There appears to be Two Types of Knowledge

Discuss any topics related to metaphysics (the philosophical study of the principles of reality) or epistemology (the philosophical study of knowledge) in this forum.
Wmhoerr
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There appears to be Two Types of Knowledge

Post by Wmhoerr »

For me there appears to be two different types of knowledge. I will outline my reasoning.

The “nature” verses “nurture” debate will probably never end. Similar words used in past discussions for “nature” could include: innate, inborn, instinct, á priori, and id. The nature part is taken as that with which we are born. As the carrier of information from one generation to the next is the genes, then it seems that the nature part can only be the genetic part.
Say someone says “I am hungry”. Hormones from the neural network around the stomach are sent to the brain. This idea starts in the stomach and ends in the brain. The person knows genetically s/he is hungry. If this reasoning is correct, then hunger is a genetic idea; it is not learnt after birth. The “I am hungry” is actually a real idea in the mind. Hunger can vary considerably as can be seen at a buffet where people choose different foods at a restaurant.

The mind is no longer considered a blank slate and so other genes beside hunger, such as those for our emotions, desires and behaviors, are also found in the mind. Examples could be envy, jealousy, hate, musical desire, desire to run, and all manner of other things. To varying extent (just as we all differ in height and appearance, so do all these genetic ideas differ as per bell curve distribution) these ideas are part of the brain before birth. (The nasty parts were called original sin by the church. They had to use a metaphor as chemistry was in its infancy.)

But not all genes end in the mind. Genes that make and regulate the body or genes for the immune system will not end up in the brain. Therefore these processes cannot be influenced by the mind. Some genes are in the mind and others not. The genetic ideas in the mind could be called genetic knowledge.

On top of this comes cultural knowledge (the “nurture” part); that which we learn during our lifetime. We can control hunger, envy, and hate with cultural knowledge. (A society makes you limit some behaviors through laws). Genetic knowledge comes before birth, cultural knowledge after birth. Genetic and cultural ideas interact in the mind with this interaction called thought and the direction of the interaction called the will.

I would like to suggest that genetic ideas play a part in every thought. People debate the influence of these background ideas. Is it 50/50, 20/80, 80/20, and so on. I think most of our thoughts are genetic.
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Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
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Re: There appears to be Two Types of Knowledge

Post by Eckhart Aurelius Hughes »

Hunger is not a gene. Even if it was, and even if the examples given made syntactic sense (which they mostly don't IMO), the entire argument would still fail as a hasty generalization fallacy. One or a few alleged examples of knowledge turning out to be "genetic" doesn't indicate that most let alone all instances of knowledge will likewise will turnout to be genetic.

Moreover, "thoughts" is not the same thing as "knowledge".
My entire political philosophy summed up in one tweet.

"The mind is a wonderful servant but a terrible master."

I believe spiritual freedom (a.k.a. self-discipline) manifests as bravery, confidence, grace, honesty, love, and inner peace.
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Re: There appears to be Two Types of Knowledge

Post by Wmhoerr »

Scott wrote: January 31st, 2019, 2:14 pm Hunger is not a gene. Even if it was, and even if the examples given made syntactic sense (which they mostly don't IMO), the entire argument would still fail as a hasty generalization fallacy. One or a few alleged examples of knowledge turning out to be "genetic" doesn't indicate that most let alone all instances of knowledge will likewise will turnout to be genetic.

Moreover, "thoughts" is not the same thing as "knowledge".
Thought is the interaction of genetic and cultural ideas in the mind. I know the term "genetic idea" seems unusal but the "nature" component of our inheritance must be called something. Freud used the term "id". Konrad Lorenz used "innate". Hunger is not a gene directly but the desire is created by structures produced by genes, in particular, the stomach. I have made a more detailed argument in evolution-path.org.
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Re: There appears to be Two Types of Knowledge

Post by Belindi »

I'd not call persistent biological features "ideas". True, we conceptualise persistent biological features and the concepts are influenced by culture. I think this is what you were intending.

I'd not call biological features knowledge. The genetic causes of biological features is called information. Knowledge implies a knower whereas arms, legs, and genes cannot know anything.
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Re: There appears to be Two Types of Knowledge

Post by Wmhoerr »

Belindi wrote: January 31st, 2019, 3:40 pm I'd not call persistent biological features "ideas". True, we conceptualise persistent biological features and the concepts are influenced by culture. I think this is what you were intending.

