Lately I've been doing thought experiments, mainly for fun. One of these older experiments was aimed at proving logically that there is more than a single way to know something. This experiment spawned from the annoyance of people claiming to be "pure" skeptics.

Before you read my argument, I need to define a few things as to discourage debate over semantics.

To Know - To be cognizant, or aware, of a truth.
Truth - http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/TRUTH (Please note that truth and absolute truth are synonymous, if truth is used as definition 3a).
Absolute Truth - How something is, everywhere, all the time, under any condition.
Certain - http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Certain
Way of Knowing - Means to know or at least reasonably prove a truth. These can include, but may not be limited to: Reason, Sense Perception, Emotion, and Language.
Skepticism - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skepticism
Semantics - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantics
Prove - To be shown or found to be true.

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Here is how my argument goes:

In order to know anything, you have to know that your way of knowing is a valid (providing true results).

In order to know that your way of knowing is a valid, you need to use a way of knowing to know so.

In order to avoid circular reasoning, you must know that a certain way of knowing is valid via an entirely independent way of knowing (assuming that circular reasoning is a logical fallacyⁱ).

Therefor, at least two ways of knowing must exist and be accessible in order to know anything.


Now for what I would like to discuss: Does my argument hold up to scrutiny? Did it prove logically that you cannot doubt everything and know nothing? Does it prove that the scientific method (or any way of knowing//proving) isn't the only valid means of proving something? Does it prove that axioms decided on by the general public aren't the only means to know anything?

ⁱ http://www.numeraire.com/download/WhatIsCircularReasoning.pdf

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Nov 26 2009, 8:17 am by CecilSunkure. Reason: Making argument easier to read.

I'm going to rephrase this for the sake of using the word "know" less frequently:

"In order to know anything, your method of validation must be correct.
In order to know that your method of validation is correct, you must use a method of validation on your method.
To avoid circular reasoning, your second method of validation must be different from your first validation method.
=> Therefore, at least two methods of validation must exist and be accesible in order to know anything."

This would be a nice proof if we already knew something. If we don't know anything, then this doesn't prove anything, since the methods of validation need not exist if we don't know anything. It won't help a skeptic, as you seem to intend it to.

Alternately, if we didn't know anything, but want to know something, we would apply a method of validation to our data, then apply a method of validation to our method of validation, then on and on into infinity without actually validating anything.

Ah, well this already hits on a main point I planned on making at some time in this topic. In order to claim that you know nothing, you would have to know that you know nothing. The very denying of knowledge requires knowledge in order to make the denial.

Although, one can claim to be able to know things via a singular way of knowing. Reason is a popular choice, and I hear all the time that evidence is required know something, and nothing known can be without evidence, meaning that the scientific method is the only method for proving anything.

Although, if someone were to know nothing, I don't think they would ever have the means to ever gain knowledge, since it seems logical that knowledge can't be gained without knowledge. This can be shown in my proof within the first line. My first line assumes that we all know something. If we actually know nothing, then my proof won't apply at all; that also means you won't be able to ever know anything because my proof doesn't apply.

So one has to assume they can actually know truths to function day to day, even if they don't view that assumption as truth, which is very contradictory.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Nov 26 2009, 8:18 am by CecilSunkure.

Why? Why couldn't I simply know nothing and not make any claims? I could simply not know that I know nothing.

If you were to ask such a person who knows nothing questions, they might respond as such:
1). Do you know A?
2). I don't know A.

But the implied meaning is, "I don't know A, but I don't know not-A either"
1). How do you know that you don't know A and you don't know not-A?
2). Well, A could be the case, or not-A could be the case, but I'm not sure which is the case
Then you could forcing the answerer to come to knowledge again by asking about the attributes of the question, like:
1). How do you know that A and not-A are the only two possibility?
2). I don't know. Maybe there is a b-A possibility.
The point is there will always be a way to not know something. I think there's actually a bit of a language problem here with the word "know." If you are unsure of something, it's different from knowing that something is false.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Nov 26 2009, 9:20 am by Vrael.

