In order to examine the question of, "how do we know what we know", one must first examine how we learned what we know. Generally, an individual is taught what he knows either through social interaction or observation of his society. Individuals learn meaning, and thus an understanding of his subjective reality, through communication and the use of symbols. Language is the most common symbol by which one acquires an understanding of reality. Words have no concrete meanings within themselves, rather they are symbols for a concept or entity. As children, our parents point to objects and teach us words for those objects. Our parents also teach us words to describe emotions and other intangible entities. Through the use of symbols and language, we also acquire an understanding of concepts that are taught to us as concrete truths, such as religion. Our reality is taught to us through communication and the use of symbols.
Thus, we learned what we know through the mechanism of symbols. Society taught us the nature of reality through the use of symbols. But what if we had been taught different concepts with different symbols as children? Would our realities be completely different? How different would you be if you were raised to fear Christianity, and taught that you must eliminate Christianity to glorify your god. What if you were taught by everyone that you love and trust that your pleasing god will ensure that one thousand virgins will be waiting for you in heaven upon your death? Men are very driven by primal passion, and I can see how a man might decide to become a suicide bomber if he truly believes that he is not only glorifying god in the most valiant way, but he is also ensuring that a thousand virgins will be waiting for him in heaven when he dies. What a deal...glorifying god, gaining respect from your society, and acquiring a harem of virgins all for yourself! If your parents and society whom you trusted implicitly taught you this, you might believe it and live your life according to these teachings. These beliefs may sound silly to people who were not raised with them, but they are considered to be reality and truth by some people in other cultures. In contrast, your beliefs might be considered silly to some people who were raised differently. All of our tastes and aversions are taught to us as children.
"The structures of society become the structures of our own consciousness." - Peter Berger
There is no evidence that anything is "evil" or "good". The concepts of evil and good are taught to us as children. Aside from the fact that our society teaches us that certain things are good or evil, we have no way of really knowing if anything in our lives is good or evil; moreover, we have no way of knowing if anything we were taught is true. If you think about it, everything you know was taught to you, either by your parents, the scientific community, or culture. And our parents, our scientific community, and our culture learned what they know from their parents, scientific community, and culture. Everything in life merely exists, and human beings give meaning to existence. Thus, you could say that the only truth is that everything is meaningless until the individual assigns meaning. However, even if one accepts the fact that all of life is meaningless and meaning is socially conditioned, we still live in the reality we have learned and therefore it is difficult to escape. The concept of living in a dream can be applied here...
When one considers the idea that we might be living in a dream, the general impression is that our "true" self is "out there" somewhere dreaming, and that our reality and everyday experiences, such as attending la sierra, are a dream. However, consider the idea that perhaps our acquired beliefs and social conditionings are the dream. We believe so strongly in the ideas and concepts that we are taught as children that they become our realities, however, these ideas and concepts are taught to us and may not truly exist; thus, living your life according to these ideas and concepts would be like living in a dream...all that you are living for would not be real. Perhaps the true reality is that life has the meaning that we give to it and that we can choose that meaning, by living actively, instead of living passively according to what we have learned from society.
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3 comments:
A very insightful and thought provoking blog. If I may, I'd like to say a few things about some comments you made, which I took to be interesting.
I'm with you through much of what you say initially. But wouldn't you agree that there are some conceptions of truth, in certain degrees of understanding, that are universally shared, like for example the notion and feeling of friendship or companionship, that we are alive, that murder or rape is at least undesirable?
But even if you don't (and I'm not sure what that would mean), don't you find it odd that some things are not learned through symbols or teaching, like for example, blinking or becoming suprised when someone makes an unexpected loud noise, or the sense of a growing trust one has in someone as time passes within a positive relationship?
Don't you think that there are certain absolute truths in life which are not conditioned but are part of the general facts of nature, like pain, happiness, interest in something or other for no real reason, the power to do, the ability for self-sacrifice for others despite the cost to one's life?
It seems to me that these things are not so much conditioned or taught, but they arise as parts of life as a brute fact.
What are your thoughts?
Thanks for the comment! You really made me think! I came up with a few counter arguments. Let me know your thoughts.
On universally shared truths:
Some individuals with certain psychiatric disorders do not share the notion that we are alive. I read a book once about a woman who thought she was dead. she felt that she was a ghost wandering the earth in a reality that she couldn't escape. She became numb to the daily experience of life because she felt that it wasn't real. Of course, she was diagnosed with psychiatric problems, but how do we know that we aren't the crazy ones? maybe she is actually the one who has it right? As for murder, one could perhaps use mental illness as another example: a mother who believes her children are better off dead and in heaven with god than living here in human corruption. This hypothetical mother might feel that she is doing her children a favor by killing them, and that murder is justified...and this is her reality, whether we share that reality or not. Maybe, though it may sound sick, some people might actually think that murder is desirable. As for friendship and companionship, not all creatures are universally inclined to socially interact and share feelings of friendship with each other. Certain animals prefer to live in solitude. I have no theory as to why human beings share the feeling of friendship and certain animals do not; but I do know that not all living creatures share this universal feeling of friendship.