I'd not call biological features knowledge. The genetic causes of biological features is called information. Knowledge implies a knower whereas arms, legs, and genes cannot know anything.
I agree that arms and legs cannot know anything. But I did not say this. Only some genes are in the mind. A person knows that s/he is hungry. This is real knowledge. It is always the person who is the knower. But the knowledge of hunger arrived via the stomach and did not originate in the mind.
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Re: There appears to be Two Types of Knowledge

Post by Belindi »

Wmhoerr wrote: January 31st, 2019, 6:09 pm
Belindi wrote: January 31st, 2019, 3:40 pm I'd not call persistent biological features "ideas". True, we conceptualise persistent biological features and the concepts are influenced by culture. I think this is what you were intending.

I'd not call biological features knowledge. The genetic causes of biological features is called information. Knowledge implies a knower whereas arms, legs, and genes cannot know anything.
I agree that arms and legs cannot know anything. But I did not say this. Only some genes are in the mind. A person knows that s/he is hungry. This is real knowledge. It is always the person who is the knower. But the knowledge of hunger arrived via the stomach and did not originate in the mind.
The sensation of hunger originates in the stomach and there is a nerve connection to the brain which under some circumstances causes the animal to want to eat, and to seek food. The animal does not know it is hungry unless it is an animal with a reasoning brain.

No genes are in the mind. Genes are 'in' chromosomes .
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Re: There appears to be Two Types of Knowledge

Post by Wmhoerr »

Belindi wrote: February 1st, 2019, 7:58 am
Wmhoerr wrote: January 31st, 2019, 6:09 pm

I agree that arms and legs cannot know anything. But I did not say this. Only some genes are in the mind. A person knows that s/he is hungry. This is real knowledge. It is always the person who is the knower. But the knowledge of hunger arrived via the stomach and did not originate in the mind.
The sensation of hunger originates in the stomach and there is a nerve connection to the brain which under some circumstances causes the animal to want to eat, and to seek food. The animal does not know it is hungry unless it is an animal with a reasoning brain.

No genes are in the mind. Genes are 'in' chromosomes .
Every single neuron of the brain has a full set of chromosomes, and therefore a full set of genes.
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Re: There appears to be Two Types of Knowledge

Post by Belindi »

Wmhoerr wrote: February 1st, 2019, 8:43 am
Belindi wrote: February 1st, 2019, 7:58 am
The sensation of hunger originates in the stomach and there is a nerve connection to the brain which under some circumstances causes the animal to want to eat, and to seek food. The animal does not know it is hungry unless it is an animal with a reasoning brain.

No genes are in the mind. Genes are 'in' chromosomes .
Every single neuron of the brain has a full set of chromosomes, and therefore a full set of genes.
Your vocabulary is odd and so it's not easy to know what you mean. Why not study the nervous system and share the vocabulary that others use?
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Re: There appears to be Two Types of Knowledge

Post by Burning ghost »

The OP does seem to be using the term “knowledge” in a rather obtuse way. I really don’t see how “knowledge” is an appropriate term for what is being expressed.

Care to choose another?
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Re: There appears to be Two Types of Knowledge

Post by Wmhoerr »

I'm using words in the normal way. Let's say someone says "I am hungry". That is, s/he knows that s/he is hungry. The desire for food is real. The person has knowledge of hunger. The hunger desire comes before birth. The blank slate idea of the mind is no longer believed. Well, if it is no longer believed, what comes before birth then? All those innate, inborn, etc. characteristics like hunger, envy, jealousy ... as mentioned earlier.

Anyone reading the responses so far to my post would think you are all "blank slate-ists", if there is such a thing. When the brain grows the information of the genes becomes knowledge in the mind. A baby that cries KNOWS that it is hungry. It does not need to learn it. The baby has knowledge that came befofe birth.

What I am saying is that some knowledge comes before birth. Now you might not agree with this, but at least try to understand what I am getting at here.
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Re: There appears to be Two Types of Knowledge

Post by Belindi »

Wmhoerr wrote:
A baby that cries KNOWS that it is hungry. It does not need to learn it. The baby has knowledge that came befofe birth.
The baby has instinctive knowledge. I agree that animals have instinctive knowledge.
I would like to suggest that genetic ideas play a part in every thought.
If by "genetic ideas" you mean what most people call instincts then yes, instincts play a part in every thought. The issue is that there is no such thing as objective thinking, except in the case of tautological systems i.e. mathematics and formal logic.
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Re: There appears to be Two Types of Knowledge

Post by Wmhoerr »

