Knowledge vs Belief : Final Destination

[Snufkin]

I've used this image a few times to demonstrate what agnosticism is.

It's essentially showing that knowledge and belief are (or can be?) independent.

But it's still not crystal clear to me what the difference is or what they are.

Can anyone sum up what knowledge and belief are, and/or what the difference is?

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Can anyone sum up what knowledge and belief are, and/or what the difference is?

Sure... have you got 30 years?

Maybe, and I'm just spitballing here, "knowledge" and "belief" are different levels of the same thing? Both are terms that seem to mean "things we hold to be true" so maybe the only difference is the level of support or justification we have for making the claim about truth?

I think the point is that it is a sliding scale, not an either/or. That also makes the gnostic/agnostic labels meaningless to me. I think I could get by with only using either "knowledge" or "belief" and drop one of them entirely. It just needs qualifiers, which is what you use to decide which term to use anyways. "Knowledge" is just belief that you have extremely good justification for.

 

[kenandkids]

Can anyone sum up what knowledge and belief are, and/or what the difference is?

Sure... have you got 30 years?

Maybe, and I'm just spitballing here, "knowledge" and "belief" are different levels of the same thing? Both are terms that seem to mean "things we hold to be true" so maybe the only difference is the level of support or justification we have for making the claim about truth?

I think the point is that it is a sliding scale, not an either/or. That also makes the gnostic/agnostic labels meaningless to me. I think I could get by with only using either "knowledge" or "belief" and drop one of them entirely. It just needs qualifiers, which is what you use to decide which term to use anyways. "Knowledge" is just belief that you have extremely good justification for.

Whenever someone asks this, and it happens a lot for some reason, I always look at it as a "what has happened" vs. "what will happen."

To put it simply, I have knowledge that the sun rose from the east yesterday, I believe that it will do the same tomorrow.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Whenever someone asks this, and it happens a lot for some reason, I always look at it as a "what has happened" vs. "what will happen."

To put it simply, I have knowledge that the sun rose from the east yesterday, I believe that it will do the same tomorrow.

Except that the Sun didn't rise, the Earth rotated. :lol:

And, for any useful meaning of the word "know" I can say that I know the Earth and the Sun will keep doing what they've been doing for a couple of billion years, and when I look to the east tomorrow I'l see the sun in its normal spot.

 

[kenandkids]

Whenever someone asks this, and it happens a lot for some reason, I always look at it as a "what has happened" vs. "what will happen."

To put it simply, I have knowledge that the sun rose from the east yesterday, I believe that it will do the same tomorrow.

Except that the Sun didn't rise, the Earth rotated. :lol:

And, for any useful meaning of the word "know" I can say that I know the Earth and the Sun will keep doing what they've been doing for a couple of billion years, and when I look to the east tomorrow I'l see the sun in its normal spot.

Lol, I had a feeling you'd say that...

 

[Thomas Doubting]

Maybe, and I'm just spitballing here, "knowledge" and "belief" are different levels of the same thing? Both are terms that seem to mean "things we hold to be true" so maybe the only difference is the level of support or justification we have for making the claim about truth?

I think the point is that it is a sliding scale, not an either/or. That also makes the gnostic/agnostic labels meaningless to me. I think I could get by with only using either "knowledge" or "belief" and drop one of them entirely.

Gnosticism and agnosticism have a logical purpose.
Belief is not the same as knowledge, I don't really understand why some people think there is no difference?
Lets check what you wrote in the next post.

Except that the Sun didn't rise, the Earth rotated. :lol:

Excellent example for the difference between knowledge and belief!
You KNOW that the Earth is rotating around the Sun, people in the past (wrongly) BELIEVED that it is the other way round, well actually some still do :lol:

And, for any useful meaning of the word "know" I can say that I know the Earth and the Sun will keep doing what they've been doing for a couple of billion years, and when I look to the east tomorrow I'l see the sun in its normal spot.

Actually you can't know that, something might happen and make the Sun explode (or whatever), something could shoot the Earth out of its orbit (or whatever), those are UNKNOWABLE things. You (should) know however, that they have been doing it for billions of years, and you can assume or believe, that they will keep doing it..

Knowledge is based on facts, belief on assumptions. Lets see what wiki says about that.

Belief is the psychological state in which an individual holds a proposition or premise to be true.

Knowledge is a familiarity with someone or something, which can include information, facts, descriptions, and/or skills acquired through experience or education.

