Quote:
Originally posted by Arnab
I disagree on the "knowability" part. To believe something, anything, whatever it is, and whatever appropriate/inappropriate linguistic label you give to it, you have to know what you believe in before you begin to believe it.
For example, you first know that pure milk is white in color. Then you believe that statement, having not known any other example contradicting your knowledge otherwise at any point in your life.
[Edited on 13-5-2004 by Arnab]
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You got me there! This is what happens when you switch between your work and your talk in that frequency. Yes, I meant to say that just about the 'communicability' part and as a time-saving-quality-ruining process I copied and pasted both of them by accident. I noticed that shortly after I posted and then a sudden surge of work deluged myself, hence this hiatus.
Anyway, I agree with your "...you have to know what you believe in before you begin to believe it". By that, I assume, you mean that you know what you yourself believe in (or going to believe in), which is not tantamount to "knowing what others believe (or what beliefs are there in the air) in order to ingrain that belief in yourself". But here we have been talking about the knowledge of some belief, where the knowledge itself has nothing to do with the belief. But in your example of milk, you have shown how knowledge morphs into belief, considering knowledge and belief to be two states of a same phenomenon. For that matter, I guess the example didn't go much with your statement.
As for your example, I guess it's a bit risky to assimilate knowledge and belief. When you know something for a fact then there is no question of believing, you simply know (I am aware about projected knowledge, saying later about that). To believe in something, there needs to be some need of information/knowledge, which you compensate with your imagination. Once we add imagination (most often with impulse) to the knowledge, we call the whole thing as 'belief'. There would be no problem with that, if we could acknowledge that, belief is neither just knowledge nor just imagination. But too often we fail to do that.
As for projected knowledge, all that we know is 'projected'. And for that matter all factual knowledge are subject to change. But that need not refrain us from having 'knowledge' about something. By knowledge we mean to derive to a decision about something, which is backed by facts (which are knowledge by themselves, and subject to this definition) and maintains a logical congruity with whatever facts we have with us. Given the fact that, the 'backing-up-facts' may change, so may our 'knowledge'. So not even projected knowledge should be mixed up with belief!
I guess I should ask for aia (apology in advance) for taking so much freedom of space. Hopefully I am not committing a crime (to mods' pov), this not being the 'Bangladesh cricket' forum. Talking about mods, I was quite shocked to see Chinaman's resig. letter.
[Edited on 14-5-2004 by suds]