As far as the facts of nature, western science teaches that pain is a biological response and that it is most definitely a universally shared truth. Western science teaches us that all biological systems are concrete and universal truth. This might be true, however, I have read books on Eastern spirituality that claim that yogis in the Himalayas have reached a level of enlightenment that has given them complete control over their bodily functions, which means that the yogi would not feel pain if he did not wish to feel pain. I have no idea if this is true or not true, but I don't want to dismiss something merely because I haven't seen it and my society tells me it is not possible. So, essentially, perhaps pain and other biological functions aren't universal truths? As far as the universal truth of being startled by unexpected loud noises: being startled is generally a physiological response to fear, and perhaps you could argue that even fear is socially conditioned. If we were taught that nothing could hurt us or take anything away from us, perhaps we wouldn't be startled by anything?? Conditioned fear would also relate to the universal truth of individuals developing trust in someone after time passes. It seems that babies trust everyone. They are innocent to pain and corruption. Little children generally trust everyone until they are either hurt, or taught that they can be hurt. Then they only trust people when they are sure someone wont hurt them.
Thank you for responding to my response. Here are some thoughts.
Interestingly enough the first two examples you use regard crazy persons. The fact that you’re already able to identify what ‘crazy’ is as such makes for a difficult argument. What appears to be the skeptical statement: ‘how do we know that we’re not the crazy ones?’ seems to hint at what looks to be a kind of relativism, which inevitably brings about the collapse of meaning within a context. Wouldn’t you say that it is context that shows what meaning people take things (events) to have?
What I mean is within communities (large/small/med/ancient/modern), the crazy are identifiable by certain conditions. And while not all who supposedly fall under given parameters of craziness will be in places where crazy people are usually placed by the community, given certain circumstances, craziness can be and many times are identified. But much of the time, the community doesn’t come to some agreement by vote that a person is crazy – though I’m aware that isn’t always the case – it is an agreement in common reaction, a reaction of a certain kind of sense the community has. For example, there are various degrees of schizophrenia. The highly schizophrenic may have strong hallucinations, are prone to hurting themselves because of it, are subject to erratic behavior, and can be extremely violent towards others. This, of course, is identifiable not by definition, but because people will see the oddness of behavior and react accordingly. In this extreme example, would you say that it’s possible that it may be that perhaps the schizophrenic is the normal one and we are the schizophrenic? Or put more generally and less politically correct, would you say that its possible that this person is the sane one and we’re the crazy ones?
Western science is a powerful way of understanding certain things about the world. It’s interesting to me to see how you suggest that it bears a kind of truth with regards to its discoveries about pain. I think, however, by couching pain solely in terms of science there may be certain conceptual difficulties that arise. For example, there are people with a rare medical condition – though the term escapes me - which cannot feel pain. They have to take great care what they do in their everyday activities just in case they seriously hurt themselves, and for example, bleed to death. If you watch House, there’s a great episode regarding one patient with this condition. In any case: So, especially given your last argument, would you still say that pain is perhaps a social construct with a relative value subjectively imposed?
As to what regards yogis, I’d have to say that if they’re on the level, it’s not that they don’t feel pain, it’s just that they’ve developed a way to transcend pain; in other words, what I’ve seen reported is that the pain is there, they just have an overwhelming capacity to ignore it. If this is the case, would you say that this maintains pain as an absolute truth?
With respect to table slamming and autonomic responses, I’m not sure I see that blinking is a fear response mechanism. Though my following example is not a good one for a philosophical discussion, but I think still relevant, I don’t remember being conditioned to respond to table slamming by blinking fearfully or otherwise. I think you’d be able to prove your claim if you found a society the people of which don’t blink when an abrupt loud noise is made near them. That would show that they don’t condition their children to blink and so grow to adulthood without such behaviors.
In the case of babies, as far as I know, as soon as babies’ eyes are developed enough for them to see and use their eyelids, if a person makes an abrupt, loud noise (like wrapping on wooden table) the baby will blink. But I do agree that babies are innocent to pain, at least until they experience it. This word ‘corruption’ seems kind of a heavy word, though. I’d have to ask what you mean here. If you mean, for example, if a baby is capable of causing another baby harm because they want something the other baby has, I’ve seen studies that at certain stages of development and depending on the general temperament of the baby, the baby will hit another baby that has a toy or something that s/he wants. Though I’m not sure if that’s one way of seeing corruption here.
I’m extremely interested in hearing..er..reading your thoughts. You touch on many things I’ve thought and am still thinking about. Thank you for the discussion.
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