You know what I hate?

[conuly]

I hate it when people say "I know" when they mean "I believe". It's almost (but not quite) as annoying as "I need" in place of "I want".

Say you know God exists. Well, that's all fine and dandy for you, but what about Joe down the street who knows God doesn't exist? As amusing as it is to watch the two of you duke it out, it won't help me decide which of you is wrong. And, unless God is like some kind of cosmic Schrodinger's cat and both exists and doesn't exist at the same time (which, as an omnipotent being, I suppose isn't beyond his capabilities, but if he's doing that I wish he'd knock it off, it's really very confusing), one of you has to, ultimately, be wrong.

You don't know about God. You believe.

There's a book I found while Googling, about kids who talk late and who then are perfectly fine. And one of the comments on Amazon was that the book is "dangerous". His son talked late, y'see, and his son had speech therapy, and he knows his son improved via speech therapy (and would not have improved otherwise). Because, what, his son has an identical twin, and they did some sort of double blind test with one son getting therapy and the other son not getting therapy, and hey, one son talks and the other doesn't?

Possible, but I'll go out on a limb and say that he doesn't, in fact, *know* anything. He believes his son got better because of the therapy (which seems probable to me), and also believes that his son would not be talking without the therapy (possible, but it seems slightly less probable to me). And he believes that this applies to everyone.

Well, he may well be right about his son, but that doesn't make him right about everyone. And I doubt we'll ever know - while I don't know this is the case, I suspect that any child with delayed speech is automatically pushed by doctors into going into speech therapy, which means we will never know what proprotion of children with delayed speech actually need therapy to begin talking, because they're all getting helped.

(That's not necessarily a bad thing, it just means that we don't know and are forced, instead, to believe.)

Naturally, we can't go too far with this - otherwise we'd never know anything, and we'd go crazy trying to prove that 1+1=2. But for things without any degree of proof, can we *please* go back to using the word "believe"? It's the right thing to do.

I just know it.

Comments

[ganas-de-ti.livejournal.com]

what you're saying is that "knowing" can only come from empirical and logical evidence though. who is to say that is true. i can differentiate between Knowing (capital K) and knowing(little k). i can know something for myself, using faith, and i don't see why that isn't an acceptable way to know something. i think what you're saying is that only certain ways of knowing are valid, where other people may disagree. i agree with you on the second one because i think when there is a logical way to prove something, it should be used.

but not all people even think like that. as far as the God question. I know for myself that God exists, doesn't mean that i see it as something everyone knows, it doesn't have to be either.

did that make sense? y/n.

[conuly]

It makes sense, but I don't agree with it.

Basically, I *do* believe that knowledge = logical or emperical evidence of some sort. Anything where two people can claim to "know" different things, and they can't prove it to me... that's not knowing. It's believing.

And it's important to them (as my beliefs are to me), and it influences them, but it's not the same.

[malantha.livejournal.com]

I agree with you.. though having a physics major for a husband may influence my opinion (what with it being all sciency). :)

[rantinan.livejournal.com]

See i always like reading a rant likthhtis. not because I disaprove, oh heck no.

No, I KNOW of the existance of what I can only describe as gods. Empirical, although dificult to rereate evidence. Only dificult becasue i refuse to engage in the sort of practices and behaviours that provieded me wiht he evidence inna first place.
Now of course there is a certain component of doubt to theevidence which can be described as "how much of this is rantin's mental illness"
Unfortunately this is my brain, and what I KNOW is tempered by that fact. I've had what to me seems indesputable evidence of cruel and sadistic supernatural entities that like to play games with humanity.
I'd realy rather be an athiest. This is why i despise prolitizers.

[tsukikage85.livejournal.com]

Amen amen amen.
Perhaps part of the problem is that English (and probably most other languages) doesn't have an easily accesible word for something in between knowing and believing: something like "having a burning belief that no argument has yet shaken you from". I suppose it is kind of like ganas_de_ti's distinction between lower and upper case ks, but most people who misuse "to know" don't understand or refuse to acknowledge the difference between the two.

