ajqtrz
Chef - loquacious Old Dog
[REMINDER: I write long posts. If you don't have the patience to read 11 paragraphs, this post is not for you. And please don't tell me you skimmed them or, worse "TLR" but would still like to offer an opinion. (Sorry I have to say this, but there are a few forum readers who think it perfectly okay to mark it as TLR or say "I skimmed it" and then to offer a, usually testy, critique. It's like a person offering an opinion of a new restaurant even though they have never eaten there, because they read the menu.)]
Knowledge is what I expect to be true. That's the definition I use and it's a pretty good one as it makes a distinction between truth and knowledge in two ways. First, truth is what is. It is nothing more. Since knowledge is what I expect to be true, to me it's the same as what is. And second, what I expect to be true may not be what I say is true but something else. It may be what I consciously think is true, but which my actions and reactions show is not what I actually expect. For instance, I may tell myself I shouldn't be afraid of clowns because clowns will not hurt me, but am afraid of clowns exactly because something inside of me overrules what I express as true...that clowns won't hurt me. All of which is to say there are different kinds of knowledge.
First, there is physical knowledge. You go to walk and your body knows what muscles to contract in a precise rhythm that enables you to walk. You project into the next few seconds a set of motions by which you walk and expect those motions to produce walking. But suddenly, you develop a problem with your inner ear and your balance goes haywire. You find yourself expecting to walk with the same set of projected movements only to fall. Your body knowledge finds itself projecting what will happen incorrectly. It's knowledge is now, not true, even if it might remain in you body as knowledge. Now you have to reeducate your body.
Second, there is social knowledge. You have a friend. You expect your friend to support you in certain ways. You expect him to react to you in a more or less positive manner. You've been friends for a long time and trust him. But one day you say something which upsets him. He gets mad and storms out. You expected him to take your statement in a certain way and he took it differently. Your knowledge of your friend was wrong. You now need to examine why you thought he'd react the way you thought he would, and incorporate a new understanding of your friend into your social knowledge.
And there is mental or intellectual knowledge. This is what most people think of when they think about knowledge. We make statements expecting them to be true. We listen to statements of others, generally expecting them also to be true. When confronted with contradictory reasoning or evidence, we usually try to incorporate the new ideas into our thinking by adjusting our thinking a little. If we can't we discover what we thought we knew, wasn't as true as we thought, and sometimes have to make significant adjustments.
All three types of knowledge lead us to expect something and in all three cases we get something else, causing dissonance between knowledge and truth. All three challenges are uncomfortable and we generally move as quickly as possible to resolve them.
If the matter is physical we retrain our bodies to adjust to the "new reality," usually by grabbing the easiest and fastest solution to the problem and assuming the problem is minor. If that doesn't work we might try something else and so on until we are forced to go to the doctor. In every case, if the symptom of our problem goes away we assume the problem has gone away.
If the matter is social we may try to resolve the issue by minimizing it. This means we ignore it if we can, then, if necessary, we use humor or some other, more or less kind, way to do so. As the challenge to the relationship continues we eventually begin attacking the other person, trying to isolate them from our social group, and eventually, breaking off contact. In other words, if the relationship doesn't function in a way that makes us comfortable, we generally break off the relationship, sometimes violently.
Mental knowledge is no different than the other two in that we try the simplest ways to adjust our knowledge base to accommodate the new fact/idea. We grab the first explanation that appears to resolve things and let it go at that. If that doesn't work and the challenge persists, we go to the next larger idea. Usually their is a predictable pattern to it all. We want to claim the new idea/data is in line with our position if we just adjust it a bit. Then it's okay if we adjust our thinking just a little. If we find that the idea/data is more significant and can't be easily accommodated we might go a bit deeper and make some deeper distinctions. But as long as the problem persists we seek to resolve it. In the end though, at some point, we have to either admit that the idea/data doesn't fit with what we expected and we are wrong at some level, or we need to resolve the matter by other means.
"Other means" is almost always short-hand for redefining social relationships. If we have changed our mind about religion we may move to another religion, or leave religion altogether. Ditto for politics. And just about anything else. On the other hand, if the challenge is coming from outside our group we go through a process by which the challenge is removed. First, we gently try to deal with the idea/data. If that doesn't work we try to appeal to the sense of group cohesion, usually as a sort of ad populum appeal. And then, if the problem still exists, we usually start attacking the messenger and his/her affiliations/habits/motives and so on, -- ad hominem remarks. In the end, if the idea/data is still unresolved we try to ostracize the messenger.
And if the social isolation of the messenger doesn't work, the group usually turns to the physical. This usually takes the form of having the "authorities" do something about the messenger rather than actual physical violence. It means something like kick him/her from the group. This is especially effective if the authorities are part of the social order and derive something from maintaining it as it is. Or it might be that it's just easier to remove the "offender" than to actually deal with the intellectual idea/data he or she brings to the table.