If you jump out of the window lets say.. 10th floor, you should know it isn't supposed to end well, but you can believe that somebody or something will save you. That is based on the knowledge about gravity, we know it will pull you down if nothing prevents it.
Knowledge and belief are far from being the same thing..

 

[WarK]

Excellent example for the difference between knowledge and belief!
You KNOW that the Earth is rotating around the Sun, people in the past (wrongly) BELIEVED that it is the other way round, well actually some still do :lol:

Oh but they knew Earth was the centre. They concluded it from observations they'd made. As it turned out the reasoning was flawed, nonetheless it wasn't faith. Knowledge doesn't become faith when you find out you were wrong(or just approximating). You'd have to call Newtonian gravity faith then.

I think the difference between the two is that knowledge is reason/logic driven. Faith on the other hand, doesn't need either of them, often it prevails despite reason. When you don't have any reasonable argument for something you can rely on faith or you can withdraw making judgement until you gain knowledge about what it is you're pondering. Also, if you have knowledge you don't need faith. Saying you have faith because of your knowledge, seems redundant to me.

When it comes to belief in a deity, agnostics say they don't have sufficient knowledge about existence of a god so they don't say either way. But does it mean they have faith in a deity? I don't think so. There would be fewer "sitting on a fence" kind of agnostics if they knew the difference between knowledge and faith.

 

[Aught3]

The classic definitions are -
Belief: a proposition which you hold to be true
Knowledge: a justified true belief

The problem with this definition of knowledge is it's difficult to spot the difference between a justified true belief and a justified false belief, except in hindsight. We can overcome this by accepting things as provisionally true and gain what could be called provisional knowledge. It just means we have to accept the occasional re-write of what we know.

 

[Squawk]

My opinion on this is probably well known, but might as well be stated here for clarity, and will also mention faith for completeness.

Belief: That which you hold to be true.
Knowledge: A belief for which the evidential support is sufficient to justify very high confidence level.
Faith: A belief for which evidential support is lacking, in any form.

The problem should be obvious. Sufficiency is subjective. One mans evidence is another mans irrelevance.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Actually you can't know that, something might happen and make the Sun explode (or whatever), something could shoot the Earth out of its orbit (or whatever), those are UNKNOWABLE things.

And yet, I feel completely comfortable saying that I know these things. I don't feel the need to mess about and hedge my bets, beyond the simple fact that all knowledge is provisional more or less by definition.

By some nonsensical technical definition, absolutely anything can happen at any moment for any reason or no reason at all and therefore we can't really know anything. That's a useless definition of knowledge. Under a practical and useful definition of knowledge, I can know all sorts of things without any sort or need for absolute certainty or complete knowledge of the entire universe's past present and future.

 

[Thomas Doubting]

Excellent example for the difference between knowledge and belief!
You KNOW that the Earth is rotating around the Sun, people in the past (wrongly) BELIEVED that it is the other way round, well actually some still do :lol:

Oh but they knew Earth was the centre. They concluded it from observations they'd made. As it turned out the reasoning was flawed, nonetheless it wasn't faith. Knowledge doesn't become faith when you find out you were wrong(or just approximating). You'd have to call Newtonian gravity faith then.

I have to correct myself.. they were simply wrong, their "knowledge" was crap, because their reasoning was flawed like you said and they pretty much sucked their knowledge out of their fingers in many cases... and some people still do, but in that case it is clearly obsolete knowledge, aka bullshit?
Better example, how can you KNOW that the flat Earth is held by some elephants who are standing on the back of some turtle? I really can't call that knowledge however you turn it.
About Newtonian gravity faith.. i'd just call it Newtonian obsolete gravity knowledge

I think the difference between the two is that knowledge is reason/logic driven. Faith on the other hand, doesn't need either of them, often it prevails despite reason. When you don't have any reasonable argument for something you can rely on faith or you can withdraw making judgement until you gain knowledge about what it is you're pondering. Also, if you have knowledge you don't need faith. Saying you have faith because of your knowledge, seems redundant to me.

Well from your perspective, you shouldn't need faith to know something, because we claim knowledge about things we are convinced are true, based on whatever facts we may have (which is why I wonder how somebody can "know" irrational things like the elephant/turtle- earth, even if i think that is true i could only call it belief or faith. Example I believe there is more than 1 universe, and i have faith that my favorite football team will not drop out next season but i don't have enough or any evidence to call it knowledge).