[conuly]

That seems like a fair distinction when you say it that way. If that's what Ganas meant, I didn't understand it like that.

And there's another distinction to be made as well - knowing something in your head but not believing it (though you know it to be true), and both knowing something intellectually and believing it as well.

The second one is a lot stronger, isn't it?

[tsukikage85.livejournal.com]

Mmm, excellent point on the third distinction.
Actually, that makes me think... I think part of the reason some people who I said choose to ignore the distinction are actually acknowledging it in another manner: don't many relgious people actually think of "knowing" in your heart as the capital and "knowing" in your head as the lower-case, because of Satan messing with the evidence and all that?

Man, this brings me back to ToK... Wish I had actually gotten to take that class through to the end. :-/

[sayga.livejournal.com]

This was a GREAT entry! You're awesome.

[conuly]

Well, duh :P

There's a place in the world for believing. Belief isn't wrong. It just irritates me when it's dressed up as logic or proof or knowledge.

(Not everything irritates me. I rather like bats.)

[rpeate.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know.

[pne.livejournal.com]

But for things without any degree of proof

This runs afoul of the fact that different people (say, you, and Joe down the street) have different ideas of what constitutes "(sufficient) proof".

Naturally, we can't go too far with this - otherwise we'd never know anything, and we'd go crazy trying to prove that 1+1=2.

Yeah. Or how do you know that Australia exists? Or that Paris is the capital of France? (Or would you use "believe" for those?)

I imagine this knowledge comes, for most people, from hearing it stated as fact by "someone in authority" and/or reading it somewhere, which goes back to "Do you believe everything you read in books?".

It would get really tedious if everyone had to prove unambiguously that, say, Paris is the capital of France, before they can claim to "know" this fact.

(How do you prove it, anyway? Can't just point to an encyclopædia. Maybe look up French legislation? Who says that that constitutes proof? Why is this document legally binding? Who said that this government is legitimate? Prove that the election was valid. etc. ad nauseam)

[sayga.livejournal.com]

a post secret from today. it made me think of you & this post.

[kynn.livejournal.com]

I think you are missing the important semantic distinction that "I know" is a statement of belief for people who have faith in what they are saying.

[packbat.livejournal.com]

Naturally, we can't go too far with this - otherwise we'd never know anything, and we'd go crazy trying to prove that 1+1=2. But for things without any degree of proof, can we *please* go back to using the word "believe"? It's the right thing to do.

I just know it.

I heartily agree. There are many things I believe that I don't think I can prove; Hub's list from Secondhand Lions (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0327137/quotes#qt0195518) comprises many things I think all should believe, but I'm sure I couldn't prove one of them.

(Incidentally, I can prove to my own satisfaction that God does not exist. But given how many disagree with me there, I would still hesitate to say I know.)

[ganas-de-ti.livejournal.com]

what you're saying is that "knowing" can only come from empirical and logical evidence though. who is to say that is true. i can differentiate between Knowing (capital K) and knowing(little k). i can know something for myself, using faith, and i don't see why that isn't an acceptable way to know something. i think what you're saying is that only certain ways of knowing are valid, where other people may disagree. i agree with you on the second one because i think when there is a logical way to prove something, it should be used.

but not all people even think like that. as far as the God question. I know for myself that God exists, doesn't mean that i see it as something everyone knows, it doesn't have to be either.

did that make sense? y/n.

[conuly]

It makes sense, but I don't agree with it.

Basically, I *do* believe that knowledge = logical or emperical evidence of some sort. Anything where two people can claim to "know" different things, and they can't prove it to me... that's not knowing. It's believing.

And it's important to them (as my beliefs are to me), and it influences them, but it's not the same.