So, there are three types of knowledge and three ways to deal with dissonance. In dealing with dissonance we begin with the smallest adjustments and move on to larger and larger changes in ourselves or our environment until the conflict is resolved or just goes away, one way or another.
AJ
Types of Knowledge and Dealing with Dissonance
Knowledge is what I expect to be true. That's the definition I use and it's a pretty good one as it makes a distinction between truth and knowledge in two ways. First, truth is what is. It is nothing more. Since knowledge is what I expect to be true, to me it's the same as what is. And second, what I expect to be true may not be what I say is true but something else. It may be what I consciously think is true, but which my actions and reactions show is not what I actually expect. For instance, I may tell myself I shouldn't be afraid of clowns because clowns will not hurt me, but am afraid of clowns exactly because something inside of me overrules what I express as true...that clowns won't hurt me. All of which is to say there are different kinds of knowledge.
First, there is physical knowledge. You go to walk and your body knows what muscles to contract in a precise rhythm that enables you to walk. You project into the next few seconds a set of motions by which you walk and expect those motions to produce walking. But suddenly, you develop a problem with your inner ear and your balance goes haywire. You find yourself expecting to walk with the same set of projected movements only to fall. Your body knowledge finds itself projecting what will happen incorrectly. It's knowledge is now, not true, even if it might remain in you body as knowledge. Now you have to reeducate your body.
Second, there is social knowledge. You have a friend. You expect your friend to support you in certain ways. You expect him to react to you in a more or less positive manner. You've been friends for a long time and trust him. But one day you say something which upsets him. He gets mad and storms out. You expected him to take your statement in a certain way and he took it differently. Your knowledge of your friend was wrong. You now need to examine why you thought he'd react the way you thought he would, and incorporate a new understanding of your friend into your social knowledge.
And there is mental or intellectual knowledge. This is what most people think of when they think about knowledge. We make statements expecting them to be true. We listen to statements of others, generally expecting them also to be true. When confronted with contradictory reasoning or evidence, we usually try to incorporate the new ideas into our thinking by adjusting our thinking a little. If we can't we discover what we thought we knew, wasn't as true as we thought, and sometimes have to make significant adjustments.
All three types of knowledge lead us to expect something and in all three cases we get something else, causing dissonance between knowledge and truth. All three challenges are uncomfortable and we generally move as quickly as possible to resolve them.
If the matter is physical we retrain our bodies to adjust to the "new reality," usually by grabbing the easiest and fastest solution to the problem and assuming the problem is minor. If that doesn't work we might try something else and so on until we are forced to go to the doctor. In every case, if the symptom of our problem goes away we assume the problem has gone away.
If the matter is social we may try to resolve the issue by minimizing it. This means we ignore it if we can, then, if necessary, we use humor or some other, more or less kind, way to do so. As the challenge to the relationship continues we eventually begin attacking the other person, trying to isolate them from our social group, and eventually, breaking off contact. In other words, if the relationship doesn't function in a way that makes us comfortable, we generally break off the relationship, sometimes violently.
Mental knowledge is no different than the other two in that we try the simplest ways to adjust our knowledge base to accommodate the new fact/idea. We grab the first explanation that appears to resolve things and let it go at that. If that doesn't work and the challenge persists, we go to the next larger idea. Usually their is a predictable pattern to it all. We want to claim the new idea/data is in line with our position if we just adjust it a bit. Then it's okay if we adjust our thinking just a little. If we find that the idea/data is more significant and can't be easily accommodated we might go a bit deeper and make some deeper distinctions. But as long as the problem persists we seek to resolve it. In the end though, at some point, we have to either admit that the idea/data doesn't fit with what we expected and we are wrong at some level, or we need to resolve the matter by other means.
"Other means" is almost always short-hand for redefining social relationships. If we have changed our mind about religion we may move to another religion, or leave religion altogether. Ditto for politics. And just about anything else. On the other hand, if the challenge is coming from outside our group we go through a process by which the challenge is removed. First, we gently try to deal with the idea/data. If that doesn't work we try to appeal to the sense of group cohesion, usually as a sort of ad populum appeal. And then, if the problem still exists, we usually start attacking the messenger and his/her affiliations/habits/motives and so on, -- ad hominem remarks. In the end, if the idea/data is still unresolved we try to ostracize the messenger.
And if the social isolation of the messenger doesn't work, the group usually turns to the physical. This usually takes the form of having the "authorities" do something about the messenger rather than actual physical violence. It means something like kick him/her from the group. This is especially effective if the authorities are part of the social order and derive something from maintaining it as it is. Or it might be that it's just easier to remove the "offender" than to actually deal with the intellectual idea/data he or she brings to the table.
So, there are three types of knowledge and three ways to deal with dissonance. In dealing with dissonance we begin with the smallest adjustments and move on to larger and larger changes in ourselves or our environment until the conflict is resolved or just goes away, one way or another.
AJ