"The proposition becomes true only be torturing the definitions of "know" and "who we are", and then the proposition becomes trivial as it is only in these special definitions that self-knowledge becomes impossible. The proposition, if true, does not lead to the other conclusions relating to technology and inventions, or the unconscious, nor does it support some norm whereby a flight from technology and inventions and toward the unconscious acquires a moral superiority warranting the term "hope".

If we do not know who we are, then we also do not know that our conscious perceptions are inaccurate, nor do we have any reason to believe our unconscious state would be any better, nor can we know with any certainty that our technology and inventions are not the highest form of self actualization attainable.

I can believe tentatively that I am what I perceive myself to be, that the pleasure I experience as pleasure is in fact pleasure, and the pain I experience as pain is in fact pain. I can use the characteristics of logical consistency and persistence over time to distinguish my real perceptions from my illusory ones, and while these may all be tentative conclusions they are at least as plausible as any other belief system, which from my own perspective would be entirely speculative."

Ron St. John August 3 2000

Response:

Definitions cannot be tortured; people can be. Though this point aside, can you refute the challenge definitions of "know" and "who we are"? In other words, can you show that our knowledge is not limited, and that there is no being behind our existence?

Your claim that the challenge proposition, if true, does not lead to other conclusions, is unsupported, and ignores the diminutive nature of our existence through knowledge and its material extensions (ie. our existence through what is empty of who we are). Moreover, Garvey's use of the term "hope" is not about "moral superiority"; it is about preservation.

We agree that if we do not know who we are, then we do not know if our conscious perceptions are accurate. Yet, this apparent limit on what we can truly know applies to all knowledge. So we are left judging our perceptions, or approximations, according to their consistency and soundness in relation to themselves and antagonistic perceptions.

We disagree that we have no reason to believe an unconscious state would be any better than our conscious state through knowledge and its material extensions. For instance, based on the premises:

1. we cannot get outside of our minds
2. we cannot know something (ie. knowledge) solely through itself
3. we need intrinsic separation from what we know in order to know

and conclusions:

1. knowledge is an empty form devoid of who we are
2. we are diminuting ourselves by existing through what is empty of who we are

an unconscious state would be without our diminution through knowledge and its material extensions, and therefore could be considered "better" than a conscious state.

How can technology and invention be the highest forms of self actualization, if they themselves have their basis in non-self (ie. thought itself)? In other words, how can the self be actualized through non-self?

How do you know that you are what you perceive yourself to be?

How do you know you have real and illusory perceptions?

76. Entry:

Reply to the response to Entry 75.

"If our perceptions are at all accurate, then we might "know" who we are with sufficient clarity to satisfy the definition of "know" that is used in ordinary English discourse, despite our lack of certainty as to the accuracy of our perceptions. If we specially define "know" in a way that necessarily excludes self-knowledge, we will be able to create an irrefutable proposition, but so what?

To say that we are being diminuted suggests some quantifiable measure of ourselves that is capable of diminution or augmentation, and our incapacity for self-knowledge is as plausibly a cause of benefit or of no-effect, as it is a cause for diminution."

Ron St. John August 4 2000

Response:

Using the so-called ordinary English definition of "know" (ie. "recognize, perceive, or identify something or someone"), how can you know who you really are?

How is our definition of "know", which identifies the limits of knowledge and the need to reason knowledge, specially defined to exclude self-knowledge? How can we avoid reasoning when it comes to knowing?

Further, though the challenge proposition appears irrefutable, it may not be.

If we cannot know who we are, it follows that what we know itself is not who we are. It is empty of who we are. (One supporting proof: 1. we cannot get outside of our minds; 2. we cannot know something (ie. knowledge) solely through itself; 3. what we know itself is an empty form, devoid of who we are (ie. what we know is not knowledge itself, because we cannot know knowledge itself, and therefore who we are cannot be in what we know. There is nothing to be in.) Hence, it does not follow that our apparent lack of self-knowledge, at least in the long-term or overall, is a cause of benefit or no-effect to ourselves, whereby benefit, no-effect, and diminution refer to our preservation. (ie. how can existing through something which cancels us ourselves out a benefit to ourselves or have no-effect on ourselves?)

