muttiah@cs.purdue.EDU (Ranjan Samuel Muttiah) (07/13/89)
'Is the existence of knowledge knowledge enough ?'
ian@mva.cs.liv.ac.uk (Ian Finch) (07/15/89)
In article <7111@medusa.cs.purdue.edu>, muttiah@cs.purdue.EDU (Ranjan Samuel Muttiah) writes: > > 'Is the existence of knowledge knowledge enough ?' Surely you need the knowledge of the existence of knowledge, or even the knowledge of the location of knowledge? If you need to know the speed of light, it is not enough for the speed of light to be known, you must know that is known, and know _where_ to look it up!
andrew@berlioz (Lord Snooty @ The Giant Poisoned Electric Head ) (07/18/89)
In article <9018@mva.cs.liv.ac.uk>, ian@mva.cs.liv.ac.uk (Ian Finch) writes: > In article <7111@medusa.cs.purdue.edu>, muttiah@cs.purdue.EDU (Ranjan Samuel Muttiah) writes: > > > > 'Is the existence of knowledge knowledge enough ?' > > Surely you need the knowledge of the existence of knowledge, or even the > knowledge of the location of knowledge? > > If you need to know the speed of light, it is not enough for the speed of > light to be known, you must know that is known, and know _where_ to look it > up! This belongs in talk.philosophy.meta or similar, but in any case, the correct answer depends on exactly what your purpose is; in summary, the question is stated in a fuzzy manner (like most real-life ones!). As illustration, if the purpose is only to be aware of the existence of knowledge as a means to some end, or indeed as an end in itself, then the query is a tautological one, with "yes" as the answer. If more is required from this unstated purpose, concerned with the content and/or location of the knowledge, or indeed with how it should be applied in order to achieve this purpose, then of course the answer is "no". Because the purpose (goal) is unstated, the word "knowledge" may be substituted for with practically any substantive, from "toad-sexing" to "clothes-horses". All this is a nice illustration of separation of a message from its contextual frame of reference. -- ................................................................... Andrew Palfreyman I should have been a pair of ragged claws nsc!berlioz!andrew Scuttling across the floors of silent seas ...................................................................