What exactly is the difference between an assumption and knowledge?

Try this: assume that the Casimir operator of SO(3) has a large algebraic height
or , assume in (X,S) a classical continuous time, extrasystemic, with continuous variable, distributed over an ambient background.

 

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knowledge - in as much as I have spent a lot of time investigating the issue in a loose empirical way, and it also fits well with current cognitive science.

But do you disagree?

 

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Informal systems have axioms that cannot be proven also. In a sense I was using Gödel as a metaphor.

 

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So if it is knowledge and not an assumption, why is it the one and not the other?

If you can satisfactorly answer why? Then it is knowledge. If you can't; then it was really just an assumption.

 

When you assume anything you make an ASS out of U and ME!

 

Knowledge works only within frameworks of assumptions.
It has to - by the very fact that existence itself is an assumption - an unfalsifiable assumption (not that all assumptions are unfalsifiable).

Do we not assume that we are not a brain in a jar?

Knowledge only works outside of assumptions if one had access to the objective reality.
The best we can achieve is the assumption that we have reached objective reality, and thus any knowledge is within the framework of that assumption.

Further, it is possible to know something within the boundaries of certain assumptions that bear no resemblance to reality... e.g. if all Blaggs are Gripps and Steve is a Blagg then we know Steve is a Gripp. It does not relate to any reality other than that provided it by the assumptions we build around it.

The question is whether we appreciate the assumptions being made, or even bother to acknowledge them such is their apparent obviousness. Most times we take them for granted and omit naming them... such as the fact that science assumes a closed universe. We rarely state "Assuming that the universe is closed, ABC leads to XYZ" etc.

 

I hope you will then join me in the Coherentism(s) thread, since I am hoping to find some of Glaucon's foundationalist assumptions, lunking behind his coherentist facade. Allies needed. (I realize you did not quite assert membership in the foundationalist camp, not even sure if I am a member, though I suspect I am. But I see grounds for hope.)

Some of us do. Though you can also look in the Brain partially in a vat thread.

Sadly it is sounding like all your assumptions are provional, at least officially.

Well, a skeptic could say that you must trust memory since it takes time to read that sentence and that the logical functioning of your mind is in fact logical. Perhaps a 'that's obvious qualia' manifests at the wrong times in you. How would you know?

I do not think we can even find all of our assumptions. Imagine the assumptions we make that an intelligence made of gas/plasma or a sentient rhizome would see as our assumptions. And even my wild speculations in the previous sentence no doubt give away my limitations.

 

Can one not assume something? (while alive that is)

 

Couldn't get this?

Satisfactorily to whom?

 

Sure anyone can and most people do all of the time because there's no way to research stuff that people say all of the time.

 

I enjoyed but was a little confused by the beginning of the sentence.

It seems like you are saying everyone must assume.

and even if one could research all the time one would need to come up with assumptions very fast or setting up the tests would be problematic.

 

That's why they are assumptions, though. All assumptions are open to be shown to be wrong... i.e. we use them as a basis 'cos we don't know differently.
If someone can demonstrate objectively that we can know things objectively, then my assumptions can be unassumed.

Is that an assumption?

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And another skeptic would say that there is no way to tell if you didn't start existing just now, and all your memories mere implants. Can you prove otherwise?
But we assume the memories are valid... at least until we become aware of them breaking down in our old age.

I would assume we couldn't, even if we tried.

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That sounds like an a priori.

Sure. You are exhibiting faith in your logic, its application, its universality, your memory - at least for the duration of your argument, etc.

We can't always prove what we know or what is true. The skeptic is saying 'this is possible'. That assertion is a good one to be skeptical about. the skeptic makes a bunch of epistemological assumptions that he or she, but mostly he, is certain about. The he aims these unquestioningly at what he considers believers, a group he oddly considers himself not a member of.

I liked that. It reminds me that I think the body is our a priori. Whether we like that or not. we can come at this with skepticisms based on other a prioris about what must be or cannot be, but I think this ends up being hypocrisy when used in general.

 

The word "any" should have been "and" sorry about my typo.

No, I think that we could verify things if given a chance. I know whenever I buy things I always check around on line to see if a better deal is available. If I need to go to court I get a lawyer who knows stuff I never will about the law or I check out things in the law library. Everyone could easily verify many things in their own lives if they wanted to , its just that most people are to lazy or to busy to do so.

 

What are you not getting about it?

Knowledge can be satisfactorily defended and an assumption can't

The one you are convincing.