I don't want to be overly dismissive of the project, but I think you are on the wrong track in several ways.

Logic is not the measure of truth, logic only preserves the truth-value of statements. What determines the truth-value of a statement in the first place is experience, sense-data, unless it's merely an analytic truth.

And more fundamentally, the idea that we need and have to look for criteria or heuristics for seeking truth starts from the misguided assumption that truth needs to be determined in an active conscious way predominately. I think our brain has heuristics or algorithms imbedded that for most of our purposes do a far better job than any set of clumsy criteria we might try to come up with.

Before you start your project, it's probably not a bad question to ask yourself if the we even have a need for it in the first place. You might think, but how can we know that we know if we are not even aware, or cannot even make explicit the criteria by which we would know?

Think about this for a second, the self-learning algorithm AlphaZero has surpassed any human by orders of magnitude in the poster-child thinking-mans game of chess a while ago already. But it has no idea, nor does anyone else, what criteria it uses to make the right moves... because it's not conscious (and so can't even have ideas). It's just a neural net, a bunch of levers, that has been fine-tuned by playing games to itself. This only to show that knowledge or awareness of criteria by which one knows something is not needed to know something.... which is why most epistemology is useless ultimately.

HI TVCL! You remind me a ton of myself when I finished up grad school years ago. Seems you're big on Epistemology like I was, and also wanted to continue to pursue your search outside of Academia.

I wish I had someone examine my work back then, so the least I can do is give you that. I will attempt to be fair to your logic and viewpoint, and remove ego from the equation. The search for truth is all that matters, and so to that end I will keep in my criticism and our discussion.

I read your site thesis, and your first post. I will try to sum up how you are labeling goals, please correct me or affirm if I have the matter.

Goals: We have goals, and they are the endpoints of our inquiry. A starting point would be, "I wish to discover the nature of truth", and endpoint would be, "I have obtained this goal when X is reached".
The parameters of how we go about that do not alter our goal. For example, if I desire to pursue truth through philosophy, or pursue truth per science, these parameters do not affect the goal themselves.

I'm a little lost at 4. Therefore, we measure our understanding of the truth in relation to our goals. I think you're stating that the "truth" of obtaining this goal must be within the confines of how we have designed this goal?

5 and 6 seem to imply that what we consider useful is often a guide for when we know we have achieved our goal.

This seems good to start that we have goals, and our answers within those goals are often times our truth (but not necessarily an objective truth, as you continue)

You note well that if what fits our goals is truth, then we fall into the danger of subjectivity and opinion. So how do we avoid this? You state that answers to our goals need to make sense.

It is here where I'm going to pause. What is "make sense"? Is this when we hear a conclusion to our goal that satisfies our minds? Or is this conclusion satisfactory to larger society? Because many things can "make sense" to us, but not truly reach our goals or assess the truth.

Also, "making sense" seems to be our own subjective judgement again on what satisfies our goals. I can construct my goals in such a way as to avoid contradiction, or I can accept contradiction and be satisfied. People accept contradictions all the time without question, and believe this makes sense, sometimes even when others point it out.

If something makes sense to me, then it is useful correct? In which case, what is useful is arbitrary to what makes sense to myself at the time. We also then rule out the need for logic. I can throw it out if I personally feel it makes sense to me.

I think this contradicts point 18. Information or truth-claims that are illogical are meaningless and make no sense.

I think you need to demonstrate this. There are people who believe that is makes sense, and is true, that space aliens seeded our planet with life. They ignore contradictory facts. They use their own parameters of logic, and simply discard that which does not fit. They feel they have obtained their goal, and that the rest of us simply do not make any sense.

So to sum, I think things are off to a great start, but the hang up is in what you mean by "makes sense". I look forward to your take!

Could you please copy and paste the part where you offer your definition of truth? (Couldn't find it at your link.)

As for truth in Christian "philosophy," that is entirely encapsuled in the "We believe...". And in this the original thinkers were altogether wise and correct.

To my way of thinking, the true is always particular and never not particular - and thus each unique - its characteristic that it is. Not that being is true or truth, but the simpler recognition that if there's a true, then it is true about something and manifestly so. Truth, on the other hand, has no such particularity and itself is just the abstraction of what the true share in common, which is nor more nor less than being true. "Truth" then, is just the label on the box, itself nothing more than that.

Your approach seems akin to the fellow who fired his gun, and then went and posted his target around where the bullet hit. Not - seemingly - a comprehensive approach.

Thank you for your criticisms. I don't take them as overly critical. Instead, it is an opportunity to clarify my aims and intentions with the project.

First, allow me to speak to your point about logic. I would agree with you that logic without content is meaningless and, as you say, merely analytic. However, I would contend that a source of information such as experience cannot provide us with an understanding of what is true directly and that we must use our logical faculty (paired with our concern for "use") to sort our experience into that which is indicative of the truth and that which is not; what experience tells us may or may not be true, but experience is that which is being judged for its truth-value. Before we continue with this point, may I point you towards my discussion on logic?

It can be heard here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO2rWEkT3VQ&t=347s
And read here:
https://tvclowe.wixsite.com/tvcl/post/logic-and-its-limits

It feels a bit rude to not provide you with a summary but this is probably as clear and concise as I can make my approach to logic. Would you mind giving it a look before we continue because it would be good discuss with you how logic might/might not relate to experience?

As for the value of the project itself,
I agree that our understanding of the truth need not be determined actively and consciously. It's for this reason that the heuristic is not aimed at or designed as a necessary tool for finding the truth but it is designed as necessary for those who wish to actively seek the truth. The necessity of the active search will not be argued for and, as such, is the initial contingency for the entire argument. Instead, the argument is that if truth is actively sought, the rest of the argument must follow and we must measure truth in relation to what is logical and what we can regard as useful (at the very least). Which [hopefully] will allow all else to be built up to from. Therefore, my hope is that this argument/heuristic will eventually be relevant to all who actively seek but, of course, I must be a ways off for now and even if the work is of a level that it only offers something of interest to a handful of people it feels justified. Finally, the point about a lot of epistemology being useless is exactly right and that's why the relevance to our goals is so important - I'm attempting to ground what we know in how we live - in what is relevant to our life and aims without hitting all of the pitfalls of pragmatism. I genuinely believe that this can be done, but there are a lot of questions to overcome before that can be demonstrated.

Anyway, I look forward to your response.

This was a very generous response - thank you.

Hopefully, I can do justice to your questions.

The summary of my approach to goals is not quite right (unless I am mis-reading it which I apologise for if so). The parameters are inseparable from our goals; they are one and the same in the sense that a parameter is what determines when a given goal is achieved. For example, the goal "to pursue the truth via science" will include parameters such as "this enquiry must involve empirical data" and "I will accept that an understanding of the truth has been reached once a reproducible test has verified a theory 1000+ times" or the like. Therefore, the understanding of the truth will be determined by the parameters of the approach, but unless that approach is taken, the parameters are never in place and that understanding is never reached. Therefore, our understanding of the truth is always "measured" in relation to our aims, without which no approach to truth is taken, nor are any parameters/criteria for our understanding set. As an aside, this could be either implicit or explicit but, of course, the point of the argument is to treat this as explicit.

I hope this helps. If you would like a fuller explanation of the role that goals play in the argument, may I point you towards my discussion on it?
This can be heard here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6AdOtKBUFk&t=200s
And read here:
https://tvclowe.wixsite.com/tvcl/post/use-goals-and-decisions

Also, I hope this clears up the approach to points 4, 5 and 6.

The issue about subjectivity... the idea is that, although our understanding of the truth might be relative to our goals, it cannot be merely relative to our goals because it cannot be that anything is a goal. We know this by grounding the approach in logic; logic determines that some goals simply cannot be pursued. For example: "to travel north yet not travel north at all at the same time" - this is a senseless goal and cannot be pursued. Therefore, if our goals are constrained and goals serve as a measure of the truth, truth cannot, in fact, be relative.

Hopefully this illuminates the approach to "making sense" - this is an invocation of logic (or adherence to logic). Namely, that if we actually break the laws of thought that logic is based upon, things become nonsense. For example: the law of non-contradiction which holds that a thing cannot be itself and not itself at the same time and in the same respect. Trying to claim that this is so (such as claiming that "truth is not truth") becomes meaningless and nonsensical. Therefore, for something to "make sense" it has to be not nonsense (I apologise if this is clunky and perhaps this is an indication that I need to clean up my terminology). In any case, "making sense" isn't subjective - it requires adherence to the objective laws of logic. This is also why it makes no sense to rule out logic if it is "useless" - the idea is that we can't even posit an aim, let alone pursue it, without adherence to the laws of thought. Again, if we turn to the example of contradiction, the goal to "throw out logic" requires that you assume that logic is,in fact, logic and not something completely different in order to throw it out. I hope this helps - please let me know if not. And if you want a more fleshed-out explanation, may I point you to my full take on logic:

It can be heard here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO2rWEkT3VQ&t=347s
And read here:
https://tvclowe.wixsite.com/tvcl/post/logic-and-its-limits

Again, very thankful for the approach you've taken with your question. I look forward to discussing this further with you.

In all fairness, I never define truth and am not altogether sure whether I should at this point. I suppose that at this point I would define truth as "that which is the case" but I know that this leaves much to be desired. Indeed, the whole idea is to create an approach that would allow us to figure just what the truth is.