Yeah, but nobody that will be debating will fall into that scenario

Yes, there will always be a way to state that you don't know a certain thing. But what I am getting at is those who claim to actually know nothing, and use that to hide behind during arguments.

If they really want to, they can. Most of the time I would imagine they would use the very argument you presented here as against their case:
Except their conclusion would be this:
(+ the premise of humans being finite)
=>Since each validation requires a second, unique validation to validate it, this will cycle on ad infinitum, and since we are finite, we are incapable of validating anything, hence incapable of knowing anything.

Of course, the consequence of this proof, is that we cannot know that the proof is correct since we cannot validate it.

Your conclusion of "at least 2 ways of knowing must exist" actually requires the additional premise:
+We know at least one thing
=> Since we know at least one thing, and each method of validation requires a second method of validation to validate it, there are at least 2 methods of validation

If you're trying to "win" an argument though, a skeptic probably won't allow you to just have the "We know at least 1 thing" premise, he'll fight you over it. Of course, if he tries to use the above proof against you, you could ask him how he knows humans are finite, if we can't know anything.

Actually, there is another alternate. You don't have to 'know' anything to make a claim, you can just claim it. I could claim I know something and actually know nothing, or claim I know nothing and actually know something.

Can you elaborate on your conclusion? I'm unsure as to how this creates a paradoxical cycle, if the premise is that you know nothing.

When I wrote the proof, I didn't think about that. I should have included the original premise; I just assumed that nobody would be making a claim if they truly knew nothing.

That is an interesting alternative I never thought about. The alternative would be like adding zero to an integer, in hopes of changing it (winning the argument). Although, adding 0 will never actually do anything.

So here's the conclusion I just came to: If you know nothing, and claim to know something, your claim is inherently meaningless. He might as well be just making incomprehensible noises. Here is an example: Suppose a man does not know what a glorf is. He then claims he knows that glorfs are non-existent. Does that mean he actually knows that glorfs are non-existent? Since he doesn't know if they exist, he can't know if his claim is true or false, and if he can't know if his claim is true or false, then his claim is false since his claim was claiming knowledge he didn't have. If the man simply claims that glorfs are non-existent without having any knowledge, then his claim cannot sustain meaning, since a claim needs to be made off of the premise of knowledge. To make a claim is to state knowledge, whether it be of your own knowledge or from some reference, such as a text. If the claim "glorfs don't exist" is made from the reference of some external source, then the claim can sustain meaning. However, you can just ask the man if knows if his reference is true or not, to which he would reply "I don't know" and in turn nullify his original claim.

If you do know at least one thing, then you can make a claim without it being meaningless, although a claim of knowing nothing will be inherently false if the premise is that you know at least one thing.

Either way, it doesn't work out and there can't be any other options since knowing nothing and knowing something (knowing at least 1 fact) are mutually exclusive. Just as these two equations are mutually exclusive if you are only dealing with positive amounts:

x = 0 or x > 0

(And no, you can't know a negative amount of things.. Or, can you?)

Post has been edited 7 time(s), last time on Nov 27 2009, 7:01 am by CecilSunkure.

I can try. The premises weren't "that you know nothing", the premises were those of your opening argument + finite humans.
Premise 1: In order to know anything, must be able to validate the correctness of your knowledge through some method.
Premise 2: In order to know that your method of validation is correct, you must use a method of validation on your method.
Premise 3: Each method of validation must be unique, since we will not accept circular reasoning.
Premise 4: Humans are finite.
Conclusion 1: p2+p3 => After validating the original method, the second method must be validated, by a third, unique method of validation, which in turn is not valid until we validate it with a fourth, unique method, and we can see from this pattern that an infinite amount of validation methods are required, since stopping at any arbitrary value will leave us with the final method of validation unvalidated, and as such the entire chain fails.
Conclusion 2: c1 + p4 => Since an infinite validation chain is required, and humans are finite, humans are not capable of validating anything.
Conclusion 3: c2 + p1 => Since humans cannot validate anything, but validation is required to know anything, humans cannot know anything.

Be careful with your analogies. Obviously a + 0 = a, but this is a unique property of the group of numbers under addition. If you take matrices as an example, you can have ab = 0, where both a and b are non-zero.