Yes, the notion of our diminution suggests "some quantifiable measure of ourselves that is capable of diminution". How can we prove this without being able to quantify or even know us ourselves? We can look to, for instance, historical, sociological, biological, and medical patterns, and we can prove, within our minds, the consistency and soundness of our theory of diminution. (ie. the empirical is an extension of the mind).

77. Entry:

"The proposition cannot be valid in that its validity would lead to the following paradox:

a) that "we cannot know" who we are (according to your definition of "limited know")

b) and yet the proposition itself (if valid) would constitute irrefutable knowledge of the nature of our existence.

In other words, we cannot know who we are and, at the same time, develop an axiom which purports to universal validity.

The challenge statement, if we assume it is valid, would refute itself, by your own definitions, by showing "how we can know 'who we are' in totality, while being able to defend the soundness of the position against all other antagonistic positions taken in the competition."

Dr. T.H. Wilson August 4 2000

Response:

The challenge proposition can be valid because the proposition itself would be irrefutable knowledge of the nature of our existence from our limited perspective. (ie. "who we are" is only a conscious representation of whatever we may be). Similarly, we cannot know who we are, and at the same time, we can develop an axiom which purports to universal validity from our limited perspective. (Do you know any axioms that are absolute?)

The validity of the challenge proposition does not come from showing how we can know "who we are", but from the soundness and consistency of our reasoning that we cannot know who we are. (ie. we do not need to know who we are to show that we cannot know who we are. Rather, we use our reasoning to differentiate between the conception of who we are and our thoughts themselves.) In other words, the validity of the proposition, within our limited perspective, comes from both reasoning that we cannot know who we are, and not being able to refute that reasoning through antagonistic propositions.

78. Entry:

Reply to the response to Entry 77.

"I don't think that your response addressed the main point of the paradox: that the axiom purports that knowledge is only from a "limited perspective" (as you say in the response)while itself refuting all other perspectives -- all other challengers, so to speak. But that is beside the point.

Perhaps, as another way of broaching this subject, I might ask you a question: do you really think that this proposition of yours (on the limited nature of knowledge) will be proven valid just because, after 5 years, no one is able to refute it on your own terms?

You asked me if I knew of any axioms that are "absolute" -- I think that is exactly my point. And in that vein I might ask you: do you know of any application of reason (within the limited nature of our perspectival existence, be it individual, or "committee") that is "absolute"?"

Dr. T.H. Wilson August 5 2000

Response

Yes, the challenge proposition purports that knowledge is only from a "limited perspective", while itself refuting all other perspectives. What overcomes this apparent paradox is that all perspectives appear to be guided by reason. So from another angle, the proposition also purports that knowledge is from an absolute perspective in the realm of reason. (ie. reasonableness)

No, we do not think that the challenge proposition will be proven valid if it is not refuted after five or even ten years. (ie. we do not think any proposition can be truly proven valid). Though in our view, the competition would eliminate further doubt about the proposition’s validity, and from a consciousness made up of approximations that may be significant. (ie. can we be guided by reason, and yet be selective in what we believe through reason? Perhaps, our selective reasoning is the failing of our existence through reason, whereby we always have a way to justify, and thereby be selective about, what we believe. Though we do not always have a way to justify our beliefs based on reasonableness.)

Regarding the terms of the proposition, they are open to refutation, thereby are part of the competition. In other words, though the terms are our own, they are not in concreto; they are the basis for the proposition, which give it specific meaning, thereby allow it to have the possibility of being overcome. To not define the terms, the proposition would be left virtually meaningless from ambiguity, or to have someone else define it, the proposition would no longer be our own, but the person(s) who defined it, which takes us back to the position of having someone define the terms of their own proposition. So your criticism for us defining our own terms does not stand.