I must respectfully disagree that the approach is not comprehensive (although it is doubtless faulted) and ask you to justify this claim. The approach has been to begin from the axiom that we do not yet know what the truth is but to ask, if we are to actively search for an understanding of it, what we would use as a measure for our understanding and whether these measures would be necessary. The argument that I have proposed is that we must treat adherence to logic and relevance to our goals (or usefulness) of potential truths as the measures of our understanding of the truth from the outset, whatever the truth turns out to be. Moreover, this approach can (and it appears must) be applied to the very question "how do we define truth and how do we know?"

Fair enough. Of course "that which is the case" is always what it is exactly and not anything else. It must seem then that the only thing that could share with anything else is just its being-the-case-ness, and nothing else.

Keeping it broad and I hope simple at the moment, you appear to be looking for something without a model for what it is. You do have some criteria that seem relevant to you, and a way to assay what you find in terms of your criteria. What you find waddles and quacks, let's say. But that is just "that which is the case." And it may well be a duck. But here's a problem: how are you going to know it's a duck? (That not quite as simple as it sounds.)

Imo, what you need is a hypothesis that you can test. My advice, though, is to not leave your fingers in this flame for too long. Whole long and tedious books lay out different models of truth only to conclude that truth itself (always distinguished from true, even as noun from adjective) remains unachieved and elusive.

This from another thread:

So what is going on? Again, the point is that provability (in the sense of obtaining a proof that we can recognize as such) is different from truth. — Nagase

That is, so much for logic. Truth is even a problem in arithmetic.

Above I suggested you were about painting a target around your bullet holes. And there's something to be said for that process. If you like what you hit, then at least you have reason - evidence - for believing you can replicate your results. But that will be at best farm-grown and not wild. And wild is what you want.

Ok TVCL. I think I was viewing parameters as specifics you would feed to the goal. You're basically saying the goal and its results are set. Kind of like F(x) = y. X is the parameter, and Y is defined in terms of that parameter. If you changed the parameters to F(x, z) = y, we are also changing the goal, which is the entire equation.

If I'm understanding this correctly, then truth is merely the outcome of whatever we place into our goal. As long as X is plugged in, we'll get y. If we plug in X and Z, we get a different type of y. You are not speaking about a universal truth, but the result in regards to the goal, or the equation we have made.

The one barrier we are putting up is that the goal and truth must not be contradictory. It can't conclude up is down for example. That is fair, and good. I think, in writing this, that you should forgo the phrase "makes sense", as it is a loose term that will be up to the reader to define. Trust me, I know how easy it is to make a phrase or use that sounds like one particular thing in my head, then its read 40 different ways by others.

Perhaps to keep within your vein of speaking, simply state that logic is useful, and contradictions in logic are not. Myself concluding that up is down helps me in no way if I am to try to use up or down as useful directions. We may not know exactly how to define truth, but contradictions we know are the negation of truth. I don't think you'll find many people who will disagree with that.

So we have personal goals (We'll ignore society for now), when we meet those goals with the parameters we have, we feel it is true. To eliminate one aspect of this being an opinion, we state that the fulfillment of the goal must not be a contradiction.

Goals -> fullfillment -> cannot have contradiction = personal truth.

At this point you state that logic cannot be the sole measure of truth. But it can be the sole measure for what is not true correct? At this point I think you can safely say, "Any pursuit of truth must use logic, for logic is the one thing we can ascertain that can show something that is not true." That is, as long as you define logic as that which identifies a contradiction.

For example: 7 = 7. If we were to claim that 7 = 8, we would be in a contradiction. We can realize at this point that if I tried any other number to be equal to 7, besides 7, there would be a contradiction.
Thus, I could make a goal saying, "My goal is to see if another number can equal seven, besides 7 itself." If I concluded, "8 is the other number", then I am wrong because logic shows me that 7 equally 8 is a contradiction.

Do I have this correct? All of these assumptions are made as the start to a personal "truth", and do not involve other people coming in and mucking with the equation. =) If I have a correct understanding, feel free to continue from here. I see nothing wrong with this as a springboard into further points.

Would you mind giving it a look before we continue because it would be good discuss with you how logic might/might not relate to experience? — TVCL

It doesn't relate to experience directly, logic pertains to what we say about what we experience, to language.

Language enables us to abstract from what we experience, from particulars, and say something more general about it, with categories we make up, universals... although strictly speaking no universals exist. X is only truly identical to itself the exact same moment. But for our purposes that doesn't matter all that much, because things have enough similarities so that we can give them the same designations and communicate things to each other. We apply logic to the language we use to keep it coherent, intelligible, etc... in short to keep it usefull to us. That is the justification for logic and it's value.... it's utility to us. And not necessarily because it's inherent or fundamental to the world we experience, although the world appears to be such that logic is useful... which could have been otherwise.

However, I would contend that a source of information such as experience cannot provide us with an understanding of what is true directly and that we must use our logical faculty (paired with our concern for "use") to sort our experience into that which is indicative of the truth and that which is not; what experience tells us may or may not be true, but experience is that which is being judged for its truth-value. — TVCL

I think truth-value applies to statements only, to the things we say about what we experience, not to experience itself. To know whether a statement is true or not, we generally verify it by looking or using any of our other senses. So I'd say we do not judge experience for it's truth-value, I think it's the other way around, we judge statements on their truth-value by looking to experience. Logic then enables us to make coherent statements and deduce ramifications from those statements... by virtue of the analytic connections in our language. But ss I said, it doesn't determine the truth-value, it only preserves it. If a statement is false, logic on it's own can't tell you that's it's false, and anything correctly logically deduced from that false statement will remain false.

Therefore, my hope is that this argument/heuristic will eventually be relevant to all who actively seek but, of course, I must be a ways off for now and even if the work is of a level that it only offers something of interest to a handful of people it feels justified. Finally, the point about a lot of epistemology being useless is exactly right and that's why the relevance to our goals is so important - I'm attempting to ground what we know in how we live - in what is relevant to our life and aims without hitting all of the pitfalls of pragmatism. I genuinely believe that this can be done, but there are a lot of questions to overcome before that can be demonstrated. — TVCL

Ok fine, I guess I'd just advise you then to be aware of the fact that you are attempting to (re)create a heuristic that is competing with an organ that has evolved for millions of years and serves a similar purpose (among other things).

deafinoneeye.com

But that is just "that which is the case." And it may well be a duck. But here's a problem: how are you going to know it's a duck? (That not quite as simple as it sounds.) — tim wood

Something that I've swiftly learnt from this forum and others is that I've made the mistake of framing my argument as if the criteria that I outline determine the Truth whereas they simply determine our understanding of it or, you could say, determine how the search for the "truth" (whatever that turns out to be) must progress. Likewise, I am ready to accept that truth as-such may be elusive (however, it is yet to be demonstrated that it will be entirely elusive).

And so, when you claim that

you appear to be looking for something without a model for what it is. — tim wood

I may have made a mistake in framing the argument as such. Instead, the aim of the argument is akin to saying "we are not yet entirely sure what it is, but if we are to posit the search at all, there seem to be some necessary starting points - especially if we are to posit an explicit search...

This is also why, when you say:

You do have some criteria that seem relevant to you... — tim wood

I would contend by arguing that the criteria appear to be more than merely relevant to me alone. I contend this on the grounds that I cannot conceive of an explicit search for an understanding that makes any sense without a dual reference to the criteria of our goals and adherence to logic for the reasons stated above.

What are your thoughts on these remarks, or have I misunderstood your criticism? Your comments are highly critical but I read a tone of respect in them which I have respect for in return and for which you have my gratitude.

Yes. Yes you have everything correct. I would not criticise your summary of my argument so much as clarify and build upon it...

To begin with (and as I mentioned in another response above) it is not so much that

truth is merely the outcome of whatever we place into our goal. — Philosophim

but instead it is that our understanding of the truth will be determined by whatever we place into our goals. You're right to say that I am not speaking about a universal truth (directly) but here is - I think - the interesting bit... if universal truth is such that it only allows for the existence of particular goals to be pursued, then we can backtrack from the selection of our available goals to decipher what universal "Truth" or "reality" might be, by recognising what this "Truth" does or does not allow. For example, if we cannot go north and south at once, our understanding of this truth is relative to our goals, but it may also reveal that "reality" is such that it does not allow one to go north and south at once.

Now, one may contend that our goals can be selected at the whim of our preference, but I believe that this is demonstrably false, especially if we consider how goals exclude one-another. Returning to the example, one might - by preference - aim to head north, but when they find that they cannot also go south, they find that the two goals are incompatible and that there is a "Truth" beyond their preference that constrains their goals (and therefore their criteria): "you can travel north, but you cannot travel north if you wish to travel south at the same time." What we could play with is the idea that this model of truth at once allows for objectivity but grounds a potential definition of truth directly in relation to life and how it can or cannot be lived (potentially).

And, as you've recognised, one such constraint that limits our goals is the necessity of logic because "reality" appears to be such that it limits the pursuit of contradictory goals.

The distinction that I am trying to clarify is between our understanding of what may or may not be "true" and what is, in fact, true. My argument is that our understanding or "personal truth" is necessarily built upon the criteria that I have outlined (at the least) but that universal truth may be nonetheless present at the periphery. Now, as I have discussed with @tim wood, it might be that the truth might ultimately be elusive, but it remains the case that the implementation of the criteria of the heuristic appear to reveal something beyond the criteria itself (whether we have the right to call that "Truth" or not - after all, how would we know?)