It could still be true, despite the fact that he has no knowledge as to its accuracy or falsity. Same thing can happen with any claim. Happens all the time on game shows:
Bob: okay susie, we have two doors for you, one has a prize and one has nothing
Susie: oh I want door number two bob, door number two, I know it's door number two!
Bob: are you sure you don't want door number one?
Susie: oh I'm sure bob, I want door number two!
Bob: okay, let's show her what's behind door number two!
*game show person opens door*
Bob: a new car!!!

Did Susie really have any knowledge of which door was correct? No, probably not. But she claimed to know. A claim has nothing to do with knowledge, the proof that backs up the claim is where the knowledge is at. If we ask Susie "how did you know it was door number two?" And she says "oh I just knew" then obviously it was luck, random statistical probability, but if she answers "I snuck back there earlier and saw it was door number two" then of course she had some knowledge of the state of things.

Really though, when it comes to skeptics, and they tell you that you can't know anything, punch them in the mouth. Then, when they say "what the fuck dude, why'd you punch me in the mouth?" respond with "Well, according to you, you don't know I punched you in the mouth"

In my personal opinion, skepticism only comes from a misguided belief that people can't know anything because our sense data is not impervious to illusion, so they have to disbelieve EVERYTHING because it's all at risk of being false, when in reality, maybe only a small portion of our sense data is corrupted. On top of that, we can reasonably extrapolate from experience to know when our sense data is corrupt. Like when you watch a magician, your sense data tells you that he put a person in the box, and that person dissapeared. Your reasonable extrapolation tells you this is a situation where more than sense data is needed, so you don't believe the sense data. On the other hand, you go down to your local grocery story to buy a carton of milk. Last week the price was 2.79, and this week the price is 3.49. Your sense data tells you that this sign changed forms. No, of course not, you know the person running the store came over and changed the sign sometime in the last week.

Ok, I understand the paradox now. Thanks.

Ah, I tried to explain this in my last: There are two ways for a man to claim that glorfs don't exist, and both must be made in reference to some pool of knowledge, since making a claim is making a reference to some knowledge, be it known by the claimer, or be it known to an external source (like a textbook or something).

One way the man can make the claim that glorfs don't exist (under the premise that he knows nothing), is to claim that he himself knows they don't exist. Since he, in actuality, doesn't know if they exist , he can't know if his claim is true or false, and if he can't know if his claim is true or false then his claim is false. This is because his claim was saying he knew something, when he really doesn't, which is false.

The other way the man can make the claim that glorfs don't exist (under the premise that he knows nothing), is to simply claim it, as you pointed out earlier. Although, like I said earlier, a claim is made in reference to some pool of knowledge, that's simply what a claim is. Since the claim of "Glorfs don't exist." isn't stating that the knowledge is coming from the man himself, it is implied that the knowledge of the non-existence of glorfs is coming from an external source. The man can actually now claim whether or not glorfs exist, and make the claim in reference to an external source. Although, one can ask the man if he knows if his claim is true or not (which also implies "if he knows whether or not the claim's source of knowledge is true or not"), to which he must reply "I don't know". At this point, we get the man to state that he doesn't know if the claim of "glorfs don't exist" is true or not, making the claim meaningless. It is meaningless, because if I were to ask the man "How do you know, that you don't know whether or not the claim 'glorfs don't exist' is true or not?" it would point out that the man made a claim to his own pool of knowledge when he said "I don't know" - which would be impossible if he knew nothing.

If the man decides not to answer you after you ask "Is your claim to the non-existence of glorfs true", then.. Erm.. You uh, he.. He loses the argument by default

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I'll try to map this out in a simple and easy to follow.. map.

Premise: A man knows nothing.
Premise 2: A claim alway makes a reference to a pool of knowledge, that's what claims do.

Conclusion: The man has to different ways to make a claim; he can make that claim from a pool of his own knowledge, or from a pool of external knowledge.

If the man makes a claim to his own knowledge, that claim is self-defeating because the first premise is that he has no knowledge to begin with.

