Rise of atheism: 100,000 Brits seek 'de-baptism'

[appolose]

Final-Fan said:

(1)  No, that's not what I'm saying.  I'm proposing that the sense data is revealed, from which you can't make your own interpretation that gives absolute knowledge, AND you are given a REVEALED interpretation (and revelation, according to you, is (or can be?) absolute).  How can an absolute interpretation of absolute knowledge not possibly produce absolute knowledge?  (Or, perhaps, are you suggesting that that wouldn't be an "interpretation" if it is revelation, not our fallible minds, that produced it?)  It seems to me that we would be like a computer given a good (revealed) program and good (revealed) data, so no danger of GIGO applies.  Or can't we even do that?  If we were broken computers then we couldn't even do logic, so ...

(2)  That is indeed interesting; the alternative would be to say that all knowledge is actually held within the most fundamental knowledge.  But on the other hand that seems offhand like saying that diamonds don't exist, only carbon.  Well, maybe not quite, but it still seems like a very strange position although it's interesting to think about.  I guess it would be more like saying that the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem isn't "new" knowledge, only "newly discovered" knowledge, but I struggle to see a material difference. 

(3)  But what you are implying is an individual revelation for every single moment of sense data experienced.  I am not suggesting that.  Why can't a particular arrangement of sense data always have the same interpretation(s)?  How is that inconsistent with the method of revelation?  
     Then the I/O system could be built of revealed interpretations. 

1. Right, I think that’s what I’m addressing. “I'm proposing that the sense data is revealed, from which you can't make your own interpretation that gives absolute knowledge,”. You can’t get a correct interpretation of sense data by (you imply that with ‘from which’) sense data.

 

How can an absolute interpretation of absolute knowledge not possibly produce absolute knowledge?

 

    An interpretation of absolute knowledge? Like I’ve said, if it’s absolute knowledge that’s given to you, it necessarily means there’s no question in it. If you question it or call it a mere ‘interpretation’ then it’s no longer absolute knowledge, it’s a possibility like anything else that you’re looking for a way to establish.

    That’s just the difference in absolutely knowing something and not. Even if you attempt to argue for another method besides revelation it would involve assertions about reality that you’d have to… absolutely know to even begin the method. Either that, or you ask “how do you know” consistently and thereby be a skeptic of the highest degree. The question doesn’t just randomly stop at what one assumes to be ‘evidence’, ‘proof’, ‘interpretation’. If one does stop asking, it would mean one absolutely knows something without question…but that would only exemplify what I’m saying of absolute knowledge.

    The best example is sense data really. If I question a person’s belief that he is indeed experiencing ‘sense data’ in any form all he can say is… umm I just know I am. There’s not much of a question as he seems to be unable to question something being literally shoved into his mind.

 

3. Why can't a particular arrangement of sense data always have the same interpretation(s)? 

    The issue is you couldn’t know if it did because of everything I’ve said about empiricism. There’s no indication from sense data that it does have the same interpretation at any time. You could only know that if revelation told you: “every time you encountered such sense data it meant such and such interpretation” - which would be about the same thing as revelation telling you every time it occurred – That is to say, it’s all still dependent on revelation telling you about sense data.

    Perhaps somehow I still haven’t made it clear why any particular arrangement of sense data at any time could represent many possible interpretations by our own admission? (Thus, how does being revealed one instance of sense data mean you know all the other instances which again carry the same long list of possible interpretations?)