Big Questions: How do we Know?

 

 So, I bet you think you are sitting here on those nice green chairs

listening to what I have to say about knowledge. 

In fact, most of you KNOW that you are.  It’s obvious, isn’t it? 

Maybe to us – but not to philosophers who think a lot about what they know

or perhaps believe – or believe they know. 

So, I thought for this message,

 I should look first to those who have spent lots of time thinking about knowing.

 I had a book of philosophy by my beside –

and spent a little time reading what some of these folks had to say.  I started with Plato.  “Plato provided a basis for what is usually referred to as epistemology, or the theory of knowledge, by suggesting that knowledge must be distinguished from mere belief. 

 

In ‘The Myth of the Cave,’ Plato presents us with the idea that for us to know

 absolute knowledge, we must be able to see reality

rather than the “shadows” of reality that surround us.

The problem is, like those men in the cave, when all we see is shadows,

we swear that this is reality – and since it’s what we know –

some dare not venture into the light. 

And even for those who venture out –

do they have enough evidence that what they see is reality? 

How much evidence is needed?  That’s what many philosophers argue about. 

Then there are the skeptics, like Descartes (Day Cart),

who wrote about skeptical possibilities in his Meditations. 

Perhaps you are not really sitting here in church –

you are dreaming you are sitting here in church.  Is that possible?

 I’ve had some dreams that I “woke up” from to still discovery – later –

that the waking up was part of the dream.  Have you seen the movie Inception? 

 

Or like Alice, in Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking Glass” –

who was challenged by Tweedledum and Tweedledee

that they may actually be the players in the Red King’s dream –

and they not dare wake him – for they would no longer exist.  Hmmmm.

Now most philosophers and others

are pretty clear about knowledge regarding the external world –

like being here in this church today = because they experience it through their senses.  You can see me standing here and hear me. 

You feel the cushion on your back and rear. 

Later you will smell the coffee in the kitchen. 

Similarly, you know when you are eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich

because you not only see it, you can feel the stickiness on the roof of your mouth,

you hear the smacking of you lips, you inhale that smell of peanuts and grapes.

 

 

And all of this provides evidence to your belief that you are eating

a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. 

So, we should be able to be clear about this evidence leading us to knowledge. 

If I were to ask you to describe your sandwich,

you might say that it is about five inches square, about an inch think, is of various colors (white, purple, and brown), and so on.

 “But some philosophers, Betrand Russell among them,

might say that you have failed to answer the question.” 

You haven’t described the sandwich, but rather you have described

how the sandwich appears to YOU. 

“Physics, the science that tells us how the world really is,

would describe the sandwich as a cloud of colorless molecules. 

How can it be colorless and be white, purple, and brown. 

 

 

The color is not what the object is itself – but how you perceive it –

and that depends a lot on the light and your angle of perception and more. 

So, you don’t really see the real sandwich –

according to these philosophers and scientists,

you see a sense datum of the sandwich –

a mental representation of an externally existing object.

Well, -- if we can’t even really KNOW what we experience and perceive,

how in the world can we know that something like LOVE and compassion are real.

Now many of the experts on knowledge

don’t spend their time thinking about such things. 

Instead, they like to categorize.

I’ve read lots in preparing this sermon about categories of knowledge – most of it related to what the source of our knowledge is.  And I could share anything from 4 to 14  - depending on the scholar. 

The higher they go – they just seem to use different words and subdivide them. 

So for this short message, I’m just going to share four possibilities.

The first is intuition. 

Folks may say – my gut just tells me this is the right path to go down. 

Now we may laugh at that – but research tells us that many of us make

our actual decisions not based on the facts or evidence at hand,

but how we feel about it. 

I’m thinking, though, that when we use intuition,

we perhaps ARE using lots of evidence that we’ve gained through our lives

and that we have maybe not in the front of our brains at the time –

but that we have in our more hidden parts of our brain. 

You know how your brain can work on something without you knowing it. 

Like you can’t remember someone’s name –

then you get distracted and are doing something else and the name just pops in your head.  Our brains are capable of thinking and problem solving without us knowing about it.  And I really think – that sometimes these “gut feelings” –

may perhaps be based on some wisdom

 (and we will talk more about wisdom later in the sermon).

 So perhaps they shouldn’t be discounted and laughed at. 

In reality, though, I’m the type of person that wants more evidence

I can perceive at the moment rather than depending on my gut feelings and intuition.

Yet, I also know that

 Some times those intuitive ideas are there to help protect us

when we don’t have enough knowledge. 

When I see a snake in the yard – I back away from it because

my intuition tells me that it’s dangerous. 

Now if I studied snakes, I could more easily recognize the poisonous ones

from the non-poisonous ones – and perhaps my gut feeling wouldn’t be to back away. 

So yes, sometimes – when I don’t have the knowledge –

I choose to go with my intuition or gut feelings.