If the man makes a claim to external knowledge, then he isn't making a self-defeating claim. Since a claim must be made from a pool of knowledge, the only option of where this knowledge could be from is from somewhere external to the man. From here, one can ask this man whether or not his claim were true. If he responds with yes or no, he would admitting knowledge and violating premise 1. If he says "I don't know", he would be making a claim to his own knowledge violating premise 1 (He would be saying that he knows, that he doesn't know). If he doesn't answer, well then he's a complete dick.

I think that covers all possible choices that the man has, and I think this shows that no matter what, a person cannot function without knowledge; the only valid path would be for the man to not answer certain questions. You can't live and function daily like that - yet all those skeptics still live and function daily, assuming knowledge like the rest of us.

Post has been edited 4 time(s), last time on Nov 27 2009, 8:28 am by CecilSunkure.

I had no idea that SEN was willing to discuss epistemology. The entire area of the 'origin of knowledge' is a source of confusion to me, so I'll probably stay out of this one. Interesting read though.

Have any of you considered the position of Sollipsism? When I was younger, daydreaming in school, I used to fantasise that I was the only person that existed because I had no way of knowing that other people had any thoughts.

Yes I have actually, and I tried to attack solipsism in the absolute truth topic, sort of.

Basically, Solipsism goes sort of like this:
The experience of a given person is necessarily private to that person.

In order to know that experiences a person has are solely private to himself, that person would have to know something outside of his own experiences, being the knowledge that his experiences are solely private. Basically, the above statement is claiming that the only knowledge a person has is solely his own experience. How can that be known, if all you really know is your own experiences? The very knowledge the statement is making a claim to lies outside the realm of knowledge a person could have, if that person's experiences were solely private and internal. It's self-defeating. This is what happens when a beautiful idea comes across some brutal facts; it falls apart.

[Edit]So in short: It's not that you have no way of knowing others have thoughts, it's that you have no way of knowing others don't have thoughts.

Sure there are quite a few variations of the "thesis" of solipsism, but they all seem to end the same way the one I presented did. These statements summarizing solipsism all seem to assume that a third person perspective of a human (with private knowledge, and private knowledge alone) can be attained by a human. Materialism also ends in the same manner. Actually, a lot of ideas and philosophies end this way

I never daydreamed of solipsism, because when I first heard about it I was also taught how to counter it by pointing out that it is self-defeating. But I did use to become awe-struck about how old the Earth supposedly is, billions of years. I would feel so insignificant..

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Nov 27 2009, 11:26 pm by CecilSunkure.

The first thing is, there is no such thing as a universal truth. Everything is relative, and can only be known relative to other things. Even c is relative to other things. Irrational absolute values, etc., etc., are relative to the laws of physics in the present universe, which have changed since the Universe existed. (For instance, several quantum moments after the Big Bang, super-symmetry existed, and gravity was as strong as magnetism.)

Your argument assumes the fact that a relative truth is inherently flawed - It isn't. Something can't be an absolute truth. Absolute truth is non-existent.

However, there are limits to relativism. We can say things like c are absolutes because the chaotic interactions that determine them are so vastly complex compared to our lives that they don't even matter. For any situation we could possibly encounter, they're true. So they're absolute truths relative to us. (Us being the human race.) For all intents, and purposes, we can say they're absolute, even though they technically aren't.

Now, you know all truth you know is relative, so it does not even matter how you know. "How you know you know" is a stupid concept because it is meaningless. It is outside of the human scope of existence to be absolutely certain. Knowing you know is, in essence, like finding a limit in mathematics: You cannot infinitely expand something (a function in the case of mathematics, knowing you know .... you know in metaphysics), and it's trivial to even try when you know a limit must exist. So yes, you don't absolutely know you know anything, but it doesn't really matter. You know it relatively enough.

You can't doubt everything and assume you know nothing, unless you consider your mind capable of comprehending minutia greater than the whole of existence. Pure skeptics are idiots, don't attempt to argue with them.