In any case, does that all make sense? Do you have questions about this at this juncture? And if not and you would like to continue, how would you like to proceed? Is there a particular direction that you would like the discussion to go in?

P.S. I like your recommendation of re-phrasing my approach to logic. I will consider this thread again when I come to re-write my work.

No offense intended. Perhaps you might accept (or torpedo and sink, if and as appropriate) that there are constructive tests for the truth of particular propositions - even this not-so-simple as it requires defining the true in question. And that for truth there cannot be such. That is, that truth is always rooted in what is true in this or that true proposition.

Or another way: can there be a set of tests that when applied to any proposition, will, without respect to particular content, i.e., non-constructively, yield whether the proposition is true or not-true?

It would be nice to escape Godel et al here, but I do not think that's possible, if for the least reason that in his arena, it's all so cut-and-dried. He discovered, of course, that if you could define truth rigorously, then you could then with equal rigor construct a proposition that was both true and not-true.

Maybe truth as like different suits of clothes, business, play, dinner, opera, swimming, pajamas, and so forth. The right truth for the right occasion. "Well," you might say, "don't they all at least require pants?" A true Scotsman might differ. "Underwear at least then?" you argue. And the Scotsman again. And where have you got but to a position of total exposure, hanging out, if you will, in the breeze.

In a construction due to Emil Post, and with his usage, he showed that from a recursively enumerable set of propositions E (of the form that a certain integer is included in a set of integers), one could determine that the set of true, T, propositions in E is recursively enumerable. Nothing remarkable so far.

~T is defined as the compliment of T in E. Given any subset of false propositions in ~T, called F, he showed you can construct a proposition that is false but not in F, therefore in ~T. Which means that ~T can never be F, and that ~T is not recursively enumerable. That T, then, while recursively enumerable, is not recursive. (The Undecidable, Ed. Martin Davis, 1965, pp. 304 - 316.)

The idea here is roughly that "you can't get theah from heah," but have to resort to potentially infinite searches. And that's math logic. What will you do with poetic truth? Ironic truth? Rhetorical truth? Artistic truth? And so forth.

You did not like my analogy of bullet hole and targets, but it does not differ greatly from your program and indeed has substance to recommend it. You both aim; you both go see what you've hit, and record the result as appropriate. That provides data of a certain kind, namely what you hit. But it leaves blank areas, and as we see, just how those work can be significant.

You can attempt to build up to a definition of truth. Imo, if you assume it and try out a reductio ad absurdum you might get there faster, though you not like where you've got.

Great! I think we both understand. Having read both your reply to myself and tim wood, I think I know what you're trying to describe. The understanding of what may be true, versus what is true, is the question of knowledge.

I believe if you replace "truth" with knowledge, your steps will make more sense. What you're doing at this point is the initial conclusion that many theories of knowledge have started with. Namely, that knowledge must start with elimination of what is contradictory. You ask where you should go from here? That is what every philosopher asks at this point. There have been many roads, but they usually end poorly. That doesn't mean we don't try though!

I have some writing of my own that I will share with you. Part one is basic, and generally concludes a similar line of thought as yourself. Part 2 is where I go from there. Part 3 I introduce societal context. Part 4 I introduce rational inductions. They aren't too long, and you might enjoy them, at least for a spring board of ideas. I do suggest at first if you don't understand a point, keep reading. I generally keep referencing back a bit, so it may become clearer as you go.

Part 1 The basics of knowledge
https://docs.google.com/document/d/17cHCI-_BY5k0tmpWXSoHCniGWW8hzpbVDDptLp5mIgg/edit?usp=sharing

Part 2 How to apply knowledge within personal contexts
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Crx8zMpD9cdZ47Zw4RDhsS7VUzyb4xCdhIbEfcV10oA/edit?usp=sharing

Part 3 Knowledge within societal contexts
https://docs.google.com/document/d/14_KGMPbO2e_z8icrjuTmxVwGLxxUA0B_CqNT-lF6SXo/edit?usp=sharing

Part 4 Rational Induction
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Q84NCGIcwkjytFZaLBIv9JmRGzhKHDjlV7j_dDPTDAY/edit?usp=sharing

I'm sharing this because you're the real deal, a person who genuinely wishes to consider epistemology, knowledge, and truth. Some of it may overlap with what you've considered, some may be a spring board to further thought, and some might be flat out wrong. =) I welcome the discussion.

I think I'd like to respond by addressing experience as well as a semantic issue/mistake that I may have made with logic...

Let's start with experience.

I guess I'd just advise you then to be aware of the fact that you are attempting to (re)create a heuristic that is competing with an organ that has evolved for millions of years and serves a similar purpose (among other things). — ChatteringMonkey

I have to respectfully disagree because although our experience is an organ that does inform us, it is not the same as a tool that does the work of an explicit search for an understanding of the truth. The explicit search appears to require the heuristic in addition to experience, even if experience does provide us with direct truth. Allow me to explain...

If experience gave us a direct feed of truth, we would simply passively receive the truth through our experience. However, if we were to search for the truth, we could not and would not be in a state of passive reception, but in an active state of seeking. Once we are in this active state, the reference to our goals becomes a necessary element for the reasons stated above but, in brief, we can recognise that the search is a goal itself and that the activity of the search is carried out in relation to the goal's end. Now, one may point out that we can choose what we experience, yet we are still drawing on experience to inform us. This may be so, but if active choosing is entailed, experience alone cannot do the work of a truth-seeking heuristic because it is the choosing that makes it an active endeavour, whereas the experience alone will simply make it passive. Merely experiencing is passive, but once we seek the truth, the endeavour is rendered active. If the endeavour is active, it appears that concern for our goals and adherence to logic/consistency is necessary, whereas I am unsure whether experience is necessary in the same way.

Moreover, what has been said of experience and its relevance to the heuristic has been assuming that experience is a direct feed to truth, which we can contend with. Now, on the one hand, experience is a direct proof of the certainty of experience itself. For example, the experience of a blue ball is certain proof that there is an experience of a blue ball. In this sense, we cannot doubt that there is the experience as-such, but what we can doubt (and what we need to discern for its truth-value) is whether the experience is giving us information of any significance beyond this. For example, you see a pink elephant in a room...

If we translate this experience into words you have at least two ways that you can interpret it:
1. "There is a pink elephant in the room" and
2. "I am having an experience of a pink elephant in the room"

Now, experience alone can only affirm the second interpretation (and indeed, it cannot be doubted). However, experience alone cannot tell you whether there is, in fact, a pink elephant in the room. To figure this out, a number of other criteria would have to be invoked to determine whether this is so. Indeed, we may even need to figure out which criteria we could use. What I would posit is that, at the very least, we require logic to make sense of the question because without logic we could suppose that "There is a pink elephant in the room and also not a pink elephant in the room at the same time and in the same sense" which is nonsensical. And so, if the question is: "is there, or isn't there?" logic must be invoked. Secondly, relevance to our goals is necessary because the goals frame the enquiry and, aside from this I would also posit that we use our goals to test whether particular interpretations can be lived by... can you live as if there is a pink elephant in the room? This criteria may help you discern whether you are hallucinating or not (or, perhaps even to determine how "real" a hallucination is).

As for your points about logic directly, I agree and think that they show that I've made a semantic mistake. I have been using logic to refer to the faculty that adheres to the Laws of Thought which allows us to track things such as identity and consistency when, in fact, this faculty is reason; its just that reason is the faculty that does logic. However, this use of reason is distinct from formal "logic" which is more commonly understood as the system of testing claims for their validity. This form of logic, as you say, does apply to language, whereas as I am unsure whether the faculty of reason must solely apply to language and our claims. I would therefore consider replacing "logic" with "reason" or its use in my work. Does this seem fair?

If experience gave us a direct feed of truth, we would simply passively receive the truth through our experience — TVCL

Perhaps we do. There are myriad cognitive mechanisms which cause us literally to misperceive the truth in a variety of ways. List of Cognitive Biases

In light of this, I always formulated the goal of this kind of project as "learning to think correctly". Hence, coming to understand the psycho-social mechanisms responsible for biased thought.

It's probably worth me noting from the outset that I am probably less well educated than you might presume, considering how your arguments are framed. I'm flattered for example that you assumed that I am readily familiar with Godel's discoveries (I know of his work in fairness) but this is not so. Nor am very familiar with talking philosopher in "numerical" terms such as

~T is defined as the compliment of T in E. Given any subset of false propositions in ~T, called F, he showed you can construct a proposition that is false but not in F, therefore in ~T. — tim wood

etc.

In light of which I apologise if I haven't understood your argument fully and I also humbly ask that you simplify some of you arguments as we proceed. In any case, I will try my best to offer a response...

To begin with, it's probably worth re-framing the heuristic as "A Heuristic for Seeking Knowledge" instead of "A Heuristic for Seeking The Truth"

And then, let's wind things back for a moment...

First of all, we can recognise that Godel et al or Emil Post, have to assume logic for their arguments to be sensible in the first instance. Now, the problem appears to be that if the logic is taken far enough down particular avenues, logic can cancel-out its own truth-value on its own terms.

Okay, so could we make a distinction between saying that adherence to logic [being adherence to the Laws of Thought] is necessary for seeking an understanding of knowledge that makes any sense, and saying that if such an understanding is to be sought, logic must be carried through to its final conclusion? This is a reason why goals could act as another "tether" for logic in the pursuit of knowledge because they determine the point at which the enquiry itself will or will not end and what methods of enquiry are compatible with one-another. Given this, I will still posit the the methods of enquiry: relevance to goals and adherence to logic remain constant.

