On these "other ways of knowing."

[cleanhippie]

I am finding it interesting how the claims of these "other ways of knowing" keep getting repeated, and when asked to provide just a single example of any knowledge gained through one of the "other ways of knowing", instead we get nothing but obfuscating, deflecting, projecting, insulting, and backpedaling.

It's like when one corners a psychic to prove their claim, you get nothing but excuses and never any proof.


I think we are seeing that here.

[trotsky]

1. Steve Jobs invented the iPad using nothing but intuition!

I am surprised at how few people understand the basic concepts here. But then again, given the names involved, not really.

[laconicsax]

2. This is what I *still* think of when I see "iPad."

[progressoid]

6. You've seen this right?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsjU0K8QPhs

[NMMNG]

7. That looks like something that requires batteries

:P

[progressoid]

8. You can plug it into your USB port.

:eyes:

[laconicsax]

3. Once, I was given a list of accomplishments...

All of which rely on objective proof in one manner or another.

[Odin2005]

4. And people are totally ignorant about the nature of intution.

It's not a form a data in and of itself, you fools! :banghead:

[NMMNG]

5. You have such a closed mind

It's your negativity that makes you impervious to the spiritual vibrations others are privy to.

[Deep13]

9. Well, I we can learn from impression or instinctive feeling...

...particularly if there is an evolutionary precedent for it. We can tell how someone is feeling by processing visual cues even if we are not necessarily aware of them. Pretty sure there are physical senses beyond the 5 usually mentioned (sense of time passing, sense of bodily position, sense of bodily condition like hunger, fatigue). Of course people run into problems when the extrapolate unsupported facts from mere impressions. Having a creepy feeling does not mean the house is haunted. A sense of well-being does not mean god is watching after you.

Of course none of that can contradict objectively verifiable, scientific fact.

[laconicsax]

10. There are as many as 19 senses depending on how you count.

Yet another thing the "great" Aristotle got wrong, and then some.

Edit: Which reminds me, if these other ways of knowing are so great, how come none of the greatest philosophers ever figured out that the Earth goes around the sun?

[dmallind]

11. You mean other than Aristarchus?

Let's not mistake lack of sophisticated technology with lack of sophisticated thinking.

[laconicsax]

14. I forgot about Aristarchus. n/t

[Deep13]

12. Heliocentrism was based on centuries of meticulous astronomical observation.

I mean the positions of planets, sun and moon against background stars naked eye.

Until that was done there was no frame of reference for it. The only "world" we knew about for sure was the Earth and the scale of the solar system was outside of our experience. Nothing in our evolutionary past created a survival advantage to those who understood heliocentrism, so no one knew. Telescopic observations of Jupiter and Venus plus calculations of planetary orbits based on elipses rather than circles put the nails in the geocentric coffin. Now with additional knowledge, the heliocentric model is quaint and outmoded since the solar system is not the center of anything.

[laconicsax]

13. Surely those other ways of knowing could have uncovered the necessary knowledge, right?

[Deep13]

15. Guess not. That would suggest creationism...

Natural (as in not supernatural) selection only accepts changes if they cause increased reproduction which usually means living longer to reproduce more. There is no immediate survival advantage to knowing the real scale of the universe.

Except there might be. Someday, in retrospect, humans or the descendants of humans may be able to say that our curiosity and ability to develop the scientific method is what saved us from an asteroid impact. But that would not be an "other way of knowing." So we are back at "no survival advantage for instinctive knowledge about the cosmos."

To have another way of knowing that told us things beyond our immediate survival needs implies a level of planning in the development of our senses. Some deliberate creator would have to know that there is a big universe and that we might want to know about it. That creator would then have to endow us with those senses in advance. Natural selection is unintelligent and cannot plan ahead.

I realize I am preaching to the choir, BTW.

[onager]

16. "A popular meme among the sans-science crowd..."

:rofl:

A great snarky little article, with a BONUS VIDEO of DeeHack Chopra being embarassed. And bloviating.

It’s a popular meme amongst the sans-science crowd to claim there are ‘ways of knowing’ besides science.

They don’t simply mean ways of ‘knowing’ things like whether or not someone loves us, but rather they mean ways of knowing significant, world view-altering things beyond our personal lives. That is, they want to bring their non-methods up to the level of knowing that science gives us (or, perhaps, they want to bring science down to their level). It’s sort of cute, but it never stands up to scrutiny.

http://forthesakeofscience.com/2011/10/26/other-ways-of-knowing/

[Deep13]

17. Oh, I see.

Someone asked about "other ways of knowing" in RT and got into an argument because I read the phrase literally and inferred "besides science" after it. While conceding that scientific empiricism is the most effective, conclusive way to positively know something, I also made the point that we also ascertain information based on instinct. I conceded the limits on this kind of information and in no way suggested it could compete with science. But it does exist. I think some of the anti-OWOK posters thought I was claiming more than I was.

[skepticscott]

19. Well, people also "ascertain information"

by watching Faux News or listening to Rush Limbaugh. Does the end result necessarily constitute "knowledge" or "knowing"? When a teabagger says "I KNOW that Barack Obama was born in Kenya!", what is your response to that "knowing"?

[Deep13]

21. They're wrong.

The documentary and circumstantial evidence conclusively demonstrates he was born in Hawaii.

The kind of impressions I think of are more emotional conditions than specific purported facts. A sense of danger or empathy, for example. Something that is still very physical and natural, but not discursive. No gut feeling can support the claim that the universe was created in six days or that is was created at all.

[PassingFair]

23. Doesn't sound very "Holmesian" of you.

Subconsciously picking up cues
is not really "sensing", it's
real observation.

[Deep13]

24. Well, sure, it's just processed at an instinctive level...

...rather than an intellectual, discursive level.

[amyrose2712]

18. Jumpin Jeebus!I just read that entire conversation and my head is spinning.

:spank: :spank:

[skepticscott]

20. Well, what they consider "ways of knowing"

are merely ways that individuals convince themselves that things are true. And a "way of knowing" that encompasses everything and anything that any person might convince themselves might be true requires so broad and vague a definition of "knowledge" or "knowing" as to be essentially useless.

[Ninjaneer]

22. I read deflecting as

defecating. :rofl:

Not that I would be too far off.

[NMMNG]

25. There usually is poo-flinging involved

So you're right, it's not too far off.

[onager]

26. I like this quote on the topic...

It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled sea of thought. - John Kenneth Galbraith

And this Galbraith quote seems on-topic in the days of OWS etc.:

The salary of the chief executive of a large corporation is not a market award for achievement. It is frequently in the nature of a warm personal gesture by the individual to himself.