inkbluesky

How do we know what we know.

A tale of reality within a fairie tale, A lie for a lie, a truth for a truth 

Far away, in the magical country of Epistomolia, there live two peoples. One people, called the Seers, believed that Truth is, that to know Truth requires Knowledge, and Knowledge is gained from observation, and from the application of reason. The Truth is the Truth is pretty much the Truth, the Seers believed, and the only trick was knowing how to see it. These people are, in many ways, much like you and me. 

I hesitated to post this because you'll fell like you walked into the middle of a conversation with lots of details and loose ends. Once you click over to the link you'll have to click several other links to see the whole picture. Not many will click over as tempting as the above excerpt may be. Let's just say that it is all about a battle that has been going on for centuries. Each generation, to some degree thinks it's new, but that is because from the perspective of their youth it all seems new. The knowledge based community versus the belief based community.
Knowledge and justification.

 One implication of this definition is that one cannot be said to "know" something just because one believes something that subsequently turns out to be true. An ill person with no medical training, but a generally optimistic attitude, might believe that she will recover from her illness quickly. But even if this belief turned out to be true, on the Theaetetus account, the patient did not know that she would get well because her belief lacked justification.

Knowledge, therefore, is distinguished from true belief by its justification, and much of epistemology is concerned with how true beliefs might be properly justified. This is sometimes referred to as the theory of justification.

The study of knowledge or what we know and how do we know it is called  Epistemology.

Worth a look since the implications and applications of knowledge are an important part of our personal and public lives. Our founding fathers, extraordinary individuals especially as products of an 18th century culture, for they based their hope for the success of democracy on knowledge and what some think is an unfounded faith in mankind or at least the American people to govern by knowledge rather then passing trends of beliefs.

Thus equipped with knowledge the men of America can make all kinds of wise informed decisions, such as what kind of underwear is best, In Praise of Boxer Briefs, An underpants manifesto. 

It's come to my attention that there are some men out there—even a few friends of mine—who've not yet switched to boxer briefs. These are otherwise intelligent fellows who, either through ignorance or recalcitrance, begin each day by pulling on (shudder) traditional boxers or (double-shudder) briefs. I feel great pity for these men. Because the irrefutable truth is that boxer briefs—a knit, mid-thigh-length compromise between boxer and brief—are the ultimate male netherwear. The sooner you accept this, the happier your crotch will be. 

Armed with knowledge we can challenge those people that believe in greed, swear by greed, and bask in the glory of greed and power, No Tolls on The Internet

Now Congress faces a legislative decision. Will we reinstate net neutrality and keep the Internet free? Or will we let it die at the hands of network owners itching to become content gatekeepers? The implications of permanently losing network neutrality could not be more serious. The current legislation, backed by companies such as AT&T, Verizon and Comcast, would allow the firms to create different tiers of online service. They would be able to sell access to the express lane to deep-pocketed corporations and relegate everyone else to the digital equivalent of a winding dirt road. Worse still, these gatekeepers would determine who gets premium treatment and who doesn't.

Their idea is to stand between the content provider and the consumer, demanding a toll to guarantee quality delivery. It's what Timothy Wu, an Internet policy expert at Columbia University, calls "the Tony Soprano business model": By extorting protection money from every Web site — from the smallest blogger to Google — network owners would earn huge profits. Meanwhile, they could slow or even block the Web sites and services of their competitors or those who refuse to pay up. They'd like Congress to "trust them" to behave.

Bush turned down chances to kill Zarqawi: ex-CIA spy 

(a large version of the illustration is tagged scenic illusion at flickr. done by an anonymous talent)