Allow me to justify...

Let's suppose that Godel or Emil Post have the aim within mathematics:
"To use logic to demonstrate that a proposition can at once be true and not true"

Now, this requires adherence to logic because logic is required for this very demonstration. Moreover, this is relevant to their goals in so far as they find that "reality" is such that it allows us to posit propositions that are true and not true within mathematics - that is, this goal can be pursued; Godel/Emil Post can live as if this is so/true. Moreover, I might ask that once this is done, and logic demonstrates that these propositions that are at once true and not, can they be taken any further and be put to any potential use or is this simply a demonstration of the point at which logic implodes/hits its own limits?

In any case, adherence to logic and relevance to goals are part of this narrow branch of enquiry, but I might ask whether, when we zoom out, we can treat propositions as at once true or false when we pursue any of our others goals ("I need a cup of tea, but tea is at once tea and not tea" or "I need to head north, but north is not north in any sense at all..."). Again, we might not be able to pursue logic to its limits in pursuit of these aims, but we also cannot do away with logic (which would have the same effect). As such, it is interesting to note what this reveals about the world in which we live. I hope this demonstrates the point.

Finally, I liked your analogy... "Underwear at least" indeed. But let's be clear... I'm not saying that people must wear anything at all - they can choose to remain undressed and remain exposed to the weather - and that weather is that of raw nonsense/ignorance. I'm not going to - indeed, I'm not sure if one can - dictate or demonstrate that one must get dressed. Instead, the purpose of the argument is for those who say "I want to get dressed..." to which the reply appears to be "okay, if you want to get dressed you must wear underwear at least" and, as we try on our clothes, we find that if we want to keep out of the storm, we cannot simply wear anything

P.S. I respect the analogy of the bullet-hole now that you've explained it. Admittedly I initially took it as a slight as if you were accusing me of merely, lazily defining my own way into "Truth" but I see it differently now.

First off, I recommend an investment in @Philosophim"s links above. Worth the candle and written with an unusual lapidary clarity - being able to say that rare as hen's teeth around here!

Okay, so could we make a distinction between saying that adherence to logic is necessary for seeking an understanding of knowledge that makes any sense, and saying that if such an understanding is to be sought, logic must be carried through to its final conclusion? — TVCL

If there are monsters at the outer reaches of logic, I do not think they depend on a temporal framework for existence. "Carried through," then, I cavil at. Maybe another way, the monsters all seem to share direct or indirect self-reference. "I always lie!" Well, do I? And these generally regarded as exotic zoo creatures, but not part of every day fauna, not a thing to look out for in, for example, accounting.

But point taken too. The true seems only and always true within its frame, and thus perhaps a matter of a kind of focus, not too close or far lest the truth be lost. @Philosophim touches on this aspect in his links.

Godel (and Post as informal and accessible) are adduced simply as evidence that truth appears to be essentially problematic, in distinctive ways in math - both rely on self-reference - while elusively in language. And issues of truth/knowledge in themselves explode into issues of infinite searches. Are there truths that cannot be known? Either the true and known are of the same number, or differ, consequences for either.

Again, we might not be able to pursue logic to its limits in pursuit of these aims, but we also cannot do away with logic (which would have the same effect). As such, it is interesting to note what this reveals about the world in which we live. I hope this demonstrates the point. — TVCL

Another point! it all seems to point back the the trueness of the true, Which path, traveled enough, becomes dizzying.

I think a hidden point here is that scientists find knowledge, philosophers don't. It's not that philosophers operate without it; rather just that they don't find it; that's not their business. Rather instead their business to assign truth, and to see if it stands. When Thales said the world and everything in it is made of water, well, obviously it isn't. But history judges him a great man for saying it, and that must be because he assigned - argued - some truth in support of it that stood then, that standing remembered and acknowledged now.

Maybe back to a thesis statement? Because I've got lost. But I think Philosophim is going to be your guy. I'll read what passes between you, but I don't think i have anything else to add.

Fair enough. My intention was to reply to @Philosophim next, but just before I do so, allow me to make one more point. You say:

"

Another point! it all seems to point back the the trueness of the true, Which path, traveled enough, becomes dizzying. — tim wood

At risk of sounding like a broken record, I think that this problem can once again be addressed by an appeal to the constraints that goals put on our enquiry. Indeed, an enquiry can become dizzying without bounds, but what is to say that the enquiry is determined to be boundless? Allow me to copy in an example that I wrote in one of my essays which might speak to the issue and clarify exactly what I think goals do to our enquiry(s):

"Let’s say that a man is hungry. He is no philosopher, nor a scientist, nor does he have any explicit concern for finding the truth. Nonetheless, he wants to get some food: that is his goal. As a result, he goes on his way to find food.

He starts to put a meal together and checks the ingredients: do they smell unpleasant? Do they show any strange colouration? And the like. Upon finding no issue with the ingredients he cooks and enjoys his meal, marking the end of this enquiry.

Now, it may not even seem as if there was an enquiry but the man still had to discern whether it was true or not that he could cook his meal; even if they were implicit, he was judging ideas such as “this ingredient is edible and safe to eat” to be either true or false. Ultimately, the meal is cooked and the question that was framed by the goal: “is this meal edible?” was answered “yes” by the time that the man sat down to eat it.

There are at least two considerations to take from this example.

The first is that when the man regards the meal to be edible, he is regarding the claim that the idea is true enough to satisfy his goal. Why is this the case instead of the claim that the meal is edible in some absolute sense? The answer is that we can ask what would make something absolutely edible: is it a question of our being able to eat it? We can eat sand at a push and so why is that not on the radar? Is it a question of serving one’s good health? Then we could ask what exactly we mean by “health” and whether the ingredients are or are not healthy. Yet, these considerations were not in the man’s purview. Instead, his goal was to satisfy his hunger.

However, despite the fact that the enquiry did not include a concern for the true definition of “edible” or “health”, it did include some other enquiries: the food may not be absolutely “healthy” but it at least had to not be rotten, which is why the man checked for colour and smell. This brings us to the second consideration that we can take from this example which is that a given enquiry into the truth is not only parameterised by a main goal, but also by a number of sub-goals. If we break down the man’s enquiry, we find that yes, the goal was to “eat edible food to satisfy hunger” but this goal also included sub-goals such as:

· The ingredients cannot smell foul and

· The ingredients cannot show strange colouration

And there may be a number of other implicit goals which set the criteria for when the man will regard that it is “true enough” that his meal is good to eat and he can achieve his goal.

The key point is that what the example demonstrates is that a given goal sets and constrains our truth-seeking by determining what we will or will not be willing to accept as “true” and the lengths that we go to in this search will depend on what we are trying to achieve."

No problem if you have nothing left to add, and thanks for what you have added so far. Of course, if you have any more thoughts that occur to you, they will be good to here.

Finally, I don't expect this to be read, but if you do happen to want a fuller version of my argument you can read the progression of it here (the argument progresses from the bottom post to the top):

tvclowe.wixsite.com/tvcl/blog/categories/the-philosophy-project

All of which can be listened to here:
www.youtube.com/channel/UCdea60D2yKm4FFAFr5IbpuA

Thank you

One word won't do justice to your thought or effort, but fwiw, I agree.

Great stuff. This is clear an well-structured thinking. Admittedly - of course - I cannot comment on all of it and I'm unsure which parts to comment on.

And so, let's pause for a second... we both seem to be in agreement that the issue at hand is the question of understanding what may be true, which is the question of what we know. And then, it appears to be that we are both concerned with how we know what we know...

My basic argument has been that if we are actively pursuing knowledge we have two basic criteria for judging what we know that are necessary from the outset and that these criteria are:
1. Judging knowledge by its usefulness (as it relates to our goals) and
2. Judging knowledge by its consistency (as it adheres to logic/reason).

Now, in addition to this we seem to share a similar take on the negative approach to knowledge. We've only mentioned this in relation to logic (if something is inconsistent it is definitely not true), but this can be extended to usefulness (if something cannot be put to use it is also not true). Yet, this approach does not ensure what must be true, but at least determines what must not be true.

I posit that this is the best we can hope for as a starting point of epistemology, or it may even be considered a heuristic for proto-epistemology because I believe that this is the point that we must start from the moment the enquiry commences, prior even to any formal epistemology.

For this reason, I think I can now give some comments to your work as it branches off from this point. For example, I agree with everything that you say about beliefs but I wonder if "Any discussion of knowledge must begin with beliefs." and why this must be the case. Moreover, is it the discussion of knowledge that must begin like so, or our understanding of it?

And so, perhaps to start us off, I could begin by asking whether you would agree with my basic argument as it has been summarised here or whether you have any questions, and then ask if you may respond to the initial comments about your stance on the knowledge and the beginnings of discussing it?

If we are trying to establish what we can or cannot know, it would be good to determine whether we already agree on the groundwork to be built up from or whether the groundwork requires further discussion. Moreover, I believe that if my argument is correct, there are implications for our understanding of knowledge that one can build up to from it and it could be interesting to compare these implications with your own work, which may either be another potential groundwork or could contain arguments that can be built up from and/or compliment the heuristic.

I look forward to your response.

Aw shucks tim wood, that's a helluva compliment! Hopefully I can keep it clear as we discuss here as well.