But when it comes to other people, if I know you claim certain knowledge but you are wrong, i would say you only have faith in your wrong knowledge.. (wow now it got weird again, sorry guys lol)
Let me try to rephrase it, you can THINK to know something and still be wrong, meaning that you don't know it, you just believe you know it (?)

There are still people who think that the Earth is flat.. from your point of view, do they:
1) KNOW it is flat?
2) believe it is flat?
3) just believe that they know it is flat?
4) something else?
I think it is 3) because i am sure they think they know it, but I can't call something knowledge if it is not true..

When it comes to belief in a deity, agnostics say they don't have sufficient knowledge about existence of a god so they don't say either way. But does it mean they have faith in a deity? I don't think so. There would be fewer "sitting on a fence" kind of agnostics if they knew the difference between knowledge and faith.

Yeah, maybe we should have that taught in schools.. basic logic and rational thinking should be implanted as soon as possible.. rather than blind faith which a great share of people like to call knowledge...
But I am not sure if i got that concept right, i don't see agnostics as people who believe or don't believe in God, they would have to tell me whether they are agnostic theists or atheists before i know what they mean, if they are agnostic theists then i presume they believe (some) god(s) exist(s) but are not sure about it., if they are agnostic atheists then i guess they believe that no god(s) exist(s) but are not sure about it.

I am a gnostic atheist when it comes to ANY God people talk or heck.. even just think about, after thousands of years of bullshit i think i am safe to say they don't exist in reality until whoever makes the claim meets their burden of proof. I can only laugh histerically about their books, hearsay and such things. Although it is almost too sad to be funny.
When it comes to the unknown i have to admit that i can't exclude some supernatural being or whatever would fall under the category "God", which makes me an agnostic atheist, but realizing how it came to the concept "god" and thinking about the versions i heard/read about.. and how easy people ignore logic and knowledge when it comes to their gods, I find it definitely too ridiculous to take them for serious, i would lie to myself if i were agnostic about it.
Since i am both gnostic and agnostic, i simply call myself atheist.
But I don't know what a "simply" agnostic is!?

And yet, I feel completely comfortable saying that I know these things. I don't feel the need to mess about and hedge my bets, beyond the simple fact that all knowledge is provisional more or less by definition.

By some nonsensical technical definition, absolutely anything can happen at any moment for any reason or no reason at all and therefore we can't really know anything. That's a useless definition of knowledge. Under a practical and useful definition of knowledge, I can know all sorts of things without any sort or need for absolute certainty or complete knowledge of the entire universe's past present and future.

Maybe my english is too bad to understand what you mean.. but based on my reasoning, i think you are wrong, you can't call something knowledge if you can't really be sure about it(?), no matter how comfortable you feel about it.
What will happen in the future is unknown, or did i miss something? Right now some interdimensional rift could suck in the entire universe and we're gone along with the Earth and the Sun, so how can you KNOW they will do whatever they usually do for billions of years? For me that can only be belief, or knowledge that they are supposed to do that based on observations etc.
However you KNOW that they were doing it yesterday, you were there to see it and there should be enough scientific data to support it. So i am safe to say that i KNOW they were doing it yesterday and the day before (etc).
I really don't understand how you can't draw a line between knowledge and belief.. i mean i know 1+1=2 whenever i do the math, would be silly if i only believe that, and i believe i will wake up some time after i fall asleep, i can't know that for sure :?:
Care to explain where i am wrong with my logic?

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Maybe my english is too bad to understand what you mean.. but based on my reasoning, i think you are wrong, you can't call something knowledge if you can't really be sure about it(?), no matter how comfortable you feel about it.
What will happen in the future is unknown, or did i miss something? Right now some interdimensional rift could suck in the entire universe and we're gone along with the Earth and the Sun, so how can you KNOW they will do whatever they usually do for billions of years? For me that can only be belief, or knowledge that they are supposed to do that based on observations etc.
However you KNOW that they were doing it yesterday, you were there to see it and there should be enough scientific data to support it. So i am safe to say that i KNOW they were doing it yesterday and the day before (etc).
I really don't understand how you can't draw a line between knowledge and belief.. i mean i know 1+1=2 whenever i do the math, would be silly if i only believe that, and i believe i will wake up some time after i fall asleep, i can't know that for sure :?:
Care to explain where i am wrong with my logic?

