In regards to any knowable object, it is commonly understood that because of the way something exists it can be known in a certain way.
For example heat and cold. Due to its nature, it is perceived in certain ways (i.e. with thermometers). If you want to know what time it is, you can stare at a thermometer all day ...yet you will not be enlightened.
There is an epistemological great divide that separates all knowable things into two categories –those things we can control and those things we cannot control.
Some things we cannot control simply because we don’t have the technology or knowledge to control them yet (as one bumper sticker reads “Earth First. We can mess up the other planets later”). So in principle we could control them. But there are some things we cannot control even in principle.
For example the sun. In a physical sense it is vastly more powerful than us. Because we are conscious and can think however and the sun can’t, we tend to think that perhaps one day we might be able to control it. But if we are dealing with things that are conscious and in fact much more conscious than us, the controlled experiment would be irrelevant and useless. Imagine a being that is physically and cognitively much more powerful than we are. There is no way in the world that we can study them through a controlled experiment
As a simple example , take an ant and a human. Because of my advantages I assume I am more intelligent than the ant – I can divert the ant – it can crawl on my finger – I can catch it and control it. And throughout it all the ant appears to have no real way to understand human anatomy (the ant is not thinking “I am now walking on the finger of a human sapien sapien”). The ant is more conscious of my arm than I am (aware of topography like hairs and freckles ). But in terms of knowing that it is an arm, that it belongs to a body, that it belongs to a particular body etc etc .... all this is beyond the ants cognitive horizons . Similarly there is a sense that we may know about the topography of the earth and can also launch a few substantiative guesses about the surrounding universe– but what is it? Is the earth part of a cosmic body (as socrates suggests) What is the earth really? It’s not simply different knowledge – Like the ant knows the freckles and I know the hairs - It’s not like lateral or horizontal variation of knowledge. It’s a different order of knowledge. If there are things /beings in the universe that are physically and cognitively greater than ourselves , we can no more examine such things in a controlled environment anymore than an ant can bring me into an ant laboratory.
That is one aspect of things one cannot control, even in principle.
Another is it’s not possible for one to have experienced one’s own conception, therefore one cannot speak with absolute certainty where one came from. When something is the source of something else (in the biological sense) it sets up an epistemological relationship (a relationship of knowability). If I produce something, I know what I produce, but the product cannot know. The product depends on me to become informed. If you have absolute truth as a god as the source of everything it sets an asymmetrical epistemological relationship (meaning that god can know us perfectly, being the source of our existence, but we cannot symmetrically know god like he knows us).
In fact you design a scientific experiment based on what you are trying to understand because every knowable object is known in certain ways. So you design it around what you “think” will be the knowable qualities of the object.
For example the search for Brown Dwarfs (stars that never made it – the minor leagues of stellar bodies). There was actually a theory that they exist but they weren’t discovered. So astronomer Eric Becklin built his studies around what he felt were the knowable characteristics of brown dwarfs.
If we believe that everything has to be known through controlled experiments (bread and butter of empiricism), this limits the knowable universe to things that are less than us. When I choose a particular process to know, the very choice of a method predetermines the range and extent of things I can know. If I chose the thermometer as an instrument, that predetermines what I can know ( namely temperatures).
Similarly if I choose as my primary method of knowing the controlled experiment I am predetermining that I will only be able to know things that are inferior to me (since that is the only thing I can control)
There is something tragically comic about going out in the universe wielding the controlled experiment as the primary means of knowing and coming back reporting there is nothing out there but things we can control.
And of course the self referential incoherence of “only those things known by controlled empirical experiments can be accepted as the definitely known” – the problem is that that statement cannot be empirically verified – if you tried to empirically establish the philosophical claim you would have a text book example of circular reasoning.
The whole point of spirituality is to give you another method of knowing, not those things that are inferior to you and can be controlled by you, but a method that allows you to study things that are greater than you.
For e.g. - suppose you want to get into a prestigious graduate school or trying to get a job in a particular firm that is extremely difficult competitive . There are books “the successful job interview”, “the successful graduate application” . And what is the common denominator? Trying to persuade or to somehow please them or impress them, to know what are their likes and dislikes, to somehow communicate “l will be good for you” “ I will please you “ etc ..... the point is that you have to satisfy them.
Now if for some company that’s true , what to speak of god?
How much more is the burden on us to make an impression on god? I mean suppose you entered an application interview for a graduate school and said “If you’re really lucky I may go here, and if you really want me, I’ll let you try and convince me that you are worth my trouble – go ahead I will give you five minutes” ... that’s probably not the best way.
Yet with something infinitely greater than graduate school , god, some people do exactly that. Like, “ ok if god exists I’ll give him two minutes.... I want to see a flash of light some thunder ... go ahead god , impress me”
So something is deeply wrong with this picture - it’s irrational because there is no rational connection between the methodology and the object one is trying to understand.