I posit that this is the best we can hope for as a starting point of epistemology, or it may even be considered a heuristic for proto-epistemology because I believe that this is the point that we must start from the moment the enquiry commences, prior even to any formal epistemology. — TVCL

I agree TVCL. In my reading I see argument expressed in different ways within Descartes, Locke, Popper, etc. If you construct a theory of knowledge, it must be able to be applied to itself. So to start, you must come up with a conclusion that cannot be contradicted. From there, you can build upon it. How one words its is important, and how one builds upon it can lead to different places that can end up very wrong.

For my point, I avoid the idea of "truth" in the formation of knowledge. If you do not know what knowledge is, how can you know the truth? Earlier in your posts you stated, "In all fairness, I never define truth and am not altogether sure whether I should at this point." You knew that something bugged you about it right?

If you use the word truth in your initial premise without quite knowing what it is, your foundation is based on an induction, and not a deduction. A deduction as defined here will be, "A conclusion that cannot be contradicted from the premises, and any further information we introduce." So we don't get too confused on that point either, if you read the link you'll note that definitions are based upon the contexts of two people. Since its you and I at this point, a deduction for both of us will be a conclusion that neither of us can contradict with the information at hand. In including more people, we make it more difficult to deduce, but can be more hopeful that it is exposed to more "potential contradictions" then you or I alone could throw at it.

An induction is by our definition, "A conclusion that does not necessarily follow from the premises and information on hand. Again, this will be within the context of both of us. I note in link four that an induction is less valid, which I'm sure most will agree on. This leads us to your use of truth without a clear definition.

We first need a clear definition that we can then attempt to deductively apply to reality. Since your use of truth is not clear, it can only be inductively applied to reality. We can induce many things against reality, but this is where knowledge theories fail. If we are to claim, "I know what knowledge is," there must be as little induction as possible.

But I feel we can remove the word "truth" in your writing and replace it with "knowledge". Truth is generally seen as an objective reality apart from the subjective. You are talking about truth as a subjective, and used as a tool. To me, that is what knowledge is. It is a tool human being use to understand their world as correctly as possible to obtain their goals.

You are also currently examining the self-subjective viewpoint, and have not yet expanded it into contexts like societies. Once you start doing that, you'll see your use of truth runs into some problems. People generally think of truth like an objective, but you'll run into a situation in which your "truth" and another "truth" will come into conflict.

For example, lets say you decide your goal is to get to the North Pole using only a compass as a directional guide. You let everyone know, then shut off communication for a month as you make your way North, and finally arrive at the North Pole! You did it! You reached your goal! Except unknown to you, a prankster flipped your compass signals, you you're actually at the South Pole. Did you travel both North and South? No, as you mentioned, that is a contradiction. But your "truth", and the "truth" of the GPS signal that tells the world where you are are in contradiction. At that point you have contradictory truths, and your base starts to crumble as you try to reconcile them without quite knowing what truth means. Make it knowledge instead of truth, and we can view these conflicts as a puzzle to be worked through.

And finally, changing you "truth" to "knowledge" helps solve the circularity issue of truth measuring truth. You are talking about two separate identities. An objective reality that you have a difficult time defining, and a methodological attempt to create conclusions about the world that fit within that objective reality. I postulate the objective reality, which is something that cannot be contradicted, is truth, while our methodology to grasp this is knowledge. What do you think?

Regardless, I believe we can both agree that knowledge is a tool, and like any good tool:

1. Knowledge must be useful to us
2. Knowledge must be consistent
3. And one way we can establish knowledge is consistent, is if its methodology is built on a foundation of deductions, not inductions. This is because inductions are beliefs that can potentially be contradicted with the information we have.

The first deduction you realized was, "To claim knowledge of something, it must be free of contradictions".

As for my statement, "Any discussion of knowledge must begin with beliefs", that's just because I suck at introductions. =) A better sentence would probably have been, "All discussions of knowledge eventually must address beliefs, so that is where I will begin." You can begin anywhere in the discussion of knowledge, but I believe it has to inevitably address a few issues, beliefs being one of them.

Regardless, feel free to continue to use your heuristic in the manner you understand in our discussion. Since I think I know where you are coming from, I think we both have a context that we can understand. If the heuristic runs into potential problems, I'll point them out. Please do the same with mine. Maybe we'll get somewhere with knowledge, and if not, I think we'll both have a good time.

Sorry for the slow reply, it's been a busy couple of days.

Excellent. You've made the case for replacing "knowledge" with "truth" very well. Indeed, it has been demonstrated on this discussion and elsewhere that framing the heuristic as a tool for finding "truth" has been the greatest mistake for many of the reasons that you've outlined; "truth" has that static, objective, definitive connotation to it which I'm not trying to determine. Instead, the goal is to draw a line around our understanding or what we can "know" - as you say. Therefore, I agree with your argument and will proceed to replace "truth" with "knowledge" as I revise my work.

The first point that I might contend is that the approach that I've suggested only regards the self-subjective viewpoint. The reason for this is that, if the approach was merely subjective, it would follow that the subject can determine their knowledge, but this appears to not be the case because what the subject can or cannot know is bounded and those bounds do not appear to be set by the subject, but by something beyond them (otherwise, another subject might be able to exceed them). These bounds are of course what we have been discussing: that the subject cannot know anything (sensibly) that is contradictory, nor can they know anything that is not in some way parameterised by their goals. Therefore, we might conclude that the individual knowledge is unique to the subject, but that these parameters apply across subjects, such that they are objective.This is why we might wonder whether, although the actual set of knowledge would be unique to each person, the limits or bounds on what these possible sets can be tells us something about the objective nature of things or reveal something about "truth" as such... what are your thoughts on this?

Also, I will extend from this a note of scepticism about whether one's "truth" can truly come into conflict with another's if they are bounded by the same criteria. It might be that combinations of "truth"/knowledge are compatible, but if they are in fact at odds, being bounded by the same criteria, one's knowledge must be more indicative of the truth than the other's.

Another question about your definition of knowledge... why is it the methodology that you define as knowledge? I'm not sure that I disagree yet, but would like to clarify.

---

Also, can you clarify what you mean by:

"A deduction as defined here will be "A conclusion that cannot be contradicted from the premises, and any further information we introduce.""?

My go-to rebuttal was to point out that new information can change the outcome such as
"all swans are black" therefore,
"the next swan that I will see will be black"

[contradicted by the sight of a white swan],

but if the fact that the deduction is "open" to new information what renders it an induction? I.e. the deduction must lead to the conclusion if the premises are fixed?

---

Your point about the communal nature of definitions is very interesting (and useful) - I think that I am inclined to agree. Moreover, it may allow us to extend the heuristic to social contexts and see if it applies...

What we could posit is that the same principles of the heuristic apply directly over to a social context. The question is the extent to which there is common enterprise. To being with, if a group of 3 are trying to learn anything new, they must adhere to logic (exclude contradiction) for reasons that we have established. If the 3rd member of the group does not adhere to logic, they can only offer nonsense and no new knowledge and therefore must be excluded from the enterprise if members 1 and 2 are seeking knowledge. Hopefully, you can see why this exclusion must happen, practically by default; the goal to pursue logic (and sense) of the first two and the rejection of it by the 3rd makes the two sets of goals mutually exclusive and they cannot possibly be pursued at once. Hence, just as one man cannot pursue contradictory goals, neither can they exist within a group without a break. In so far as goals that are apparently contradictory can be pursued at once this demonstrates that they are not, in fact, contradictory.

Now, once adherence to logic is in place, when we ask what the members of the group will know or understand, the question is of what they are trying to achieve - this will dictate what models of knowledge they can or cannot employ. We can use your argument about definitions here:

Since its you and I at this point, a [[b]definition of[/b]] deduction for both of us will be a conclusion that neither of us can contradict with the information at hand. In including more people, we make it more difficult to deduce, but can be more hopeful that it is exposed to more "potential contradictions" then you or I alone could throw at it. — Philosophim

...

Deduction can mean "A conclusion that cannot be contradicted from the premises, and any further information we introduce." if you and I agree that it is a useful definition for our current purpose of allowing us to do philosophy. Now, this definition is currently under discussion because there is a question as to whether it will serve this purpose. Moreover, there is a further question as to whether we do share exactly the same goal and this will change our approach to it too, but assuming that our aims are the same, this will move us to agree on a definition that helps us serve our mutual purpose. Now, suppose a third person came in and had a completely different goal; say, the two of us were doing philosophy and this man is doing accounting. Now, he may contend that "deduction" has nothing to do with conclusions, but to do with how some figures on the accounts are taken away from others. In so far as his goal is separate from ours, the knowledge of what the word "deduction" means does not overlap. However, once the man shares our enterprise, the definition can be mutually understood by all three of us.

The point is that our goals are still driving our knowledge and setting its parameters, but the overlap of our knowledge will depend on the degree to which our goals are shared and, therefore, the extent to which our parameters are shared. Yet, again, whatever we agree that a definition means it is not merely relative, because if it is the case that we cannot simply have any goal, we also cannot have any common enterprise. "Bridge" might mean any number of things, but if we are all coming together to build across water, it cannot mean "a bird with two wings". Likewise, even if we are all trying to get rich, we cannot simply define money into existence as "that which we have tons of" - if our shared goals is to "define gold into existence" - we find that the goals that we are able to pursue is bounded.

Perhaps we could build upon the heuristic and consider whether the ways in which sets of societal goals can or cannot overlap (setting the bounds to its knowledge) might give us an indication of what objective truth is?