79. Entry:

"By recognizing the 'nature of knowing', "we can know who we are and thus be who we are at the same time". Knowing creates our psychological existence by making us conscious of things. The things we are conscious of create our psychological existence. Recognizing this, "we know who we are as being the things we are conscious of "."

Wayne Leggette August 6 2000

Response:

Just because we are conscious of things, it does not follow that consciousness itself, and the appearances or things that make it up, are who we are.

Just because the appearances we are conscious of create our psychological existence, it does not follow that the things we are conscious of, including our psychological existence, are who we are. For instance, the appearances in our minds may be extensions of who we are without actually being who we are. (ie. we may create consciousness without actually being it: we cannot create who we are through who we are. One supporting proof is that:

1. we cannot get outside of our minds
2. we cannot know something (ie. knowledge) solely through itself

and therefore, knowledge itself appears to be an empty form with who we are behind the creation of conscious form, and nothing behind knowledge itself, including the form of knowledge. In other words, knowledge itself appears to be an illusion we create, without anything behind the illusion itself.

80. Entry:

"As long as we rely on prevailing notions of what knowledge is, we can know who we are neither when we are being who we are nor when we are not. Our power of knowing is always a part of who we are, and the part can never fully encompass the whole, including itself. There is, however, a way of knowing through a transcendent perspective that does not rely on our ordinary powers of knowledge, which divide the agent of knowing from the object known. Here we know ourselves as we are known. If we focus not on states of being but on our own living process, not only can we know our selves and be who we are at the same time but also this "same time" is the only occasion when we can know ourselves truly. The transcendent perspective is in the relationship itself. In the deepest sense, knowledge is in relationship and is relationship. This is why we call a sexual relationship carnal "knowledge"; it is knowledge though it is not knowledge of who we are wholly since it is limited to the carne or flesh."

R. E. Puhek August 13 2000

Response:

Since we apparently cannot get outside of our minds and know that we are, it follows that all our perspectives, including transcendent, rely on the ordinary powers of knowledge (ie. reason). Hence, what distinguishes different perspectives, like transcendent and empirical, is how provable they are, with none of them being absolutely provable. So it appears that transcendent perspectives, regardless of what we assert through them, divides the "agent of knowing from the object of knowing".

Further, by focusing only on our "living process", you appear to be ignoring the being behind the living process (ie. it does not follow how you can distinguish living process from being, and then claim solely through living process that you can know being.) Could it be that your notion of living process is part of the object known, and not the agent of knowing as well?! If it is both of them, how can you know the agent of knowing while being the agent of knowing? In other words, how can you get beyond the ordinary powers of mind, and know that you are?

Also, your notion that "knowledge is in relation, and is relationship" (ie. being), does not make sense because it is saying that we are two intrinsically different things at the same time. Yet, if it is saying that we not two intrinsically different things, but one intrinsic whole stemming from "relationship", how can we know?

Finally, how do you know that carnal knowledge is knowledge of who we are, and not just limited knowledge of who we are (ie. representational)?

