What exactly is the difference between an assumption and knowledge?

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by wynn, Apr 26, 2009.

  1. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    What exactly is the difference between an assumption and knowledge?
     
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  3. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    To assume something you are only guessing about the answers but having knowledge you have researched and verified what you know about something.
     
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  5. Search & Destroy Take one bite at a time Moderator

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    Assumptions are premature and carry more risk. The majority die quickly, but some grow and fortify into knowledge.

    Assumptions are usually quickly generated and generally applicable like a stereotype. Knowledge is more specific, honed, and detailed.
     
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  7. Bishadi Banned Banned

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    Assumptions can be like the 2LoT......... as it assumes a direction (even if systems can be created to share that pattern, the assumption has corrupted the progression of 'comprehensible knowledge')

    Knowledge is something experienced and accounted for. (i read that book) (i walked that street) (i understand) The experience that can be represented.


    Now to combine that reasoning; an assumption can impose a predetermination to an experience. (damaging knowledge; the account of the experience)
     
  8. wise acre Registered Senior Member

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    But you have to make assumptions to gain any knowledge. We all have untested axioms/assumptions.
     
  9. wise acre Registered Senior Member

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    Depends....
    could be not much.

    I think the word 'assumption' needs to be defined. Perhaps 'knowledge' also, but I hope not.
     
  10. theobserver is a simple guy... Registered Senior Member

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    Well both are far far away in terms of comparison. One can compare information and knowledge. Or scientific study and knowledge.

    When you read something from a book/web and understands it or when someone explains something to you, it becomes information. For eg: you read a book on how to ride a bike.

    When you read more than one pov on the same subject, conduct experiments and gain information through method of science, it becomes scientific knowledge. Eg: you went ahead and read more in detail about bikes, observed people who ride bike, gathered details on it.

    When you experience something first hand, its called knowledge. One can have a knowledge in riding and actually know nothing about the science behind it. Still its knowledge. Scientific knowledge gained from observation is quite different from the one gained from first hand experience. Eg: You actually try to ride a bike. which involves a series of mistakes and some accidents which would adjust the information you gathered earlier to a more precise form. The more you do it, the more your brain gathers small small details which you can never acquire from any other source.

    Assumption is guess work performed using your existing information's stored inside your brain.
     
  11. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    Not really. You can pursue a question about something not assuming it is already what you think it is but trying to find out what it really is. As an example words. I do not know how to spell very well so I try to use the spell check or dictionary to see how close I get with my own spelling with words, not assuming they are correct but knowing they are probably wrong.
     
  12. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    Assumption: There are only white swans

    Knowledge: There are some black swans

    An assumption is held to be true until it is falsified and converted to knowledge by evidence.
     
    Last edited: Apr 27, 2009
  13. Bishadi Banned Banned

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    awesome answer!

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  14. wise acre Registered Senior Member

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    Your pursuit will have epistemological assumptions, assumptions about memory and perception, assumptions about, for example, the subject object split....etc.

    I'm not sure this is the best kind of example since what you are seeking here is cultural fluency.
     
  15. wise acre Registered Senior Member

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    Can all assumptions be falsified? I am thinking of Gödel, but also of epistemological assumptions that affect perception.

    Some people assume there are only white swans and they either 1) do not perceive the black swans or 2) explain them away or 3) see them for an instant and then crush that perception out of consciousness.
     
  16. swarm Registered Senior Member

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    The assumption is that they are the same.
    Knowledge is finding out they aren't.
     
  17. Search & Destroy Take one bite at a time Moderator

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    My plants assume that wherever the sun points, they should aim their leaves. But they do not know that sometimes I rotate the pot. The problem for the plant is that it is unable to escape its system and 'see more'. The plant has knowledge of where to point its leaves. But I know it is just an assumption.

    This also holds true for humans. We make as many blind assumptions as the plant, because ultimately our limited system is creating them. Keeping in mind how absolutely fallible our assumptions are and how incapable we are of ever remedying them in a higher light I hope it is easy to see that the sole purpose of gaining knowledge is for survival.

    What I mean is that a popular consensus among our companions is the only thing that converts these epistemological assumptions into knowledge.
     
  18. wise acre Registered Senior Member

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    And wisdom would be being able to distinguish between them?

    I could sort of see that, but I wonder if this only works on very abstract levels, since so much of what we experience - or notice that we experience - and what we do not experience is enforced by assumptions.
     
  19. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    The ones that cannot be falsified cannot ever graduate to knowledge until they can. At least, epistemologically speaking.

    http://dieoff.org/page126.htm
     
  20. Syzygys As a mother, I am telling you Valued Senior Member

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    Assumption is guessing why there is more snow on the ground than on a tree branch. Knowledge is testing and verifying it.
     
  21. wise acre Registered Senior Member

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    But you cannot pursue knowledge without making assumptions you cannot test. That objects are separate from perceivers. That memory works to some degree. The axioms in your epistemology. As a couple of examples.
     
  22. swarm Registered Senior Member

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    Gödel only applies to formal systems.
     
  23. swarm Registered Senior Member

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    Is that knowledge or an assumption?
     

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