---

At this juncture, there are a number of places we could move into. Of course, I would like to get your response and thoughts on what has been said but there are also a number of places that we can take the heuristic. As of now, I have laid the rationale for its foundation but there are further implications of the model that I would like to discuss, such as "how goals form networks and how goals exclude one another (what does this tell us?)". Let me know what you think.

P.S. if you are this investing into the discussion and my approach to this extent, may I point you to the rest of my work? I have written out the full rationale for my argument and have also recorded it to be listened to if that is a preferable medium. I neither demand nor expect you to look at it, but if it would be of interest it can be listened to here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEjS6qZoTZY&list=PLbDtyFJTYCEQikJoTqYycbae8LfqY1Efp

and read here:
https://tvclowe.wixsite.com/tvcl/blog/categories/the-philosophy-project
(posts progress from bottom to top)

Not a worry on the reply speed TVCL, we all have lives. =) Also, I have read quite a bit of your work as well. I have mainly read it to make sure I understood the points you were addressing. A very valuable link, and a great resource.

The first point that I might contend is that the approach that I've suggested only regards the self-subjective viewpoint. — TVCL

What we could posit is that the same principles of the heuristic apply directly over to a social context. — TVCL

Fantastic. I think these two quotes together help me understand where you are coming from. If I understand correctly, what you are looking for is that the steps, or methodology of obtaining knowledge, should be the same whether your goals are from a self-subjective view, or a group-subjective view.

While our process for obtaining knowledge can be defined by logic and avoiding contradictions, this does not necessitate that our knowledge is actual truth. Lets go back to the example of our person who traveled to the South pole while thinking that they were going to the North Pole. Recall the GPS knows they are actually at the South pole. Does the person who has traveled to the North pole know that they are at the South pole?

This is why I consider knowledge a methodology (or the result of a methodology to be more accurate). If the person in question had used the correct methodology of knowledge, and arrived at the conclusion that they were in the North pole without any contradictions or deviations from this methodology, they would by application, know that they were in the North pole, even though they were in truth, at the South pole.

Lets contrast that with a person who ignores their compass entirely, and just travels in a direction until it gets really cold. They then declare, "I know I'm at the North pole!" Whether they are actually at the North or South pole is irrelevant. The methodology they followed was an induction. A guess at best. They do not have knowledge, but a guess that either happens to align with the truth, or against the truth.

This is what I believe you are trying to put into words as well. This conclusion does not come easily to many, and I am again impressed by your thought process. As for your point of applying your heuristic to a group, I agree.

I'm going to repost a section from Chapter 3 here. I think you'll find its very similar to your statement.

"If other people exist as other “I’s” like myself, then they too can have deductive beliefs. I will call another I a “subject” and their ability to deduce is their “subjective deduction”. How do we handle that two of us can have different distinctive knowledge? The sensible way is to realize we must come to agreement on two things. First, there needs to be agreement about our distinctive knowledge. To agree, there must be an agreement of enough essential properties that we would conclude the same deductive result when applying this new distinctive agreement.. What properties are agreed to be essential between two people is called “distinctive context”.
To demonstrate a resolution of conflicting distinctive context, imagine I walk by a field and spy what I distinctively and applicably know to be a sheep. It has curly fur, hooves, and lacks a beard. A rancher is in the field tending the sheep. I call to him saying, “Nice sheep!” The rancher turns to me puzzled and states, “Actually, that’s a goat.”
I assume it is a difference in distinctive knowledge within the definition, so I politely ask the rancher what it is that makes that a goat.. Smiling the rancher explains not all goats have beards, but one distinction between sheep and goats is their tails. He shows me the short upright tail of the creature and explains that this property is essential to define a goat.
I reply, “I didn’t know that, thanks!” If I do so, I am expanding my distinctive knowledge to equal the rancher’s. However, context adds another layer of choice and complication. My agreement might amend my personal definition, or, it could be my definition is only within the context of speaking with ranchers, while keeping my old sheep definition the same for non-rancher contexts.
Alternatively, I could reject the distinctive knowledge of the rancher. Instead, I could state “The tail is unimportant. Its just a sheep with a short upright tail! Its silly to call it a goat when the defining feature of a goat is its beard.” There is nothing innate to reality which requires I accept the distinctive context of the rancher, just as there is nothing innate to reality that requires the rancher to accept my personal distinctive context. Distinctive contexts are choices of “I”s, and not laws of reality."

Note that I establish there is the knowledge of discrete experiences, or what one identifies in the mind, and then applicable knowledge, or how one takes that identity of the mind, and applies it to reality. I can define, and accept as a definition from others in my mind by my choice. There is nothing in reality that necessitates I do otherwise. However, the methodology of how I apply that distinction to reality, determines whether I have knowledge of that application, or if it is an induction. It does not matter if the context of the distinctions I hold is within the self-subjective, or the multisubjective, the steps of applicable knowledge are the same. To your point, we cannot have a relative methodology of applying our distinctions to reality, but we can have relative distinctions, or definitions.

What we have to be careful about in our assessment of contradictions, is whether these are contradictions in applying our definitions to reality, or contradictions within our definitions within ourselves, or against other people's definitions.

I can hold a definition that contradicts another's definition. And then I can use the methodology of knowledge to ensure that within the bounds of my definitions, I am not contradicted by reality. This may result in two people having knowledge within their own definitions, but then arrive at a logical conflict when these definitions and applications come together. I will leave it at this point to make sure you follow what I am saying, and if this matches with the intuition of your heuristic.

"A deduction as defined here will be "A conclusion that cannot be contradicted from the premises, and any further information we introduce.""? — TVCL

I knew I was going to get in trouble on this one! I needed to break this down, I will do so now. Lets say I deduce that when something is burned, it loses mass. Everything I have ever burned has lost mass, there is no contradiction. I then conclude, "Part of the definition of something being burned means that it will lose mass." Fair enough. One day I burn a new metal, and I discover (this is real btw), that it GAINS mass. I have to decide what to do with this information. Do I include it within the category of "burning", or it is something else new? If I decide that this does count as burning, then I can no longer deduce, "All things that burn lose mass".

I once knew that things that burned lost mass, but now I know that things that burn can also gain mass. So if knew information comes into our context while we discuss a deduction, if that new information invalidates that deduction, it once was a deduction, but now it is no longer.

If this sounds like we are somewhat on the same page, feel free to introduce where you would like to take it. I am enjoying the conversation, and will gladly go where it takes us.

While our process for obtaining knowledge can be defined by logic and avoiding contradictions, this does not necessitate that our knowledge is actual truth. — Philosophim

Yes, precisely so. Which now makes me wonder how we use our methodologies and to what end. Likewise, it makes me wonder exactly what the heuristic does...

There are at least two things that I would like to address in turn:

1. We have a set bound (we are certain of what we cannot know) and this tells us what must not be true or, at least, what we must be unable to know. Yet, once this bound is set, the question of absolute certainty/objectivity remains open.

2. The type of knowledge that we will find will depend on what we are trying to achieve. Therefore, we should be cognisant of our aims.

Let's start with the first point. What the heuristic does is it [hopefully] creates a bedrock that the search for knowledge must be based on. We cannot seek to know a contradiction, nor can we know beyond the parameters of our aims - both positions are senseless and so, in effect, they set the boundary of our pursuit. However, this boundary alone does not determine that what we will come to know within these bounds will ever be certain or "objective" knowledge that aligns fully with the truth. Now, as you say, our beliefs or proposed knowledge may or may not align with the truth once we work within these bounds, but the question of how we would know whether this is the case appears to be the question at hand... we have the bedrock. Now, how would we build up to alignment with "truth" from that bedrock? Which requires a methodology or technique of building. I'm wondering whether the heuristic can lay the foundation and build...

I think that's saying too much, strictly speaking. The heuristic contains a set of mutually-supporting axioms. The way that we would "build" knowledge with the heuristic alone would be by re-relating these axioms and drawing the relevant conclusions/deductions (which I may demonstrate with the "implications" of the heuristic). Otherwise, it does not so much "build" but sort and support our knowledge by showing us what the shape of our thinking is and what must be rejected. And so, let's consider your example:

Lets go back to the example of our person who traveled to the South pole while thinking that they were going to the North Pole. Recall the GPS knows they are actually at the South pole. Does the person who has traveled to the North pole know that they are at the South pole? — Philosophim

What's the relevance?

With nothing else to go on but the heuristic, all that we can know about the traveller's knowledge of his destination cannot be contradictory (he cannot know that he is at both poles at once) and that his criteria for knowing that it is true that he is at one pole or the other will determine his criteria for achieving that understanding. "Does the person who has traveled to the North pole know that they are at the South pole?" well, if he were the only man on earth, but what standard could he differentiate "North" from "South"? If his goal was simply "to take me where the GPS leads" the distinction would be arbitrary. Yet, if he had seen a globe, pointed to the top and thought "I wanted to go there" that changes things. And then the man needs to ask himself "how will I know that I will get there?" of course, he chooses to use the GPS. Therefore, his goal and criteria: "I will travel North and judge that I have done so with the GPS"
And then, the GPS takes him South, lying that it is taking him North. Once he reaches the South Pole his belief is "I have used the GPS and this has taken me to the North Pole" - does he know this? Well, technically, whilst awaiting confirmation he only knows that he has followed his GPS and if to follow his GPS were his only criteria he would know that he had followed it and that this were the end of the matter. However, once he employed a second source of information and found that the information of his GPS contradicted that of a map or a globe, he would conclude that he did not know "I have used the GPS and this has taken me to the North Pole" and that this belief was wrong: it did not fulfil his criteria; he could not put this belief into action for the end of achieving his goal. Now, if his goal was simply "To reach a place that I have decided is North..." that would be a different matter.

