Vagueness: 'I know'

Shawn

When a person says, "I know", what do they really mean?

It seems inherent, that we assume that the other person "knows"; but, this is prone even to doubt and vagueness about using that phrase.

Therefore, how can we qualify the statement or word-phrase, "I know"?

Is this possible, and has already been implemented in our childhood and adolescent life that is education?

Or stated, otherwise, how does one set up a schema to decrease the vagueness of the word phrase "I know"?

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Shawn

What ambiguity? If someone says he knows, maybe he does, maybe he doesn't, but what is ambiguous about the claim itself? — tim wood

Sorry, I got the whole thread wrong. I meant to say, how does one eliminate the vagueness of that phrase?

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Shawn

I'm thinking you understand my question. — tim wood

Yeah, well, that sort of thing happens when we interchange the next logical progression of "I know ***"

That, and how-***

A Seagull

Sorry, I got the whole thread wrong. I meant to say, how does one eliminate the vagueness of that phrase? — Wallows

Why do you want to?

Shawn

Why do you want to? — A Seagull

To enhance communication/language use?

Shawn

I mean, you can think of it as trying to get informal languages as close to formal ones as much as possible?

Shawn

Education teaches us, or at the highest levels, that vagueness is bad for academic writing.

So, it's also baked into the system of thought itself.

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Shawn

"I know..," doesn't do it for me, because I find zero ambiguity in it. Whether it's true or not a whole other topic. — tim wood

Whell, that's part of the topic-subject hereabouts.

Is "I know..." truth-apt or not?

Qwex

I know thinking as the action side of thought.

When someone thinks, they use knowledge and environment. When someone says I know they refer to wisdom or a phenomenon.

Is this purely an action? Knowing? Referring to your wisdom or phenomena directly, that process?

You may just as well not think of wisdom as a pattern of knowledge but instead as a shell of knowledge.

You can know in the short and long terms.

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Streetlight

When a person says, "I know", what do they really mean? — Wallows

Have you considered asking said person?

Might seem rude if you didn't, is all.

A Seagull

Education teaches us, or at the highest levels, that vagueness is bad for academic writing.

So, it's also baked into the system of thought itself. — Wallows

The problem you refer to lies within language itself. Words inherently have a range of meanings. If I have an image in my mind that I am trying to communicate there are only a limited number of words that I can choose from (and even selecting an appropriate word is a complex process) and the final communication can only be a poor representation of the picture in my mind. If you go for too much rigour in the communication one does so with an associated lack of accuracy.

Shawn

As it stands, its meaning is set by convention. And as it stands, it seems to me, the truth of it is verified by evidence wrt some criteria, wrt a degree of satisfaction under those criteria. E.g., "I weigh 196 pounds," is arguably never, ever exactly true. . — tim wood

OK, so you're already assuming some pragmatic account of shared meaning, correct?

Shawn

Have you considered asking said person? — StreetlightX

Yes, and no. As soon as I think about it the problem magnifies.

Should or ought-to, I ask that or how or why or when?

See the point?

Streetlight

See the point? — Wallows

No.

Shawn

The problem you refer to lies within language itself. — A Seagull

On point.

Words inherently have a range of meanings. If I have an image in my mind that I am trying to communicate there are only a limited number of words that I can choose from (and even selecting an appropriate word is a complex process) and the final communication can only be a poor representation of the picture in my mind. — A Seagull

Well, it's not so much the limits at language, manifest in saying like "A picture is worth a thousand words"; but, rather, why the problem exists in the first place? Zooming out...

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Shawn

↪StreetlightX

See my convo with @A Seagull. Does that help?

Shawn

Absent that, nothing, not even noise, not even silence, not even gesture. — tim wood

What do you mean?

I feel like your reaching out for the outliers here; but, I don't know what's the point of that.

@Banno's showing and telling is sufficient to get the point across?

Streetlight

Does that help? — Wallows

No.

Most people are not at all vague when they claim to know something.

This thread is what happens when language goes on holiday.

Shawn

Most people are not at all vague when they claim to know something. — StreetlightX

This sort of reminds me of the "Language is not passing information from one head to another" thread, in which I never participated in.

This thread is what happens when language goes on holiday. — StreetlightX

Please be more specific.

Streetlight

Please be more specific. — Wallows

I don't want to be rude, so I'd prefer not to.

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Shawn

I don't want to be rude, so I'd prefer not to. — StreetlightX

OK, so, let's take that implicit example. Tact, appropriateness adhere to what standards, here?

Shawn

Let's imagine that you and I have no shared meaning. What meaning, then, do you attach to the 100 symbols in this post immediately following this question mark:? — tim wood

None?

Not seeing the point here.

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A Seagull

Well, it's not so much the limits at language, manifest in saying like "A picture is worth a thousand words"; but, rather, why the problem exists in the first place? Zooming out... — Wallows

Language has the sole purpose of communication. And of course there are limits to the efficacy of communication, you can think of it as a bandwidth problem.

Shawn

But you're concerned with ambiguity, is that correct? I weigh 196 pounds. What is ambiguous about that? — tim wood

Well, that's an observational statement about something within the world-view of any participants of the conversation. Rather scientific and exact. But, most of the language isn't like that, so we might assume this as a statement immune to the sentiments of the need to qualify statements that are quantitative.

Vagueness: 'I know'

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