Groundlessness of all knowledge

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Qoeleth said:
Can’t one be uncertain about being uncertain? And even uncertain about that uncertainty?
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Not without being certain some of the time; no.
Qoeleth said:
Let me elaborate on the difference between articles of Fatih and non-religious knowledge. Imagine something you thought was true “The earth revoles around the sun.” Now, this could, conceivably, be disproven. But consider an elemtn of Faith- ‘God is One’. This, by it’s nature, cannot be disproven, since it is outside the realm of mere reason. So, when we talk about the Trinity, we are not trying to prove why God is three person, rather than, say four or five, on the basis of normal epistemic or dialectical rules. Rather the doctrine of the Trinity is like a Divein Mystery. It is there to admire, to contemplate, to wonder at. But not to disprove or to prove.
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God’s oneness can’t be disproven, not because it lies outside of reason, and is therefore unreasonable, but because it’s -true.- Therefore, you won’t disprove it.

Now, what you -can- do, and I’ve done this myself, is to use the following argument.

P1: Creation of the universe is a form of communication.
P2: God created the universe.
C: Therefore, God Communicates.

P1: When a being is truly timeless, their actions are also timeless in nature.
P2: God is truly timeless.
C: Therefore, God’s actions are also timeless in nature.

P1: God communicates.
P2: God’s actions are timeless in nature.
P3: God’s communication is an action of God.
C: Therefore, God’s communication is timeless in nature.

P1: Communication is the activity of conveying information between multiple beings.
P2: God communicates timelessly.
C: Therefore, God communicates to multiple beings timelessly.

P1: Only God is timeless in nature.
P2: God communicates to multiple beings timelessly.
C: God is multiple beings.

Now, this evidence seems to work against divine oneness, but actually, if you study it a little more closely, while this does prove that God is multiple -beings,- it doesn’t prove that those beings -are not one.- Thus, we have good reasons for belief in the Holy Trinity, on the basis of the theological conclusion that God is both one and multiple.
Qoeleth said:
I find Scepticism leads to peace. Let me give you an example of how it works. Say someone is assigned a job like cleaning toilets. A non-sceptic might adopt an opinion “This is good”- and so be pleased. Or “this is bad” and so be unhappy.

Thinking thus, and similarly about all things in life, one find’s perfect peace.
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Sometimes, you can say “This is good,” and be displeased by it, or “This is bad, and so I’m glad I’m not involved in it.” Or better yet, “this is bad, and even though I’ve been involved in it, I’m glad to have something to improve on.” I once told a priest in the town where I work that I’m glad to be criticized for good reasons, because it gives me the chance to improve.

But on the topic of your own view, I can’t imagine anything that would lead to greater hopelessness and despair. Skepticism is a psychological prison in this sense, because no matter where you go or what you do, nothing matters, nothing was significant. You never do anything truly praiseworthy, never accomplish anything that you have any reasonable excuse to feel proud of, or happy about, and in fact, you can never even be sure that you -do- feel happy or proud.

Worse yet, when someone cuts you off in traffic, and on instinct, you get angry at him, you have no way to know whether your anger is justified, no way to know whether he cut you off, or whether you got angry. You’re trapped in a room with flat, gray walls; all the same color, and all bare of any pictures or other decorations, just because you yourself have painted them that way.

Thank you; no. That does not lead to happiness for anyone who’s willing to seriously think about the implications of it. I’ll take the cosmos instead, please.
 
Qoeleth said:
majority or ‘common-sense’ opinion of what is desirable, so, if I am assigned to other duties, I equally couldn’t care less. Perhaps this is all a dream anyway. Nothing can be determined. And even this uncertainty itself is open to severe doubt."

Thinking thus, and similarly about all things in life, one find’s perfect peace.
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This really doesn’t sound peaceful to me. It makes my brain hurt. sorry…
 
Qoeleth said:
And, if the knowledge is derived from our perceptions, why should we trust them? It is only our perceptions which verify our perceptions, and thus the whole complex is circular. To trust our perceptions seems to be a groundless assumption.
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But why do we need to treat perception of, say, an object as derived, distinct, or separate from knowledge of that object? Why couldn’t we say that perception of something is direct knowledge or awareness of something?
 
DanAl said:
But why do we need to treat perception of, say, an object as derived, distinct, or separate from knowledge of that object? Why couldn’t we say that perception of something is direct knowledge or awareness of something?
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I see. You are suggesting that perception (and I suppose, ‘judgment’), are not themselves treatable as separate objects of consideration? If I perceive “This apple is red”, the validity of the perception cannot be treated as separate to the question of the contents of the perception (“is the apple really red?”).