I'm not sure if this is making sense - I'm thinking through this as I go. Yet, I suppose the point is that, the heuristic is effective but its application pushes us to fully examine exactly what goals we have and what they entail:
"Is my destination defined externally or individually?" etc. Or, if we were to unpack the traveller's goals, there might be two potential variations:
a) "To travel North, being a location seen on a map and agreed upon by my peers (that a GPS may or may not lead me to, but I will use as my indicator)", OR

b) "To travel North, being the location defined by my GPS"

Therefore, two goals that seem the same have different criteria and different standards by which one would know that they have fulfilled it.

Therefore, in answer to your question: "Does the person who has traveled to the North pole know that they are at the South pole?" The answer is: yes if the goal is

"To travel North, being the location defined by my GPS"

but if the goal is "To travel North, being a location seen on a map and agreed upon by my peers (that a GPS may or may not lead me to, but I will use as my indicator)" - the man does not know using his GPS alone.

Great example to use - really interesting. I may return to this later.

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Anyway, let's get on to the second point; which is an extension of the first...

2. The type of knowledge that we will find will depend on what we are trying to achieve. Therefore, we should be cognisant of our aims...

Hopefully I've demonstrated how this applies in a practical case, but I wanted to loop it back on our general enquiry into epistemology. After all, we're asking questions such as "what is truth?" and "how do we know?" and it is worth considering: "by what point is our enquiry satisfied?"

I raise this point because I often see it as a mistake in philosophy to presume that the quest for "truth" is for "absolute certainty" or knowledge that cannot be doubted and this often seems to be an axiom that is tucked-into discussions of epistemology.

Consider this:
The heuristic holds that we measure knowledge in relation to our aims. But also note that it holds that we cannot simply have any aim. As such, our limited aims appear to reveal what reality does or does not allow in the way of what our aims can be or what can or cannot be pursued.

Now, consider this...
What makes us presume that "absolute certainty" is something that can be pursued? That is, to nail-down what knowledge must be beyond doubt or to get our beliefs in perfect alignment with reality? @Tim Wood and I touched on this topic above in relation to Godel et al. There is reason to believe that truth is like a bar of soap that, when we grip our hardest, slips right through our fingers. What I'm trying to get at is that it might be the case that reality as-such does not allow the goal of being "absolutely certain" to be fulfilled. Or, perhaps we could re-frame the issue... we need to define truth, but we can ask whether this definition is the "true" definition... how certain does reality allow us to be about our definitions? Indeed, how certain does it allow us to be about our knowledge and that it mirrors "the Truth"? If we presume that reality allows us to be completely certain, we might be functioning under a false-goal in the pursuit of truth and, therefore, would be no more be able to find the truth than we would be able to travel North and not-North at the same time.

And so, to tie the two points together, the question for you to consider would be:
You are trying to find knowledge, but what exactly are your parameters for this?
What model or approach to epistemology can we actually pursue and actually live by?
I think we've already found some agreement here.

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Finally, sorry to give a short response to your extended discussion on definitions, but simply put: I agree.

To your point, we cannot have a relative methodology of applying our distinctions to reality, but we can have relative distinctions, or definitions. — Philosophim

Exactly. My only contention would be when you say:

I can define, and accept as a definition from others in my mind by my choice. There is nothing in reality that necessitates I do otherwise. — Philosophim

This is contingent. Reality appears to determine that you must unite your definitions with others if you are to enter mutual understanding and dialogue with them.

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There's a lot more to say, but let's touch-base first. I'll jump into more of the implications once there's a bit more room to. It was a bit of a ramble tonight but hopefully there's a decent thread running through which is of some interest or value. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

I'm not sure if this is making sense - I'm thinking through this as I go. — TVCL

Please continue! The pages I linked you at one time numbered past one hundred, filled with my own thoughts as I went. Sometimes it is the best way to think.

I think we are both in agreement that knowledge is based on something that we determine. Of course, what do we use? The compass? The GPS? Both?

My only contention would be when you say:

I can define, and accept as a definition from others in my mind by my choice. There is nothing in reality that necessitates I do otherwise.
— Philosophim

This is contingent. Reality appears to determine that you must unite your definitions with others if you are to enter mutual understanding and dialogue with them. — TVCL

Let me rephrase your sentence to show you what I was trying to say.
Yes, you must unite your definitions with others if you are to enter mutual understanding and dialog with them. But reality does not necessitate that I desire to enter mutual understanding and dialog with them.

Let me give you an example. Imagine you and some friends are walking through a forest you pass by a bizarre looking tree. "Look at that tree!" one of them shouts. Every week you walk by and call it, "The bizarre tree". One day, you invite a friend who happens to be a botanist with you on your walks. As someone shouts out, "Hello Bizzarre tree, how are you today?" the botanist speaks up and states, "Oh, that's actually a bush."

The botanist then goes into detail about what defines it as a bush, and sure enough, applying that definition fits. One of your friends agrees, but another of your friends doesn't believe the person is a botanist, and thinks the botanist is pulling their leg. "Sure, whatever. Sorry, but its too tall to be a bush, its still the Bizarre tree to me."

One of your friends now knows it as a bush and the Bizarre tree. Your other friend only knows it as the Bizarre tree, because they have refused to accept the botanists contextual definition. Now you might think this friend dimwitted, but lets imagine the scenario another way. Lets say the "botanist" actually wasn't a botanist, but a convincing liar. Now your ignorant friend appears to be wise in who they trust, while the believer in the "bush" identification now comes across as a dupe.

Another way to consider it (going back to the real botanist this time) is your friend who doesn't believe the tree is a bush, simply doesn't care about botany, and likes the fun of calling it "The Bizarre tree". Calling it a "bush" demystifies it, and they don't want to lose that.

So here we have two separate contexts that each has applied to safely say each person knows within the context they accepted. The friend who accepted the botanist's context can still speak with the one who refused to accept it. When those two are together, they might both call it "The Bizarre tree" for comradery. And when the "academic" friend meets another botanist, that friend won't call it "The Bizarre tree", but instead the botanist's context of bush. Or maybe the academic of the group will think the other friend is a lunk head, causing a fight every time they pass the tree next in the future. There are several outcomes, and no requirement within reality that any one context be accepted within the group.

Thus I do claim there is no necessity in what context a person must accept, but I do agree that if you want to be in harmony with other people, it is important to. Of course, does deciding to be in harmony with a group mean you have useful applicable knowledge? Think on this when applied to politics or religion.

This circles back to your idea that our idea of knowledge is formed by our goals. If our goal is to have harmony and peace within a group, we may decide to throw out certain contexts that might better match reality, but help us preserve harmony. In fact, our context may actually fly in the face of what most other contexts would think of reality, but not in the face of preserving peace and harmony.

Still, if we have a common methdology of knowledge within those contexts, we can differentiate who believes in their context, versus who actually applicably knows their context.

And there is MY ramble. Feel free to continue on where you left off!

Yes, you must unite your definitions with others if you are to enter mutual understanding and dialog with them. But reality does not necessitate that I desire to enter mutual understanding and dialog with them. — Philosophim

Good. I agree with your arguments in this post and think that this is an ideal place to follow onto one of the implications that I wanted to talk about: namely, the way in which our aims do or do not overlap will shape what we can or cannot know. Moreover, that our goals form into "networks" and that these networks can exclude other networks. This may reveal even more of the "big picture".

Let's see if we can make this a progression of the heuristic...
[adherence to consistency as a measure of knowledge is constant]
We also measure our knowledge by use/relation to our goals. This is done in a number of ways:
a) Our goals set the criteria for our enquiry and therefore act as proto-epistemological standards,
b i) The goals available for us to pursue is limited which is another limiting factor on our potential knowledge
b ii) We may posit a goal, presuming that it can be pursued, but in the process of pursuing it, find that this cannot be so.

Simple example:
You posit the goal of flying; therefore, your enquiry is to learn how to fly and you will consider this knowledge to be acquired once you can - say - fly with a sheer force of will (after attempting for 10 days). Hence, positing a goal sets the bounds of the enquiry, but does not guarantee its results. In fact, if you keep your criteria constant, you find that you cannot fly with sheer will of the mind within 10 days.

Result: you know that the claim "I can fly by sheer will of mind" is false. This belief is a poor candidate for knowledge because it is not applicable to reality - the test of which is your implementation of the belief vis-a-vis your decisions.

Therefore, to learn what reality does allow you might change your criteria. For example, you might change the criteria from "with sheer will of mind" to "with the assistance of helicopters" and you find that you can in fact get on a helicopter and fly within 10 days. The claim "I can fly by use of helicopters within 10 days" is affirmed.

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Now, let's extend this by bringing the goal out of isolation...
Goal A: "To fly by use of helicopter"
Goal B: "To regard helicopters as four-legged mammals"

Here we have exclusionary goals because you might be able to pursue either one of these goals, but you cannot pursue both goals at once. As such we find that we know that we can fly by use of helicopters (and use this as knowledge) or that we can regard helicopters as four-legged mammals (and use this as knowledge) but we cannot know both things at once.