Though the point of this topic wasn't to debate on absolute truth or not, it isn't like this is a fast paced topic that needs to be kept perfectly on track. Although, this post here has yet to be responded to, in case anyone is interested: http://www.staredit.net/191604/

Here is a list of all your claims and statements, Syphon:
1 - ..there is no such thing as a universal truth.
2 - Everything is relative..
3 - Something can't be an absolute truth.
4 - Absolute truth is non-existent.
5 - For all intents, and purposes, we can say they're absolute, even though they technically aren't.
6 - "How you know you know" is a stupid concept because it is meaningless. It is outside of the human scope of existence to be absolutely certain.

And here are my responses to your statements:
1 - If there is no such thing as a universal truth, then you shouldn't be stating universal truths to combat universal truths.
2 - If everything is relative, then that means the only way you can know anything is through a comparison to something else. In essence, this is actually just a form of extended circular reasoning; I know a because I can compare to c, which is comparative to b, which is to d.. And so on and so forth. However, we are finite beings, and can not create a limitless number of comparisons, so at some point you would be left with a chain of comparisons all unvalidated, or you would end up running in a large circle of self-verifying facts (circular reasoning). Although, if everything were to be relative to everything, then that statement would be included. What if, to me, that statement meant not all things are relative (which could happen if everything were relative to everything). Both couldn't be true since they are mutually exclusive. In order for the statement "Everything is relative" to be valid, you have to go upon the assumption that that statement is exempt, otherwise you will end up like our universe: nothing is in a fixed position.
3 - Assuming you mean "nothing can be an absolute truth", the same argument as reply number 1 applies here.
4 - "Absolute truth is non-existent." is a claim to an absolute truth. If absolute truth really didn't exist, your statement would be false. Absolute truth has to exist.
5 - That statement can't be absolutely true, because it is claiming that absolute truths don't exist. Another variation of statement number 1.
6 - In order for you know that it is outside the human scope to be absolutely certain, you would need to be able to see outside the scope of human existence in order to calculate its uncertainty. Yet another self-defeating statement.

Also, your statements one and two are contradicting. So is one and six. And so are all the variations of one, with two and six, as well as with each other and themselves.

I have become confused by what you mean. A proof, or the support for a claim may reference some pool of knowledge, but the claim itself is just a claim.
This is what I mean when I say a claim: just the entity which is being asserted as true or false. No knowledge of anything is required to make a claim as far as I can see, since I can claim that something we know doesn't exist (know outside of the bounds of this conversation, like unicorns) exists. "Unicorns exist" is a claim, and it doesn't have any references to any pool of knowledge since it's only a claim (unless you are showing that merely by communicating, some knowledge is required, and a claim is a form of communication). If you were to try and back up that claim with evidence/reason/ect, you would require knowledge of some sort of course.

Two things to say about this:
First is the usage of the word "can't"; this implies a whole new scenario, that of it being impossible for our fellow to know if his claim is true or false, but I don't think you meant to use can't, since we're not really talking about that, so I'm going to replace it with "doesn't" if thats okay and respond to that.
Second is what I was saying earlier, it doesn't matter whether he knows its true or not, the claim could still be true, it isn't necessarily false. Just like Susie's claim will be right 50% of the time even if she has no knowledge of which door is correct. Glorfs could still exist despite the fact that he doesn't know about them, and the truth of the matter will decide the truth of the claim, not his knowledge of it.

I don't understand this, is our fellow making some proof and taking "I know nothing" as a premise?

Man:
Premise 1: I know nothing
Premise 2: w/e
Claim 1: Glorfs exist
conclusion 1: blah blah blah
conclusion 2: blee blee blee

Like this?

I can't respond really well to what you were saying because I am confused by your definition of a claim. To me it seems like you're trying to say a claim implies some knowledge of the subject matter, so I don't know if what I would be responding to should be to what I see as the reasoning or proofs behind the claim, or to the claim itself.