For example heat and cold. Due to its nature, it is perceived in certain ways (i.e. with thermometers). If you want to know what time it is, you can stare at a thermometer all day ...yet you will not be enlightened.
There is an epistemological great divide that separates all knowable things into two categories –those things we can control and those things we cannot control.
Some things we cannot control simply because we don’t have the technology or knowledge to control them yet (as one bumper sticker reads “Earth First. We can mess up the other planets later”). So in principle we could control them. But there are some things we cannot control even in principle.
For example the sun. In a physical sense it is vastly more powerful than us. Because we are conscious and can think however and the sun can’t, we tend to think that perhaps one day we might be able to control it. But if we are dealing with things that are conscious and in fact much more conscious than us, the controlled experiment would be irrelevant and useless. Imagine a being that is physically and cognitively much more powerful than we are. There is no way in the world that we can study them through a controlled experiment
As a simple example , take an ant and a human. Because of my advantages I assume I am more intelligent than the ant – I can divert the ant – it can crawl on my finger – I can catch it and control it. And throughout it all the ant appears to have no real way to understand human anatomy (the ant is not thinking “I am now walking on the finger of a human sapien sapien”). The ant is more conscious of my arm than I am (aware of topography like hairs and freckles ). But in terms of knowing that it is an arm, that it belongs to a body, that it belongs to a particular body etc etc .... all this is beyond the ants cognitive horizons . Similarly there is a sense that we may know about the topography of the earth and can also launch a few substantiative guesses about the surrounding universe– but what is it? Is the earth part of a cosmic body (as socrates suggests) What is the earth really? It’s not simply different knowledge – Like the ant knows the freckles and I know the hairs - It’s not like lateral or horizontal variation of knowledge. It’s a different order of knowledge. If there are things /beings in the universe that are physically and cognitively greater than ourselves , we can no more examine such things in a controlled environment anymore than an ant can bring me into an ant laboratory.
That is one aspect of things one cannot control, even in principle.
Another is it’s not possible for one to have experienced one’s own conception, therefore one cannot speak with absolute certainty where one came from. When something is the source of something else (in the biological sense) it sets up an epistemological relationship (a relationship of knowability). If I produce something, I know what I produce, but the product cannot know. The product depends on me to become informed. If you have absolute truth as a god as the source of everything it sets an asymmetrical epistemological relationship (meaning that god can know us perfectly, being the source of our existence, but we cannot symmetrically know god like he knows us).
In fact you design a scientific experiment based on what you are trying to understand because every knowable object is known in certain ways. So you design it around what you “think” will be the knowable qualities of the object.
For example the search for Brown Dwarfs (stars that never made it – the minor leagues of stellar bodies). There was actually a theory that they exist but they weren’t discovered. So astronomer Eric Becklin built his studies around what he felt were the knowable characteristics of brown dwarfs.
If we believe that everything has to be known through controlled experiments (bread and butter of empiricism), this limits the knowable universe to things that are less than us. When I choose a particular process to know, the very choice of a method predetermines the range and extent of things I can know. If I chose the thermometer as an instrument, that predetermines what I can know ( namely temperatures).
Similarly if I choose as my primary method of knowing the controlled experiment I am predetermining that I will only be able to know things that are inferior to me (since that is the only thing I can control)
There is something tragically comic about going out in the universe wielding the controlled experiment as the primary means of knowing and coming back reporting there is nothing out there but things we can control.
And of course the self referential incoherence of “only those things known by controlled empirical experiments can be accepted as the definitely known” – the problem is that that statement cannot be empirically verified – if you tried to empirically establish the philosophical claim you would have a text book example of circular reasoning.
The whole point of spirituality is to give you another method of knowing, not those things that are inferior to you and can be controlled by you, but a method that allows you to study things that are greater than you.
For e.g. - suppose you want to get into a prestigious graduate school or trying to get a job in a particular firm that is extremely difficult competitive . There are books “the successful job interview”, “the successful graduate application” . And what is the common denominator? Trying to persuade or to somehow please them or impress them, to know what are their likes and dislikes, to somehow communicate “l will be good for you” “ I will please you “ etc ..... the point is that you have to satisfy them.
Now if for some company that’s true , what to speak of god?
How much more is the burden on us to make an impression on god? I mean suppose you entered an application interview for a graduate school and said “If you’re really lucky I may go here, and if you really want me, I’ll let you try and convince me that you are worth my trouble – go ahead I will give you five minutes” ... that’s probably not the best way.
Yet with something infinitely greater than graduate school , god, some people do exactly that. Like, “ ok if god exists I’ll give him two minutes.... I want to see a flash of light some thunder ... go ahead god , impress me”
So something is deeply wrong with this picture - it’s irrational because there is no rational connection between the methodology and the object one is trying to understand.
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