There has been a bias against non-human animals for thousands of years. This is a new development. I am quite sure that for 99 percent of our history (100,000 plus years for the last species branch off) we thought we were animals. The most common bias is to somehow forget we are animals and to use the term "animals" as if this category excludes humans. In Genesis, the creatures of the world were made for our use. Of course "creatures" does not include humans. And so on in countless psychology books where they debate "whether animals have feelings" or whether they just "react to circumstances". This miss-use is alive and well today an can be seen everywhere, such as a sign that says "animals are not allowed on the highway".
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Re: There appears to be Two Types of Knowledge

Post by Wmhoerr »

Woops, i hadn't finished the post and pushed the wrong button! I was going to continue and say was that the word "instinct" could be a misuse of the word "knowledge". I'm sure that some people would like to think that non-human animals only ran on instincts. Belindi, just replace "instinct" with genetic idea, or genetic knowledge, in my original post ant it will make sense.
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Re: There appears to be Two Types of Knowledge

Post by Wmhoerr »

Belindi wrote: February 1st, 2019, 2:42 pm The issue is that there is no such thing as objective thinking, except in the case of tautological systems i.e. mathematics and formal logic.
You seem to be complaining about clarity in my post yet in your sentence above I have no idea what you are talking about. "Water is wet" is a tautology but tells us nothing as wetness is part of the definition of water. Mathematics and logic are anything but tautological. Most maths is subjective, as in engineering, not objective.
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Re: There appears to be Two Types of Knowledge

Post by Fdesilva »

Wmhoerr wrote: January 31st, 2019, 1:26 am For me there appears to be two different types of knowledge. I will outline my reasoning.

The “nature” verses “nurture” debate will probably never end. Similar words used in past discussions for “nature” could include: innate, inborn, instinct, á priori, and id. The nature part is taken as that with which we are born. As the carrier of information from one generation to the next is the genes, then it seems that the nature part can only be the genetic part.
Say someone says “I am hungry”. Hormones from the neural network around the stomach are sent to the brain. This idea starts in the stomach and ends in the brain. The person knows genetically s/he is hungry. If this reasoning is correct, then hunger is a genetic idea; it is not learnt after birth. The “I am hungry” is actually a real idea in the mind. Hunger can vary considerably as can be seen at a buffet where people choose different foods at a restaurant.

The mind is no longer considered a blank slate and so other genes beside hunger, such as those for our emotions, desires and behaviors, are also found in the mind. Examples could be envy, jealousy, hate, musical desire, desire to run, and all manner of other things. To varying extent (just as we all differ in height and appearance, so do all these genetic ideas differ as per bell curve distribution) these ideas are part of the brain before birth. (The nasty parts were called original sin by the church. They had to use a metaphor as chemistry was in its infancy.)

But not all genes end in the mind. Genes that make and regulate the body or genes for the immune system will not end up in the brain. Therefore these processes cannot be influenced by the mind. Some genes are in the mind and others not. The genetic ideas in the mind could be called genetic knowledge.

On top of this comes cultural knowledge (the “nurture” part); that which we learn during our lifetime. We can control hunger, envy, and hate with cultural knowledge. (A society makes you limit some behaviors through laws). Genetic knowledge comes before birth, cultural knowledge after birth. Genetic and cultural ideas interact in the mind with this interaction called thought and the direction of the interaction called the will.

I would like to suggest that genetic ideas play a part in every thought. People debate the influence of these background ideas. Is it 50/50, 20/80, 80/20, and so on. I think most of our thoughts are genetic.
I agree fully with what is said above except for the conclusion that most human knowledge is genetic. My reasoning is as follows. Animal behaviour is result of the activity by Nervous system which includes the brain. The Nervous system activity can arise from it having been pre-programmed by genetics or as a result of learning. The more advance the animal is in the evolutionary hierarchy the greater the reliance on learning as opposed to genetics. If a sheep is brought up as a part of a pack of dogs, it will behave like a dog in those aspects that depend on learning. However, it would still eat grass as in that it is genetic. A child is born with the knowledge of how to breath. It needs to be sometimes activated with a tap on the back. This knowledge is obviously needed. However a Child does not know how to walk. Unlike a donkey. As such it can be seen that when it comes to humans their reliance on genetic pre-programming is a minimum. This is why we have actors and drama. Such is possible because one person can choose to act as another. Once a choice is made it becomes a habit. Habits are the brains ability to automate a sequence of choices without the need for the will. That’s is why habits are mistaken to be genetic in origin. Yet they can be broken by the exercise of the will. Habits formed and the knowledge inherited from genetics, I would think work the same way. A persons will can overcome both. It is the conscious mind (will) over the unconscious (habit)
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