Showing posts with label Y. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Y. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Man really is the one and only Measure

Throughout the last 3 presentations during TOK, one idea has remained the key and constant, and that is that our senses/perceptions are the basis for all we know. Whether it be called sense datum, perception, hearing-as, or seeing-as, whether it be based off of a belief, convention, or a name previously given, we humans have taken a step beyond the cold, hard reality-to make our lives simpler. We HAVE ignored extra possibilities and we HAVE skipped the tedious listing of all plausible instances. We have done this, because none of that matters! Today, when the group showed the ladder of categories, referring to the farmer and Elsie and Bessie the cows, it was crystal clear that generalizations were being made. Bessie was being categorized as a cow, and then an animal, then an asset, then wealth. (that's probably not completely accurate, sorry!) If, later, the farmer refers to his cow as his asset, he has skipped a few necessary levels of categorizing.
BUT here is the key: the number of conflicts that actually arise from a lack of categorization explanation, I assure you, is fewer than the number that would arise if everybody was forced to review each and every level of categorization of any one thing before actually referring to that thing.
Yes, when we humans make inferences, name things, or even just believe things, we are skipping steps, steps, and more steps. We are assuming, presuming, inferring, and referring back to our own faulty beliefs, which were based on even more faulty assumptions. And, all of a sudden, we seem to be living in a world that we actually know NOTHING about! How can we do this?; how can we live, day by day, year by year, just being A-OK with all the faulty/lack of reasoning around us??? DO WE REALLY KNOW ANYTHING?
The answer is simple. No, we do not. We know absolutely nothing about anything. And here is where you pick your path: you can trust the world your fellow human-beings have created, pleasantly questioning your own existence every so often, recognizing the faults of the human's perception, yet staying at least semi-content with the way of the world. Or, you can get rid of every last scrap of knowledge you possess, burn all your books, abandon your house, go find a tree, scrap your clothes (how do you really even know that they are clothes???), and start at the beginning, observing life through the eyes (whoops! that's a sense!) of someone void of all emotion, personality, all senses, etc.
In further reading of Abel's, "Matn is the Measure," we will most likely read about more problems of knowledge in our world. And rather than test out each new theory, each new exposure of humanity's faults, we can recognize and understand that we human's are not perfect. Any further hypothesizing and "what-if"fing" is an unnecessary use of time and energy that could be used trying to advance the world we have created, faulty or not.
so, I guess if you want one sentence for that, "ya gotta trust, or you're bust!"