The second type of knowledge is knowledge we gain from an authority. 

My grandmother told me not to pick up a toad because it would cause me to get warts.  Now – I knew my grandmother to be an authority on all such things of nature –

so I KNEW that picking up toads caused warts. 

The use of an authority is the way that many of us gain lots of knowledge –

first from those who parent us and later from teachers, books, and maybe even preachers.  When I was nine years old, my preacher told me that I would need to accept Jesus Christ as my personal lord and savior and walk down that aisle if I wanted to be saved from hell and go to heaven and I believed him. 

Now I fully realize, as a UU minister, I don’t have that kind of authority with you folks – and I’m glad.  But we do rely on authorities. 

Many of us in our lifetimes have relied on Google or Wikipedia or other internet resources for our knowledge. 

I know when Greg or I get some diagnosis from the doctor,

 I go to the Mayo Clinic web page and read all about it.

 I view them as a trusted authority. 

Many of us learned from the pandemic though,

 that what the trusted authority tells us one day – is really their best guess

based on the evidence they had at the time – and the next month –

we may be told to do something differently.

The third type of knowledge is what some authorities refer to as rational induction or deduction or logic.  This comes through reasoning and proofs. 

I picked up the toad anyway – and I got a wart – therefore toads cause warts. 

Much of our knowledge is based on conclusions we draw from our experiences. 

We can use inductive reasoning by having lots of experiences and drawing a conclusion from that or deductive reasoning with the kind of if then possibilities

that lead us to new knowledge. 

Our own senses and experiences provide us with the evidence.

The fourth type of knowledge is Empiricism. 

Empiricism is knowledge gained through careful observation,

manipulation of variables through the scientific method,

repeating research designs, and taking in data to interpret. 

So let’s say I did an experiment to test out the Toads cause Warts hypothesis. 

I gave my brother a toad to play with and my cousin a lizard. 

He got a wart and she didn’t. 

Of course, scientists would tell us that we would need to replicate that study many times to draw the conclusion that toads cause warts.

I should tell you that scientists who do study toads extensively

tell us that they do not cause warts – which is one kind of skin infection 

However, toads do produce a slime that can irritate your skin,

so if you do handle a toad, you should wash your hands.

The bottom line – or conclusion that I’ve come to from my exploration of the question “How do we know?” is , of course, that for most things – we don’t really KNOW. 

But if we gather enough evidence, we can make really, good, educated guesses. 

And it’s okay to use words like knowledge and facts for these.

Another thing that I’ve learned in my exploration is that we can know a whole lot –

or think we know a whole lot, but still not be very WISE. 

Miles Kington helps us draw this distinction. 

Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit;  wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

The primary difference between the two words is that wisdom

involves a healthy dose of perspective and the ability to make sound judgments

 about a subject while knowledge is simply knowing.

Anyone can become knowledgeable about a subject by

reading, researching, and memorizing facts.

It’s wisdom, however, that requires more understanding

and the ability to determine which facts are relevant in certain situations.

Wisdom takes knowledge and applies it with discernment

based on experience, evaluation, and lessons learned.

You have to live a little, make mistakes and learn from them,

sit with it all and take some time. 

That’s why we sometimes refer to the “Wisdom of our elders.”

 You have to live a bit and experience life.

Rev. Mary Gear states “In spiritual language, wisdom is the process of finding meaning in knowledge in order to understand the universal truth or wisdom to inform our being and doing.”

A quote by an unknown author sums up the differences well: “Knowledge is knowing what to say. Wisdom is knowing when to say it.”

Albert Einstein famously said, “Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.” Indeed, it’s one of those journey-not-destination things.

Theologian Matthew Fox describes wisdom this way: “Wisdom is always taste—

in both Latin and Hebrew, the word for wisdom comes from the word for taste—

so it's something to taste,  not to theorize about.

‘Taste and see that God is good’, the psalm says; and that's wisdom:

tasting life. No one can do it for us.

It takes time, it takes patience; sitting and sifting through the knowledge we’ve obtained, experiencing life and learning from it.

I can share with you that life has gotten easier for me as I’ve gotten older. 

Not because I don’t have lots of problems to deal with;

not because I don’t have lots of work to do;

Not because my health is better than it was when I was younger. 

If you look at the evidence, I should be saying my life is much more difficult

than it was in my youth and young adulthood. 

But folks, I’ve gained some wisdom though all of this.

 And I know that many of you know what I’m talking about.

That serenity prayer shared by Reinhold Niebuhr is easier to say and and practice when you have lived longer.

If you know it, say it with me.

God, Grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

 

 

Beloveds, 

May you live your life with the knowledge and wisdom that helps you through each day – and helps you to make your own life, the lives of those you encounter (like in this congregation) – and the lives of others through out the world and the world to come – just a little bit better.

Amen and Blessed Be.