What does it MEAN, "to know"? (And why is it important?)
Do you know if buying a particular stock or bond is good? How about the best car? Life partner? Diet? Job? Career? Friend? Politician? Night Club? Vacation? Every decision, every choice you make, is based on what you know. If you think about it, knowing and the soundness of your knowledge will affect EVERY aspect of your life.
Some things you know (or think you do!) so well, you don't have to think about it. Simple math, how to drive a car, who's really smart, and a for sure you know a few dummy's! Other things you know because you learned it in school. some things you learn over time - You're good at art but not science, you are (or not) mechanically inclined. Some things you learned from a trusted friend, family, or you saw it in a book or on TV.
A very large percentage of what we know, is simply "what we know". We don't think about how we came to know or the soundness of this knowledge, there are some things you "just know". We make many choices simply because in the background we have unchallenged, unverified knowledge. For example: 1. "Ford is the best Pickup truck in the world", or 2. "IPhone is much better than Android, or 3. "Nothing can be two different things at the same time".
1. and 2. are obviously NOT the truth for everyone. Yet for many of these people it is just a fact. Using Quantum physics we are developing computers based on subatomic particles called "qubits" where the particles actually DO exist as 1 and 0 at the same time.
How many opportunities do you seize or miss, how many mistakes lead you in the wrong direction in your life, how many limitations have YOU placed on yourself, simply because you knew.
When you say you "know" something, you are being a philosopher. Your personal 'style', your 'philosophy, determines how useful YOUR knowing is.
My claim is that a combination of lack of reflection, old philosophy, and a paucity of good tools for evaluating and comparing OUR knowing with that of others is the number one cause of conflict at every level of business, civilization, society and relationships of every kind.
We live in a rational, "cartesian" world that has served us well in science. The whole way we understand reality in the western world is cartesian. But what does that mean? His ideas of how to observe the world, the physical world worked very well for science. Over time his philosophy became part of our culture. It means that all of us are actually "Cartesian Philosophers". We think about the world and reality based on the ideas of the french philosopher, René Descartes.
His ideas worked so well for manipulating the physical world, that his ideas, over time, became simply 'the truth'. He incorporated the ideas of Galileo, that everything could be explained by fundamental laws. It became "what we know" and no longer a hypothesis. Galileo and Descartes ideas changed the way we view the world and the way we understand what reality is.
We live in a very different time than that of Galileo and DesCartes. OUR understanding of what we know still comes from that time, but it is becoming obvious to many that we need new thinking about our beliefs and truths. (a truth, known by philosophers as the 'truth bearer' can be any entity that can be true or false; a sentence, statement, idea, etc. Not necessarily a person)
Some things you know (or think you do!) so well, you don't have to think about it. Simple math, how to drive a car, who's really smart, and a for sure you know a few dummy's! Other things you know because you learned it in school. some things you learn over time - You're good at art but not science, you are (or not) mechanically inclined. Some things you learned from a trusted friend, family, or you saw it in a book or on TV.
A very large percentage of what we know, is simply "what we know". We don't think about how we came to know or the soundness of this knowledge, there are some things you "just know". We make many choices simply because in the background we have unchallenged, unverified knowledge. For example: 1. "Ford is the best Pickup truck in the world", or 2. "IPhone is much better than Android, or 3. "Nothing can be two different things at the same time".
1. and 2. are obviously NOT the truth for everyone. Yet for many of these people it is just a fact. Using Quantum physics we are developing computers based on subatomic particles called "qubits" where the particles actually DO exist as 1 and 0 at the same time.
How many opportunities do you seize or miss, how many mistakes lead you in the wrong direction in your life, how many limitations have YOU placed on yourself, simply because you knew.
When you say you "know" something, you are being a philosopher. Your personal 'style', your 'philosophy, determines how useful YOUR knowing is.
My claim is that a combination of lack of reflection, old philosophy, and a paucity of good tools for evaluating and comparing OUR knowing with that of others is the number one cause of conflict at every level of business, civilization, society and relationships of every kind.
We live in a rational, "cartesian" world that has served us well in science. The whole way we understand reality in the western world is cartesian. But what does that mean? His ideas of how to observe the world, the physical world worked very well for science. Over time his philosophy became part of our culture. It means that all of us are actually "Cartesian Philosophers". We think about the world and reality based on the ideas of the french philosopher, René Descartes.
His ideas worked so well for manipulating the physical world, that his ideas, over time, became simply 'the truth'. He incorporated the ideas of Galileo, that everything could be explained by fundamental laws. It became "what we know" and no longer a hypothesis. Galileo and Descartes ideas changed the way we view the world and the way we understand what reality is.
We live in a very different time than that of Galileo and DesCartes. OUR understanding of what we know still comes from that time, but it is becoming obvious to many that we need new thinking about our beliefs and truths. (a truth, known by philosophers as the 'truth bearer' can be any entity that can be true or false; a sentence, statement, idea, etc. Not necessarily a person)
