If there were objective morality - how would you tell?

[Dancing David]

This only demonstrates the ability to do something, not knowledge of what you are doing. You might not have any idea of what it is you did. The only way we will know is by you communicating what it is you are doing or just did.

Braaaaiiiins!

now we have knowledge-zombies!

What if the are lying and don't know it!

 

[Robin]

It only becomes knowledge when it is given meaning using language and is then universally objectively recognized as having this meaning. Until then it is you doing something nobody has knowledge of ...

Words, phrases and sentences are the things that have meaning, they don't give meanings to things.

What is the word for the consistency that the dough in puff pastry has to be before you start folding the butter in?

I don't know the word, I don't even know if there is a word - but I sure do know what that consistency is.

If you invented a word for that consistency it would not somehow gain meaning by having a label attached to it.

On the contrary the meaning of that word would be the thing I already know, before the word was there.

And the only way you have to claim this is knowledge is using language, how interesting.

The only way I have to claim the furry thing on the sofa is a cat is by using language.

Therefore no language, no cat, right?

The only way I have to claim the leafy thing in the garden is a tree is by using language.

Therefore no language, no tree.

The only way I have to claim that the approaching weather pattern is a thunderstorm is by using language.

Therefore no language, no thunderstorm - right?

 

[Robin]

I think you are confusing a child's abilities (of which they have no knowledge) with our knowledge of these abilities.
If a baby is able to predict above chance ...

No, that is nonsense.

When my little guy gets a biscuit from the cupboard he is not "predicting above chance" that the biscuits are in a particular cupboard and he is not "predicting above chance" that he can drag a chair across the room, place it directly under the cupboard, climb on the chair, open the cupboard, reach to the back and pick out the biscuits he likes.

He knows where the biscuits are and he knows how to get them.

To say otherwise is utterly, perversely absurd.

 

[Robin]

This only demonstrates the ability to do something, not knowledge of what you are doing.

Yeah, right. I am going to start baking a pie with no idea of what the outcome will be..

 

[nescafe]

As a sceptic one asks for evidence when someone claims knowledge of something. How do you propose to provide evidence without the use of a language (symbolic knowledge)? Until then all knowledge is symbolic.

You are having some serious difficulties here. Based on the gist of your arguments so far, you have a decidedly non-standard definition of knowledge. From Wikipedia:

Knowledge is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as (i) expertise, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject; (ii) what is known in a particular field or in total; facts and information; or (iii) awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation.

Nothing in that definition says or implies that the skills, understanding, or experience must be symbolic in nature.

As far as examples of non-symbolic knowledge acquisition go every rat that learns to run a maze for a food reward demonstrates it.

 

[KarlG]

Ach, it seems like I'm guilty of explaining your own joke to you. My apologies.

Now I'm trying to recall a fairy tale where an ugly person/creature turns out to be virtuous by the end, without being transformed into something physically beautiful. A frog in itself, as opposed to just a means to a prince. I can't come up with anything.

Not a traditional fairytale but, possibly, Shrek?

 

[Dancing David]

No, knowledge is a word with a meaning and that has everything to do with language.

No language, no knowledge.

The evidence is down at your university's library.

Rather broad citation, can you narrow it?

So how do aphasiac people cook or navigate?

 

[Dancing David]

And my language delayed three year old son has very few words, but plenty of knowledge.

Suppose someone shows me how to bake a cherry pie, but I don't know the words for cherry, flour, sugar etc.

They could show me how to do this without saying a word.

Then I would have the knowledge of how to bake a cherry pie, but with none of the words.

Moreover a good cook's knowledge of tastes and aromas is something that could not be transmitted in language.

Agreed!

 

[Dancing David]

Nope, you were able to copy someone's movements, but you would have no "knowledge" of "baking a cherry pie". The test of knowledge would come when you had to repeat the exercise without help and no words for the ingredients which you had to find in a shop.

Nope that would be knowledge of shopping!

Of course it can otherwise it would not be based on physics.

Hmmm American heritage:
knowl·edge

NOUN:

1.The state or fact of knowing.
2.Familiarity, awareness, or understanding gained through experience or study.
3.The sum or range of what has been perceived, discovered, or learned.
4.Learning; erudition: teachers of great knowledge.
5.Specific information about something.
6.Carnal knowledge.

No where do i see the "Verbal declaration of/or statement of knowing"

 

[Dancing David]

I think you are confusing a child's abilities (of which they have no knowledge) with our knowledge of these abilities.
If a baby is able to predict above chance how her mother will respond under a repeated circumstance we know this by giving meaning to a child's action, an hypothesis, and doing experiments to test/analyze this meaning.

http://www.alisongopnik.com/Papers_Alison/gopnik & seiver 2009.pdf

Alison Gopnik's mistake like most scientists and yours is to now ignore the semantics/meaning she invented to do the test and claim the syntax/rules she discovered is primary and proves the semantics/meaning always had to be there.

Once again the test of knowledge is whether small children are able to communicate the meaning of this ability to us.

Nope bizzare case of special pleading and a category error

Hmmm American heritage:
knowl·edge

NOUN:

1.The state or fact of knowing.
2.Familiarity, awareness, or understanding gained through experience or study.
3.The sum or range of what has been perceived, discovered, or learned.
4.Learning; erudition: teachers of great knowledge.
5.Specific information about something.
6.Carnal knowledge.

No where do i see the "Verbal declaration of/or statement of knowing"

 

[Dancing David]

This only demonstrates the ability to do something, not knowledge of what you are doing. You might not have any idea of what it is you did. The only way we will know is by you communicating what it is you are doing or just did.

that is a knowledge-zombie argument.

they display the behavior, therefor they have the capacity, and that is what defines knowledge.
3.The sum or range of what has been perceived, discovered, or learned.

 

[Piscivore]

Didn't I say he was steering this conversation to consciousness?

 

[!Kaggen]

Nothing to do with consciousness, all to do with Theory of Knowledge.
When I have some time I will answer all.

 

[!Kaggen]

In the meantime, I will repeat that I am not saying concepts make and are the only reality, i.e. idealism is true.
I am saying without concepts which give percepts meaning we do not have a theory of knowledge.

 

[Dancing David]

And there is knowledge aside the theory of knowledge, else we are all knowledge zombies....

Oh my , so one abstract theory says something, what does that have to do with making a cherry pie, that is knowledge even if words are not used.

I mean seriously what if pictures are used?

And how can you tell a k-zombie from a person with knowledge? Hmmm, yo can't so only by displaying ebhaviors of knowledge of which words are one subset can you say, this creature displays the value we label as knowledge.

So while your defintion is yours !Kaggen there is a much broader usage as well.

You need to leave the books on epistomology alone and learn some neuroscience.

 

[!Kaggen]

The point is not that someone with aphasia cannot do tasks because they have no demand of language, its that we only have knowledge of aphasia because we have a demand of language. If everyone had aphasia there would be no knowledge of such a condition.

 

[!Kaggen]

Pictures are language or did you forget about the Ancient Egyptians?

 

[nescafe]

Pictures are language or did you forget about the Ancient Egyptians?

No, you have it backwards. Some languages have a written form based on pictoral symbols.

 

[Dancing David]

Pictures are language or did you forget about the Ancient Egyptians?

You mean the pictographs representing phoenemes!



You are starting to contradict yourself. Pictures are NOT verbal, and they are NOT language.

 

[Piscivore]

Pictures... are NOT language.

Wait- what? As a comics and movie fan I tend to disagree.