[malantha.livejournal.com]

I agree with you.. though having a physics major for a husband may influence my opinion (what with it being all sciency). :)

[rantinan.livejournal.com]

See i always like reading a rant likthhtis. not because I disaprove, oh heck no.

No, I KNOW of the existance of what I can only describe as gods. Empirical, although dificult to rereate evidence. Only dificult becasue i refuse to engage in the sort of practices and behaviours that provieded me wiht he evidence inna first place.
Now of course there is a certain component of doubt to theevidence which can be described as "how much of this is rantin's mental illness"
Unfortunately this is my brain, and what I KNOW is tempered by that fact. I've had what to me seems indesputable evidence of cruel and sadistic supernatural entities that like to play games with humanity.
I'd realy rather be an athiest. This is why i despise prolitizers.

[tsukikage85.livejournal.com]

Amen amen amen.
Perhaps part of the problem is that English (and probably most other languages) doesn't have an easily accesible word for something in between knowing and believing: something like "having a burning belief that no argument has yet shaken you from". I suppose it is kind of like ganas_de_ti's distinction between lower and upper case ks, but most people who misuse "to know" don't understand or refuse to acknowledge the difference between the two.

[conuly]

That seems like a fair distinction when you say it that way. If that's what Ganas meant, I didn't understand it like that.

And there's another distinction to be made as well - knowing something in your head but not believing it (though you know it to be true), and both knowing something intellectually and believing it as well.

The second one is a lot stronger, isn't it?

[tsukikage85.livejournal.com]

Mmm, excellent point on the third distinction.
Actually, that makes me think... I think part of the reason some people who I said choose to ignore the distinction are actually acknowledging it in another manner: don't many relgious people actually think of "knowing" in your heart as the capital and "knowing" in your head as the lower-case, because of Satan messing with the evidence and all that?

Man, this brings me back to ToK... Wish I had actually gotten to take that class through to the end. :-/

[sayga.livejournal.com]

This was a GREAT entry! You're awesome.

[conuly]

Well, duh :P

There's a place in the world for believing. Belief isn't wrong. It just irritates me when it's dressed up as logic or proof or knowledge.

(Not everything irritates me. I rather like bats.)

[rpeate.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know.

[pne.livejournal.com]

But for things without any degree of proof

This runs afoul of the fact that different people (say, you, and Joe down the street) have different ideas of what constitutes "(sufficient) proof".

Naturally, we can't go too far with this - otherwise we'd never know anything, and we'd go crazy trying to prove that 1+1=2.

Yeah. Or how do you know that Australia exists? Or that Paris is the capital of France? (Or would you use "believe" for those?)

I imagine this knowledge comes, for most people, from hearing it stated as fact by "someone in authority" and/or reading it somewhere, which goes back to "Do you believe everything you read in books?".

It would get really tedious if everyone had to prove unambiguously that, say, Paris is the capital of France, before they can claim to "know" this fact.

(How do you prove it, anyway? Can't just point to an encyclopædia. Maybe look up French legislation? Who says that that constitutes proof? Why is this document legally binding? Who said that this government is legitimate? Prove that the election was valid. etc. ad nauseam)

[sayga.livejournal.com]

a post secret from today. it made me think of you & this post.

[kynn.livejournal.com]

I think you are missing the important semantic distinction that "I know" is a statement of belief for people who have faith in what they are saying.

[packbat.livejournal.com]

Naturally, we can't go too far with this - otherwise we'd never know anything, and we'd go crazy trying to prove that 1+1=2. But for things without any degree of proof, can we *please* go back to using the word "believe"? It's the right thing to do.

I just know it.

I heartily agree. There are many things I believe that I don't think I can prove; Hub's list from Secondhand Lions (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0327137/quotes#qt0195518) comprises many things I think all should believe, but I'm sure I couldn't prove one of them.

(Incidentally, I can prove to my own satisfaction that God does not exist. But given how many disagree with me there, I would still hesitate to say I know.)