humanities.philosophy.objectivism

In article <31e828a7-4283-43e7-b51c-3440bd367ada@
2g2000hsn.googlegroups.com>, rumin8@ix.netcom.com says...
> On Apr 9, 11:06 pm, Gordon Sollars wrote:
>
> > Call *that* - what is *that*?
>
> The that upon which we build conjectures and guessing, of course.

We build conjectures on other conjectures. As I said, it's conjecture
all the way down.
>
> > You might have "stored information" or
> > "recognition" prior to guessing not-X, but it does not have to be
> > knowledge - you have already said that.
>
> I said I wasn't stuck on calling it knowledge. It's like you want to
> play both ways...use informal common meanings of words and
> then develop specific (and fundamental) theories based on
> those loose usages.

Look, bud, I've defined my key term, "knowledge" - more than you have
done. But *all* definitions rest upon undefined terms - if you can
figure out a way around that, you will be more famous than Aristotle.

> You've got to pick one or the other. Call that "stored information"
> whatever you will, the point is that it developed from direct
> sensory, perceptual and conceptual identification. That is,
> it was neither guessed nor conjectured.

"Direct" sensory input is highly processed and relies upon conjectures
about the world we live in that are built into our physiology by
evolution. I suspect you reject that, but I have no intention to argue
it. What I will point out is that any interpretation we make of
sensory data is a conjecture, and uninterpreted sensory data is useless,
even if I am wrong that in itself it is conjectural in form.
...
> For a guy trying to show the very basis of all of knowledge,
> including that it's made of something other than knowledge,

If knowledge is not made from something that is not already knowledge,
how do we get any knowledge to start with?
...
> Just tell me what I've got wrong, Gordon. I'm not making some
> wild claim, like I do about context or Peikovianism. I'm just
> saying that it seems reasonable to guess(!) that a baby begins
> with sensations and percepts, and because he has a human
> brain (instead of a dog or chimp brain), he goes on to
> compare and contrast elements of those percepts, giving
> rise to simple concepts and then more advanced concepts.

All of which is done in a trial and error fashion. Trials are
conjectures

--
Gordon