81. Entry:

"To know requires time... time to apprehend, recollect, etc... Being is indeed a precondition in order for knowledge to be possible. All that we know, all that is known belongs to and is derived from history, from the past...from previous events/occurrences. In order to know, I must be. Yet how to know that I know that I am with certainty? How do I know that I know? That what I know is real/true...? I live in a world with others (one whose name is Ted Kazinsky... now in jail. Sort of a Luddite...). I rely on my immediate, factual relation to the physical world to gain and learn a sense of operational truths... some lessons gained via my own life experience, some taught to me by parents, teachers, who either learned these themselves or acquired them as handed down wisdoms. I can verify and corroborate the truth/factuality of various phenomena...like placing my hand on a hot stove. I need not escape the limits of my physical being to know this. I need not separate myself from myself to apprehend this. From an ancient Vedic text is the phrase: The Knower is the Known. (Note, no mention that the Knower is the heretofore Unknown.) To be... and to know of such being... simultaneously... indeed, there is the rub! Can an image and its mirror be identical, absolutely, given that the image is the basis for the reflection? Can the source and its mimic be, after all, identical? Can A, truly, ever actually be self-identical if such identity requires abstraction from itself via use of a copula? Indeed, nothing can be separated from itself and still retain its self-identity. Also, in any absolute present, no-thing can be compared to itself... for any and all comparison requires contrast. Hence, knowledge requires difference... otherness... (as Buckminster Fuller was fond of saying...Knowledge occurs within distantiated proximities, called spatial dimensions, which are the result of lag--lag being the discontinuity of fluid space in contrast to luminal/superluminal velocities). If all travelled at the same speed, i.e., the speed of light... there would be no contrast... all would be co-present, there would be no distance... no time needed to move in between, from point A to B. Hence, all knowledge is a function of time, as the history of the physical universe (not simply made possible by neurological evolution and its chemical stew-like origins). Knowledge, is a function of intelligence. But even more basic is the expanse of space. Knowledge, fundamentally, is about detecting similarities/differences, about measuring distances, about attributing causes and origins. Knowledge is not impossible... Nothing is Impossible Except Everything (when considered as a totality to base Truth, logically). Everything, the Universe, etc... as an all-inclusive set, can have no set premise from which it would derive or follow. The Set of All Sets belongs to no Superior Set, except to its Subordinates. Hence, it cannot be deduced, but must be inferred...and the potential is, if it includes an infinite set of sets, this too will be ultimately indeterminate. My point? We can know who we are and be thus concurrently...but we can never know absolutely, with finality... with absolute finite, definitive precision. How so? Why? Because only the dead, only the past is eliminated from the unknown potentiality, the possible probable and improbable outcomes of the living. As T.S. Eliot, in Four Quartets, noted...Time past and Time future are perhaps contained in Time Present. If All Time is Irredeemable, then all that was, was not or might have been point to a single moment...which is Now. We can know who we are (as we know anything and everything) relatively, not absolutely. What we deem to be true is heretofore most probable, not absolutely certain for all time, transcendentally. In order to know we must first be. Though Descartes claimed, I think therefore I am, one often asks, but how does one know that he knows? Perhaps Moses, as taken from one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, said it best, I am not so that I might be! (By the way Stephen Garvey, your ideas are interesting, but my advice is to keep patching the holes... sound advice for any skipper on a ship!)"

G-man August 13 2000

Response:

How can you rely on your "immediate, factual relation to the physical world to gain and learn a sense of operational truths", when the "physical world" appears to be an appearance in your mind (ie. you cannot get outside of your mind, so any notion, including physical world, is part of your mind)?

How is the rate of movement, or "speed", a determinate of knowing or knowledge itself? Surely, there is more to knowing than rate of movement, like different meanings, who we are, and timing (ie. we cannot be conscious of more than one thought at the same time)?

How can we know what we deem to be true is most probable, while at the same time not absolutely certain? For instance, if we put our hand on a hot stove, how do we know it is "most probable" that the stove is hot, and therefore the stove and ourselves exist? Sure, we feel the pain from touching the hot stove, but how can we be sure we ourselves are really feeling the pain from touching the hot stove? If what is beyond our minds is inexpressible, like who we are, it follows that we have no way of determining the probability or improbability of knowing what is beyond our minds (ie. we cannot determine the probability of something we are not conscious of, because there is no basis to do so). Hence, if we ourselves are neither probable nor improbable, it follows that the hot stove or any other object is as well, since they are known through our perspective, or the "we" or "I". Therefore, it follows that from our perspective, what we deem to be true is neither probable nor improbable, and neither absolutely certain nor absolutely uncertain. We come to Garvey’s claim that knowledge is an illusion we create, though the illusion itself does not exist.

Entries 71-74 Entries 82-85