charlie@cca.UUCP (Charlie Kaufman) (07/20/83)
In a recent tirade on abortion in another newsgroup, someone said:
"No one REALLY KNOWS when life begins, so we must err on the side of..."
(I don't recall which side we *had* to err on; that's not what I wanted
to talk about).
My immediate and cynical reaction is that that is not the problem.
Everyone "really knows"; they just "really know" different things.
Then I wandered off into whether it might actually be possible for two
people to "know" contradictory things. What does it mean to "know"
something which is not scientifically testable.
In a philosophy course I took a long time ago, a definition was offered
for what it means to know something. There were three requirements.
First, you had to believe it; second, it had to be true; and third, your
belief had to be justified. I was never happy with the definition
because it seemed to define a simple concept in terms of more complex
ones, and I have no idea whether there is a generally accepted
definition, so I use it for lack of anything better.
Now the question of truth of a non-scientifically testable statement is
not well defined. Suppose, for the sake of argument, we substitute not
contradicted by any present or future physical evidence for the second
piece of the definition. With this definition, it would be possible (in
fact likely) for two people to "know" contradictory things.
What does anyone think of my definition. What do you think it means
when someone says he "knows" God exists. Does this lead anywhere
interesting?
--Charlie Kaufman
charlie@cca
...decvax!cca!charlie