You seem to understand just fine, and your disagreement is reasonable. I'm just coming at the problem from a different direction.

Here's where we're disagreeing. You say that some non-magical, unknown, and completely unpredictable event could happen tomorrow and all of our predictions based on past events could be wrong, and therefore we can't say we know anything about the future. But, you call those predictions "knowledge" as well, knowing what should happen based on past events.

All I'm saying is that, barring any claim of absolute knowledge, that it isn't unfair to claim provisional knowledge of what will happen based on what should happen. You can be wrong, but you could be wrong about anything and everything. The Sun and Earth could have been built by aliens 50,000 years ago, and the apparent age of both is an intentional illusion. That could be true, but it probably isn't and there's no reason to preface every conversation about what we know about the past by saying that it is possible that our knowledge is wrong.

Hell, you COULD be an alien, or a ghost, or an AI, or some combination of the three. That doesn't mean I can't say that I know that you're a person, because those other options are so very unlikely and I can't prove or disprove them in any case.

 

[Thomas Doubting]

You seem to understand just fine, and your disagreement is reasonable. I'm just coming at the problem from a different direction.

Here's where we're disagreeing. You say that some non-magical, unknown, and completely unpredictable event could happen tomorrow and all of our predictions based on past events could be wrong, and therefore we can't say we know anything about the future. But, you call those predictions "knowledge" as well, knowing what should happen based on past events.

All I'm saying is that, barring any claim of absolute knowledge, that it isn't unfair to claim provisional knowledge of what will happen based on what should happen. You can be wrong, but you could be wrong about anything and everything. The Sun and Earth could have been built by aliens 50,000 years ago, and the apparent age of both is an intentional illusion. That could be true, but it probably isn't and there's no reason to preface every conversation about what we know about the past by saying that it is possible that our knowledge is wrong.

Hell, you COULD be an alien, or a ghost, or an AI, or some combination of the three. That doesn't mean I can't say that I know that you're a person, because those other options are so very unlikely and I can't prove or disprove them in any case.

I am just saying, the future is unknown for a good reason.. because we have no knowledge about events in the future :lol:
Well let's cut it off there, although i still disagree and for my part will always make a difference between knowledge and belief (and i would like especially religious people to try to make a bit more of a difference), i do know what you mean and it does make some sense, however... something is still bothering me. What gave me away?!?! My big head? Damn! I told the Ai-ghost guys on my home planet that they should make it smaller!!

 

[Dean]

@ImprobableJoe

[. . .]Maybe, and I'm just spitballing here, "knowledge" and "belief" are different levels of the same thing? Both are terms that seem to mean "things we hold to be true" so maybe the only difference is the level of support or justification we have for making the claim about truth? [. . .]

Great. So I guess today's subject will be epistemology.

Is knowledge a raw fact or a reliable fact? If I perceive something no one else sees, do I have knowledge of it? Or does it have to be perceptible to others for eligibility as knowledge? This objective scientistic bias leads to dubious ideas like qualia "not being real but merely experiential" (whatever that means), even thought we everything we apprehend is through qualia, constituted of both the shared and private variety. For instance, when I see the colour red, do I know I'm sensing that quality or do I believe I'm sensing it? I suggest to you the latter case is absurd, regardless of whether that red is associated with anything in objective fact or not. To many, the "justification" for making any claims about truth can only be science.

Scientism, as I have discussed it in the past, invokes the notion that science is the only route to knowledge, rather than simply the most reliable way of acquiring it. A real-world representation could be this, I guess: Medicine. Medicine is the exemplary case that knowledge of disruptive subjective experiences can gain intervention by knowledge of remedial objective methods. Of course, this raises the problem of the explanatory gap in the relationship between consciousness and reality in materialism. I guess that sums it up for now.

 

[devilsadvocate]

To many, the "justification" for making any claims about truth can only be science.

I'd rather say that, for many, science gets things less wrong than beliefs that haven't been put through the methodological testing science is. Being "scientific" doesn't relate to any real attribute an object or concept has, but to a stamp of approval concept gets if it survives the machinery. We trust the method because it seems to work, yet nobody knows why. "Truth", or rational justification of the practice that doesn't come with a full truckload of doubtful presuppositions, is either unattainable or, to most people, completely irrelevant. They don't want to, or know how to, question their a priori assumptions because they don't want to admit that we know nothing.