[/quote]
A claim is a stating of truth. In order to make a claim, you have to restate that truth from somewhere, some pool of knowledge. There are two different pools of knowledge to make a claim from: internal and external. Since the previous premise was that the man was claiming to have no knowledge, then it is implied that the claim (something trivial, like: 1+1=2) is being made from an external source of knowledge, or the claim is meaningless (no pool of knowledge is referenced). So his claim is not yet contradicting or invalid. Now someone like me can come along, and wonder what pool of knowledge is being referenced when this claim is made (or if there even was knowledge being referenced), since the man supposedly has no knowledge. He would have to reply with "I know it to be true, because...", or, "I don't know". The only other optional responses would be something irrelevant, or just plain silence. If the man says "I know it to be true, because..." then he has just contradicted the premise that he knows nothing. If the man says "I don't know", then he still has contradicted the premise that he knows nothing, because the claim "I don't know" is making a reference to his own knowledge of him not knowing whether or not the previous claim he made were true.

Now of course, this man could have made the second claim of "I don't know", without knowing what he was saying. If this were the case, his claim would have been false, since the second claim was that he knew that he did not know, which is impossible if he knew nothing.

So in theory, someone could be walking around without any knowledge, and be getting really "lucky" in how their life turns out, without knowing it of course. Although to believe in that is unreasonable, in my opinion.

The claim is necessarily false, if the claim is making a claim to knowledge that the person has. If a person claims "I know A is true!", and really doesn't know if A is true or not, then their claim is false. The claim of "I don't know that..." is the same as "I know that I don't know that...". This is because the claim of "I do not know..." is a stating of a truth. If the claim made isn't a known truth to the man, then the claim is simply meaningless, and irrelevant. So again: in theory, someone could be walking around without any knowledge, and be getting really "lucky" in how their life turns out, without knowing it of course. Although to believe in that is unreasonable, in my opinion.

However, when someone says "I don't know...", it is assumed that the person has knowledge of their lack of knowledge. Otherwise, an external source must be being referenced during the claim, or the claim is just a claim, and not an extension, or even coherent reply from the person (meaningless).

So now the cycle would have to start over again, I could ask how they knew that claim were true. They would have to reply with responses that aren't extensions of their thoughts or knowledge (meaningless//useless). The point is: a person cannot live their entire life without knowledge, using speech to emulate response, when the person isn't in actuality responding to anything. People go by day to day assuming that we can know things; it's unreasonable otherwise. Another way to say this is: Pure skepticism isn't reasonable.

1. It's a truth relative to all other relative truth, not a universal truth.
2. No, you don't, you just have to change your frame of reference.
3. No it doesn't.
4. No it isn't, it's a claim relative to other relative truths.
5. It isn't, and now you're arguing the same thing over and over again.
6. I know universal knowledge is outside the human scope to be absolutely certain because the sum total of human knowledge is relative to the human experience. This is not a self defeating statement, in any logical manner of thinking, and if you think it is, any statement you have ever made is incorrect by your own fallacious assertions.

No they aren't, unless you assume I think they are universal truths, which I stated I did not. And you repeated several statements.

Cecil, I'm sorry but I can't continue with this until we work out what a "claim" is. You basically just repeated what you already said, and I didn't understand it the second time either. Here is what I believe to be a claim:
"Object X has property Y"
"Object X" can be anything, including another embedded claim, from apples to education systems to mathmatics, whatever, and "property Y" can be anything as well, from true to false to colors to good to bad, ect.
Here is a claim:
"Apples are purple."
Now, when it comes to truth, as you said "a claim is a stating of truth," the claim asserts that itself is true, but it may either be true or false independantly of its own assertion. It is not a truth statement, nor is it automatically assumed to be true since it is not a premise.

There is also no pool of knowledge associated with the claim, since I can claim something that doesn't exist exists.
"Garnulians are green."
For garnulians to be green, naturally they have to exist first, but even if they don't exist you can still make the claim that they are green. If I wanted to prove (or disprove) that the claim is true, then of course I would need some sort of knowledge in order to show that they are green. There is some knowledge associated with the proof, but not with the claim as far as I can see.

Can we have an example of a truth relative to other truths? That statement sounds like nonsense to me otherwise, it appears to have no meaning.

Agreed so far. It asserts itself as true, but is independent from truths altogether; this means the claim must be made in conjunction with knowledge of itself being true in order to be meaningful, otherwise it is useless.

