Is Experience Necessary For Knowledge?

by Satanus 23 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Satanus

  Imagine, if you will, that you are the only thing that exists. Imagine that you need no oxygen, because you had everything you need. That means that, outside yourself, there is nothing to see, hear, feel or sense in any way. You have always been like this.

  In this state, would you be able to know anything? Would you even know that you were always like this, since time also did not exist, and you have no experience of past or future. For an entity in this state, all would be quiet, extremely quiet, perhaps dead quiet. Maybe the entity would not even know itself, since as a unity, it has nowhere from which to get feedback.

  Light some incense, and then consider these hypotheses, as they would apply to the christian god. As a side point, while the christian god lives outside of time, the wt god lives within time, but it is slowed down for him, so that it takes 7000 of our yrs for one day to pass for him. On a busy day, his time flow slows to the rate that it takes 42,000 - 49,000 yrs to finish.

  SS
• 

  blondie

  Experience is learning from your own mistakes.

  Wisdom is learning from other people's mistakes.

  Blondie (prefers the latter)
• 

  Sargon

  I remember reading back in the '70's about a scientist (i think it was Pavlov) who built a deprivation chamber for his daughter. Basically denying her all of all senses, to find out what she would learn. I can't even remember what the eventual results or conclusions were, I'll try to look it up this afternoon. I would imagine that this would be a similar environment as Jehovah expeienced in the Christian Mythology. Interesting analagy SS.
• 

  MYOHNSEPH

  SaintSatan:

  Ever thought about trying to get out of the house more?
• 

  NeonMadman

  Remember that the God of the majority of Christians is a Trinity, and so was able to be in fellowship among the three persons from eternity. Thus, the aloneness you describe would never have been a reality. Which is not to say that I necessarily agree with your conclusion about knowledge, only that the circumstances you describe would not apply to the Christian God as you suggest.
• 

  Ginosko

  I think that the ancient Greeks had a better understanding in this concept than us. They used four words for our actual word knowledge.

  Eido: to see with the mind’s eye, signifies a clear and purely

  mental perception

  Epistamai: A knowledge obtained by proximity to the thing known,

  cf. our understanding.

  Ginosko: a knowledge grounded on personal experience

  Suniemi: Implies a native insight, knowledge gained through the five senses
• 

  Satanus

  Blondie

  I guess we could learn from god's mistakes.. heh heh.

  Sarg

  I believe his daughter raised in a box commited suicide in her teens.

  Myohn

  You could be right. Spring isn't far off.

  Neon

  That's all well and fine when theologians/students argue from what they have read in books. Christians who explore further, as do mystics, come to sense a unity.

  Ginosko

  That's very interesting. And your nick, it says a lot. And i agree. It's sad that the greek methods of investigation (science, really) were cast aside by the roman govt for a system based on faith, which throttled the questing human spirit.

  To add to this hypothesis, an entity as i discribed, would of necessity allow other entities to manifest from itself, for exploratory purposes. These would be miniature replicas. At one point, there may have been a trinity. Yet, why stop there? There would be no reason why they, in their turn could not continue the creative process. And so, creation carry on, all the way, branching out to perhaps endless possibilities. As creation grew, the original would grow in it's knowledge/experience of it's potential.

  SS
• 

  Sargon

  SS,

  You're right she did commit suicide and it was Skinner not Pavlov. Apparently her sensory deprivation caused her to create her own world in her mind. Maybe we're all just thoughts in some creators mind.
• 

  animal

  I thought maybe she grew up to be Hillary Clinton.

  Animal
• 

  Satanus

  Sargon

  Skinner, eh. We sit corrected.

  Are we just dreams in some creator being's mind? What freaks me a bit, the more i think about it, is the tremendous empty space within the atomic structure. If all the atomic space was removed, and we kept just the neuclii and electrons, the earth would be just a pail full of powder. I'm not sure if electrons would remain, if they were released from their spin/orbits. They might turn into photons and flock off somewhere.

  SS getting outta the house more