cbo@utai.UUCP (07/07/87)
Sarge Gerbode (sarge@thirdi) writes in (<48@thirdi>: | To summarize: As each of us looks at what he knows in his own life, what he | knows at a particular time is coextensive with what he believes at that time. | Thus, for an individual at a particular time, knowledge and belief are | equivalent. I dont think so! When I try to do something and fail, I often believe that one of my currently held beliefs is false, and is thus reponsible for the failure. The dilemma, of course, is that I don't know *which* of my beliefs is false, and since I can't give them all up, I am forced (for the time being at least) to retain them all. The net result is that I end up believing that what I believe and what I know is not coextensive (although of course, I cant list the extension of either!). To believe anything else would be remarkably presumptuous, I feel. Calvin Bruce Ostrum (cbo@ai.toronto.edu) Department of Computer Science University of Toronto ------------------------------------------------------------------------- It is a curiousity of the philosophical temperament, this passion for radical solutions. Do you feel a little twinge in your epistemology? Absolute scepticism is the thing to try. Has the logic of confirmation got you down? Probably physics is a fiction. Worried about individuating objects? Dont let anything in but sets. Nobody has yet suggested that the way out of the Liar paradox is to give up talking, but I expect it's only a matter of time. Apparently the rule is: if aspirin doesn't work, try cutting off your head. Jerry Fodor -------------------------------------------------------------------------
sarge@thirdi.UUCP (07/09/87)
In article <3988@utai.UUCP> cbo@utai.UUCP writes: > >When I try to do something and fail, I often believe that one >of my currently held beliefs is false, and is thus reponsible for the failure. >The dilemma, of course, is that I don't know *which* of my beliefs is false, >and since I can't give them all up, I am forced (for the time being at least) >to retain them all. The net result is that I end up believing that what >I believe and what I know is not coextensive (although of course, I cant >list the extension of either!). To believe anything else would be remarkably >presumptuous, I feel. > My recent posting (and Alan Wexelblat's) should cover this point. In the above case, you would retain all of your beliefs, but assign them an average probability less than 1. Your belief concerning the aggregate of your beliefs would then be the same as your knowledge of the aggregate of your beliefs, and the degree of belief in each individual member of the aggregate would be the same ass your knowledge of same, so the mapping remains the same. One of the problems is in the vagueness of the terms "belief" and "knowledge", which sometimes mean something absolute and sometimes something relative. I mean both to mean something that admits of degrees, ranging from 0 or near-0 probability through 1 or near-1 probability. For the sake of consistency, let's call the thing believed or not an "idea". Below 0.5 are various ranges of DISbelief of or knowledge of the *negation* of the idea. Above 0.5 are various ranges of belief or knowledge of the idea. Belief and knowledge, from the viewpoint of a single individual at a particular time, are alike agreement, assent, or acceptance of an idea (saying "Yes"); Disbelief and knowledge of the negation of an idea are alike rejection, dissent, or disagreement with an idea (saying "No"). Assent and dissent admit of degrees. -- "From his own viewpoint, no one ever has false beliefs; he only *had* false beliefs." Sarge Gerbode Institute for Research in Metapsychology 950 Guinda St. Palo Alto, CA 94301 UUCP: pyramid!thirdi!sarge