Yes, you can make the claim, but the claim is useless if it wasn't said with some sort of citation, or reference to knowledge of the claimer, or reference to some knowledge external to the claimer. If I say that the moon is made of cheese based off of my own knowledge, then the claim holds meaning. If I just utter nonsense, like "Baski arek" it holds no meaning and is useless. If I say "Piece pictoral to for thine imbue", and it may be composed of actual words, but it still holds no meaning and is useless. If I claim "Glorfs don't exist", and the premise is that I know nothing, then the claim can't be meaningful if it were to be based off of my own knowledge (which doesn't exist). However, the claim could hold meaning if it were made in reference to some external source of knowledge, like a book. If I know nothing I can still make a meaningful claim based off of a book I read.

So what I'm trying to say is, if a claim is made without a reference to some sort of knowledge, then the claim is just as meaningless as any other nonsensical utterance.

Then, after all this, I can ask the man who has no knowledge how is claim is meaningful, as in, how he knows it is true or not. The only thing the man can do in response, without breaking his premise of having no knowledge, is to say something useless, meaningless, or nonsensical. If the man were to say "I don't know if my claim were true or not", then his claim would be false, because that statement is stating that he has knowledge of him not knowing if his previous claim were true or not, when we have an original premise of him not having any knowledge.

So I was trying to get at the point that those who are purely skeptics, must believe they live their entire lives on pure chance that all the words and decisions they made were both nonsensical, and lead them to where they are today. That's just not reasonable or rational.

No I'm not talking about proofs. Knowledge is always associated with claims that are meaningful; when there is no reference to any sort of knowledge when a claim is made, it becomes useless.

Does that make more sense?

So let's get this straight.

1). Man: I claim A.
2). Inquisitor: How do you know A?
3). Man: I don't know if A or not-A.
4). Inquisitor: How do you know "I don't know if A or not-A"

So, what do we have. Well, "A" is going to be true or false, and nothing Man can say, do, think, know, ect, will change whether "A" is true or false unless A depends on him somehow. So let's say A is something like the number of jelly beans in a jar, something he had no effect on. So either there ARE A jellybeans in the jar, or there ARE NOT. "I claim A" could be true, or it could be false. It is NOT NECESSARILY false, and its truth is completely independant of what he knows, so even if he knows nothing, it could still be TRUE or NOT TRUE. Now we also have the premise that the man doesn't have any knowledge, which means in this case that he did NOT see the person who filled the jar, or count them beforehand or something, ect.

Now, your goal is obviously to find ANY sort of knowledge in the whole situation, cause you're combatting skeptics. The best way in my opinion is to punch the other person in the face and tell them that they can't know you punched them in the face, and see how they respond. If thats too extreme for your tastes, the next easiest way is to examine the communication between you and your opponent, or Man and Inquisitor, or anyone. If both parties do not know the same communication protocols, they cannot communicate. Since the above transfer is coherent (that is, there are logical responses involved, and each new communication was a response and not just some random voice malfunction), then they must both know the same language, so they both know something. Your way (I think) is to examine how it is that the man knows that he does not know A (number 4 in the above dialogue). My point is, it's possible that he could NOT know how it is that he doesn't know A. If "I don't know if A or not-A" is true, then he might know how it is that he doesn't know, or he might not know how it is that he doesn't know, 2 possibilities. If he knows how it is that he doesn't know, then yes, he has violated his "no knowledge" premise. If he doesn't know how it is he doesn't know, he might not know how or why that is either.

I never said anything against this >.<

Agreed so far.

But if the original claim was "I don't know if A or not-A", then he is making a claim that he knows that he doesn't know if A or not-A -, or, his claim is just a sequence of words that holds no meaning because it were made without reference to knowledge. So we could continue this even further: How do you know that you don't know if A or not-A. It would have to end up the same way as the last one, or he would break his premise.

What I'm getting at is: You have to believe that all your non-meaningful statements and actions in life had to have just happened without your knowledge, and everything that is or isn't is a result of that. That just isn't a reasonable belief, as it is more likely that we each can have knowledge, and make decisions.