknown known is simply something that you know that you don't know that you know. For instance, if I ask you do I turn right or left on highway 74 to get to the coast off of Green Street, you may say, "I have no idea". You might know, however, if I refer to it as what you know it as, Independence Boulevard. You KNOW the answer, but you don't know that you know it until you hit something familiar, a reference point, or realize we are using two different names for the same thing.
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Night Owl
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Probably the greatest thinker of our time.
NightOwl
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Terry
An unknown known is simply something that you know that you don't know that you know. For instance, if I ask you do I turn right or left on highway 74 to get to the coast off of Green Street, you may say, "I have no idea". You might know, however, if I refer to it as what you know it as, Independence Boulevard. You KNOW the answer, but you don't know that you know it until you hit something familiar, a reference point, or realize we are using two different names for the same thing.
And you call me complicated!
I'm tempted to challenge your example. But, it requires a modicum of energy and it is about 101 degrees in Fort Worth today.
If you type in a URL destination and alter just one letter or number you'll get a Not Found.
A Disambiguation app might be running, however, that will ask you: "Do you mean______?" At which point you can correct your error.
The example you give is really about error and not knowledge.
The "Hwy 74" is the equivalent to wrong URL (user request list).
But, why argue?
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EntirelyPossible
But, why argue?
Because you would lose would be one good reason. Your refutation is flawed because both names are correct.
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still thinking
Doesn't knowledge quite often come from error? don't we learn from our mistakes?
In fact...using this reasoning...doesn't it only prove that we can know nothing, except what we have proven by our errors to be incorrect?..
So maybe we can only know what is NOT true...but not what IS true.....
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EntirelyPossible
Bingo. I told my son earlier today we learn often learn more from mistakes than we do success. I am interviewing 4 people on thursday, the ones that tell me they have always been successful are automatically out.
however, your reasoning is flawed because you equate failure with the knowing what isn't true.
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Terry
KNOWING is the subject.
Let's toy with the idea that KNOWLEDGE is like money and the mind is like a bank account.
Money, like knowledge, is fungible. It can be exchanged for something else of value.
We exchange our services (work) for payment (money) and store it (bank) for future access and use (fungibility).
Ignorance about our financial assets presents an interesting model for the knowledge problem.
A Jehovah's Witness thinks they are depositing vast riches in an account which will sustain them in the future.
(They THINK they KNOW they have growing wealth in their Kingdom National Bank account.)
There is no Bank and there is no money in this instance. It is illusory. The illusion (thinking they are rich) keeps them working toward accrual and protection of that investment.
Interestingly, the confidence of wealth leads to an arrogance toward others less fortunate. (Non-JW's) Or, a pitying charity.
Going door to door and witnessing, for the JW, is like the TV infomercials we see where some GURU tells us how we can get rich investing in some willy-nilly scheme and become JUST LIKE THEM!
However, the MONEY JW's think they possess is NOT FUNGIBLE. It cannot be exchanged for anything of value in their lifetime (unless you count a pat on the back at the Kingdom Hall.)
Each and every prayer a JW utters is like a bad check written on a non-existing account!
Like Bernie Madoff's investors who trusted him implicitly and who confidently assumed they were growing richer by the hour, Jehovah's Witnesses are smugly assured of their "financial" standing.
We EX-JW's know all too well what happens if any REAL WORLD problem arises. Nothing in the JW's "wealth account" is worth anything at all in a time of emergency.
The illusion suddenly collapses.
Any "help" a JW receives from their brethren is itself of no real world use either!
Being a Jehovah's Witness consists mostly of what they THINK they KNOW which is really what they DON'T KNOW they DON'T KNOW.