Flaxen spouting bollocks, once again......

Another fucking Venn diagram

What is knowledge and more importantly how do we know whether something is true as opposed to total bollocks? For those who are interested there is a an accepted method which helps us to distinguish between these often bewildering concepts. It has a fancy name, epistemology. Essentially, it defines the methodology involved in deciding whether something should enter the accepted pantheon of 'true' knowledge or whether it should be rejected and discarded into the deep recesses of detritus which litter our imaginative landscape.

Over eons, very clever men (for it is they) have forged the concept which underpins our core knowledge basis. Often this sounds like sound common sense. But we only perceive this as such due to the brave intellectual pioneers who carved out the fundamentals. I'm talking a mere four centuries ago when the intellectual world existed on the cusp of reason and religious dogma. Luckily for the Western world, reason prevailed. Although the church did not go down without a fight. True to form, the church, transcendent at the time, tried to influence the debate through intimidation. If the intrepid could not be beaten down with the old refrain of 'hell fire' they risked being physically broken on the wheel, ouch. Predictable, I know. For those who could, and have power, violence to 'change minds' is an easy option.  But the march of reason was unstoppable. Once sensible men found confidence in their principles, religious dogma went on the run. Today, fundamentalist religious belief is resplendent in the ignorant third world and the ignorant bible belt of America. I digress.

And so, coming back to my original question, what constitutes the wherewithal for obtaining knowledge? Again the solution is relatively simple and gives scant evidence to the hard earned intellectual cost suffered by the likes of Galileo.  There are only two paths to knowledge; induction and deduction. Deduction proffers true, absolute knowledge, and is represented by the facts garnered by mathematics and logic. Once established, these truths hold for an intellectual eternity. Induction is knowledge obtained from the senses. It is the basis of the scientific method and is the 'mainstream' method by which most folk obtain their knowledge base- unless they are logicians or mathematicians. The observable world gives us evidence. It is not true knowledge like mathematics, but after calculus it is the only method available for obtaining verity about the world. To be fair, induction gives us probabilities about whether something is true, but never absolutes.

There are some who would argue the contrary, and state with zeal that there are alternative methods to obtain knowledge. To those who proselytise thusly, I leave the onus of proof upon their unrepentant and irrational bonces. If they believe that faith offers a pathway to true knowledge, then they should offer sound judgement and reasoning (which they never do), otherwise they are just pissing in the wind and contributing bugger all to this most important of debates......   

A pongid contenplating the cosmic awe (arse)

                                                                                                    Arse bucket on a stick