That would seem to be true. But is there a “perception of perception” (or, a “judgment of judgment”), in which perception would both be the knowledge/awareness and the object of which the knowledge/awareness is?
 
petra22 said:
This really doesn’t sound peaceful to me. It makes my brain hurt. sorry…
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👍 A state of uncertainty about the existence of God is a cause of great distress for many people. So is doubt about the ones we love on earth.
 
Qoeleth said:
That would seem to be true. But is there a “perception of perception” (or, a “judgment of judgment”), in which perception would both be the knowledge/awareness and the object of which the knowledge/awareness is?
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I don’t see why it would be false since all arguments I have seen for the unreliability of senses are weak. The skeptic can claim the senses might be unreliable, but possibility claims are not very impressive on their own. You can check Michael Huemer’s entry on sense data to see objections to the different arguments pushed by skeptics: plato.stanford.edu/entries/sense-data/#ArgPerVar

But why should we have direct awareness of how things are? for one, it is more parsimonious to say that we’ve access of things themselves than the representation or mental image of an apple. In fact, it is very odd to say that there’s an apple “outhere” in the real world and another apple in the “world of perceptions” or inside your head.

Remember that skepticism about the senses is a post-Cartesian notion (oh, alright, stoics among others will disagree) most medieval thinkers were direct realists. It strikes me as counter-intuitive to say that when I hold my index finger in front of my eyes there are two fingers, one outside my realm of perception and one inside my head; it is more reasonable to say that there’s only direct awareness of one finger, does that make sense?
 
DanAl said:
I don’t see why it would be false since all arguments I have seen for the unreliability of senses are weak. The skeptic can claim the senses might be unreliable, but possibility claims are not very impressive on their own. You can check Michael Huemer’s entry on sense data to see objections to the different arguments pushed by skeptics: plato.stanford.edu/entries/sense-data/#ArgPerVar

But why should we have direct awareness of how things are? for one, it is more parsimonious to say that we’ve access of things themselves than the representation or mental image of an apple. In fact, it is very odd to say that there’s an apple “outhere” in the real world and another apple in the “world of perceptions” or inside your head.

Remember that skepticism about the senses is a post-Cartesian notion (oh, alright, stoics among others will disagree) most medieval thinkers were direct realists. It strikes me as counter-intuitive to say that when I hold my index finger in front of my eyes there are two fingers, one outside my realm of perception and one inside my head; it is more reasonable to say that there’s only direct awareness of one finger, does that make sense?
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That is true. The questioning of the validity of perceptions I have in mind is that of the Greeks- Parmenides, Plato, Phyrro, Gorgias, etc. This tended to take a more global undermining of perception, then the question of “one finger or two”. For example, in the case of Parmenides, that what was True Being (and therefore ‘really real’) was necessarily unchanging and one- and therefore everything we see is ‘merely’ appearance.

It seems fair to say that our perceptions, within the complex of the ‘perceived or perceptibale world’, are reliable (at least, reliable for us, although different species may perceive the world in a different way.) Indeed, the ‘perceived world’ is, by definition, ‘that which is perceived.’

The question then has a metaphysical aspect- what degree of reality is to be given to the ‘perceived world.’ If God is the only absolute reality, the ‘reality’ of the entire changing world (“the world of opinion”, as Parmenides calls it) can only be relative.

“As long as we seen anything but God, we are mistaken.” as one of the Sufis said. It seems that an absolutly true perception would be the vision of God, the Really Real, alone- the beatific vision, in other words. All other perception and knowledge is, to some degree, unreliable.
 
tonyrey said:
👍 A state of uncertainty about the existence of God is a cause of great distress for many people. So is doubt about the ones we love on earth.
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I would see the existence of God as something other than ‘a fact’, which can be subject to doubt, in the same way any scientific or historical datum might be subject to doubt.

Most disbelief in God, I suggests, comes from an excessive belief in the world, reason, the senses, etc., where things are considered as ‘evidence’ against God, and similarly, evidence for God is demanded. I chose to believe in God, not the world. In the world, I see evil and imperfection. Yet, God, and all that comes from God is perfect and changeless. Therefore, the world that I see is false. I see imperfection- but I know that perfection alone exists.

My own experience is the more everything else is subject to doubt, the more central God becomes. In recognising that we are tossed on a sea of uncertainty, relativity, changing shadows and illusions- the more important becomes the one secure Rock, the One Truth, the One Absolute, the Only One who can say without lying, “I AM”.
 
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