Here's where I'm trying to go with this...
Consider how, if you were the only being in the world and you only had one goal and only ever one goal at a time, you could claim all kinds of things as knowledge because you would have relatively few constraints on what you set as your criteria. For example: cannot fly by force of will? Then why not re-define "flying" as walking on the ground? True enough, you would still find that reality does not allow your mind to put you in the air, but you could still come away from this thinking that "I know that I can fly" because of this criteria. Therefore, does this not allow for easy abuse of the heuristic and make it messy when it comes to epistemology?

I would posit that this is not so if we recognise that if goals were ever isolated they would be trivial and irrelevant, but they are never isolated. Moreover, once they network, notice how quickly that constrain what we can or cannot regard as knowledge. If you wanted to know whether helicopters were four-legged animals or not, what standard of knowledge would you use to correct this if this was truly your only goal? However, once you need to use a helicopter to fly, or need to form military strategy or need to talk to an average person about helicopters, these goals limit what we can know about helicopters.

Indeed, consider how the goal of "making things comprehensible" immediately brings in logic and rules out all contradictions and even all goals that require us to accept contradictions for these exact reasons.

And so, I think that this might be a way to demonstrate how the heuristic - this way or measuring knowledge by use and logic - can be a correction to nonsense and relativism when put to full application.

For example: a man says "I am a woman" and he may in fact "know" that he is a woman if making the claim was all that there was to it. Yet, we proceed to consider: how does this man actually know that he is a woman? He knows that he can make the claim, and perhaps even that he can believe it, but can he believe this and lactate at the same time? Or can he live by this and become pregnant at the same time? In the course of this, we might find that the man can label himself as one "type" of woman (in appearance perhaps) but find that he cannot be another type of woman - i.e. a biological one. Therefore, the man is left to consider exactly what he knows about what women can or cannot be. Indeed, all of us are left to consider what we can or cannot claim to know if some of our aims exclude others from being applicable and thereby, when we discover what we can or cannot claim to know as we trying to pursue multiple goals at once.

It appears that when we apply the heuristic and measure our knowledge by logic and use, we discover that "reality" which stands beyond the heuristic has a "stripping-down" effect, by means of which, as we continue to live life and think about it in more detail, we progressively discover what reality does or does not allow which reveals more and more of what we know about it; the network of peoples aims as it is limited by reality progressively sculpts their knowledge (IF they are actively seeking knowledge)

What are your thoughts on this?

I think we are largely in agreement. Yes, the greater number of people you test your own personal knowledge claims against, the more challenges arrive that possibly show it to be false. Further, I also agree on a scaffolding of knowledge. Knowing algebra relies on knowing a lot of other fundamentals. Sometimes when our current perceptions of what we know are challenged, it is the underlying fundamentals which are brought back into question again.

I think your statements are great fundamentals to start tackling more complex questions. Please continue on as you build on this! Once you are done, I may throw a few questions your way to see how your theory handles it, but so far, this seems great.

Right - Good - and so,

It appears that using logic and use as the measures of knowledge achieve a number of things:

1. It directly tethers the use of reason (which is adherence to logic) to our attempts to seek knowledge. Of course, this alone does not demonstrate that reason is a necessary factor in all possible knowledge, but it does necessitate that reason be adhered to in the search for any knowledge that is comprehensible because this is what ensures that we disavow contradictions.

2. It creates the question: "can we live as if X is true?" (especially in relation to Y and Z). this is to say, treating the heuristic as the foundation forces us to regard our potential beliefs about what we know by the extent to which they can be lived by - which is a simple way of testing our claims or even systems of knowledge.
For example:
"Can we live as if science provides us with knowledge?" if not, what aims does this limit, and if so, what does this allow?
"Can we live as if science and this particular religion are true?" if not, why not? Moreover, if treating science as the provider of knowledge allows us to pursue Y set of goals, and if treating religion as a provider of knowledge allows us to pursue Z set of goals, which one takes priority and why? OR is there a way of conceptualising both science and religion and their relation to each other that allows for the pursuit of both Z and Y goals?
Using the heuristic, we can determine that of the three options (science, religion or both) the one that allows for the maximal set of goals is the most likely to provide us with knowledge of reality because the one that can allow for the maximal set of goals to be pursued is the most applicable to reality.

Another way to phrase this is that the conception of our knowledge which is the most accurate is that which is the most applicable; being that which allows for the largest network of aims to be pursued at once.

2 [extra]. The network of goals that relativism allows to be pursued appears to be extremely small which we can use as a contrast. The network of goals that genuine relativism allows one to pursue is relegated to the ability to define or re-frame things in any way. However, the practising relativist will find that these goals are constrained solipsistically to their own psyche and reasoning abilities alone, and that this "network" does not extend beyond this, instead being contained by external factors - known or unknown. (one may redefine "water" however they like, but this will not allow sand to satiate their thirst).

3. The heuristic might serve to create a direct unity between our search for knowledge and the living of life itself (I'd be tempted to say that it unites epistemology with ethics). Philosophy is often disregarded as ethereal , merely academic and not practical. Yet, once we recognise the necessity of the heuristic as the starting point we have a direct way of relating what we know to how we live. Therefore, not only does philosophy become practical, but the practical becomes philosophical. Nor would this be a mere fancy. The fact of this is necessary if we understand the necessary relationship between these two things - which is a relationship demonstrated in the rationale for the heuristic itself because it unites reason (being philosophical) to decisions (being practical).

It also creates the possibility for us to demonstrate that, if two people are seeking the truth and therefore adhere to reason as their initial goal, it must follow that they will necessarily reach the same conclusions, provided that they are exposed to the same information. I believe that this relates to point 2. However, I need a bit more time to think through this intuition before presenting a case for it.

And so, I know that I'm making a reach with some pretty grand claims here which makes this a good point to stop if you have any questions to ask about any of this. In fact, it may be a good place to call on @tim wood again to get a few hammer blows in. There are surely some large leaks in this hull, so let's get them boarded up.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

All the best.

Thanks for another great post TVCL.

It directly tethers the use of reason (which is adherence to logic) to our attempts to seek knowledge. Of course, this alone does not demonstrate that reason is a necessary factor in all possible knowledge, — TVCL

I think a little clarification is needed here. If reason is not a necessary factor in knowledge, how do we separate knowledge from mere belief? We are crafting the definition of knowledge as we go, do you think there is a way to know without reason?

Using the heuristic, we can determine that of the three options (science, religion or both) the one that allows for the maximal set of goals is the most likely to provide us with knowledge of reality because the one that can allow for the maximal set of goals to be pursued is the most applicable to reality. — TVCL

Can you also clarify what you mean by "maximal set of goals"? What if I have a very simple goal in science, but a very complex set of goals in my religion? Further, what about the importance of goals to myself? "What could be a more important goal than serving God?" for example? Finally, what about a person who has many complex goals versus thousands of people who have simple goals, but gain complexity in how they work among themselves? For example, one man wants to discover the truth of the cosmos, but that will make an entire group of people incredibly uncomfortable. Is it a greater maximal set of goals from one man, or the goal among the hundreds of people that each person in the group remain comfortable?

The network of goals that relativism allows to be pursued appears to be extremely small which we can use as a contrast. The network of goals that genuine relativism allows one to pursue is relegated to the ability to define or re-frame things in any way. However, the practising relativist will find that these goals are constrained solipsistically to their own psyche and reasoning abilities alone, and that this "network" does not extend beyond this, instead being contained by external factors - known or unknown. (one may redefine "water" however they like, but this will not allow sand to satiate their thirst). — TVCL

What do you mean by relativism in this case? Do you mean the ability to relatively define one's context, or relatively apply this context to reality? Recall the previous example between "The Bizarre tree" and a "bush". I see the ability to redefine one's definitions as either increasing, or decreasing the complexity in its application to reality. Should we always strive to use definitions that have the most complicated way of applying them to reality? I can still define water in many different ways and still quench my thirst.

Therefore, not only does philosophy become practical, but the practical becomes philosophical. — TVCL

I understand where you are coming from. I have always believed philosophy's goal is to destroy itself. Epistemology is still philosophy because no one has accepted an epistemology that can be quantified, qualified, and used in a useful manner. Once that happens, it will no longer be a part of philosophy, but science.

And I agree with you. I entered philosophy to find the practical, and quickly threw away anything which was "Gandolfian" philosophy. (We can debate how Gandolf would react in a particular situation, but we forget or ignore the fact that Gandolf is fiction).

It also creates the possibility for us to demonstrate that, if two people are seeking the truth and therefore adhere to reason as their initial goal, it must follow that they will necessarily reach the same conclusions, provided that they are exposed to the same information. — TVCL

This is a nice thought, but people do not work this way. If both people have different definitions and goals in the beginning, not to mention different sensing capabilities (blind versus sight) they can both use reason within these definitions and goals, and obtain different conclusions. I think if you can establish a way of obtaining knowledge that is logically sound, then we can determine in the group who has knowledge, and who does not. Knowledge is a tool, and a tool is not something you can't force anyone to use. But, if a tool is useful, sound, and agreed upon by enough people, it can be used to build some wonderful things.

I think you have a fantastic start, and a good overview. When talking about knowledge from the self-subjective viewpoint, I think your ideas have merit. It is when you start bringing other people into the picture, that it starts to become a little muddled, and some inconsistencies and questions start to form. I do not mean this as a slight, this is an incredibly complex and difficult topic, yet I feel this is on a good path.