Evening
of 15 June.
Late evening.
Earlier you had dinner at Olive Garden at the Polaris Shopping Mall on SR 750
(Powell Road) between I-71 and SR 23 about twenty-five minutes south of
Cheshire Road. You helped move boxes around but Kim and Carol are currently
doing the work since the boys (who went down to bed at the same time because
they are for the first time sleeping in a shared bedroom.
2225 hours. Kim and Paul will not have
wireless service until Paul arrives next weekend or perhaps until he has
completed his work at the Clinic at the end of the month. With Bluetooth via
Paul's iPhone I can connect but not with Kim's iPhone for reasons unknown.
As you are tired let's forego work on Dead
19 and concentrate on the soul's learning curve. - Amorella
2245 hours. I moved from
"learning curve" to gather a definition of experience first. I do not
know what 'experience' a soul (for the Merlyn books) might have but Wikipedia
Offline gives a good basic explanation for 'experience' that might be useful to
me. Perhaps I can glean some information that can be used in reference to the
soul, my own if possible.
We can work something here. First, we select
and edit (what is useful in context) from Wikipedia. - Amorella
** **
Experience as a general concept comprises knowledge of or skill of some
thing or some event gained through involvement in or exposure to that thing or
event.
The history of the word experience
aligns it closely with the concept of experiment.
For example, the word experience
could be used in a statement like: "I have experience in fishing".
The concept of experience
generally refers to know-how or procedural knowledge, rather than propositional
knowledge: on-the-job training rather than book learning. Philosophers dub
knowledge based on experience "empirical knowledge " or "a
posteriori knowledge".
The interrogation of experience
has a long tradition in continental philosophy. Experience plays an important
role in the philosophy of Soren Kiekegaard.. The German term,
often translated into English as "experience", has a slightly
different implication, connoting the coherency of life's experiences.
A person with considerable
experience in a specific field can gain a reputation as an expert.
Types of experience
The word "experience"
may refer, somewhat ambiguously, both to mentally unprocessed immediately
perceived events as well as to the purported wisdom gained in subsequent
reflection on those events or interpretation of them.
Some wisdom-experience
accumulates over a period of time; though one can also experience (and gain
general wisdom-experience from) a single specific momentary event.
One may also between (for
example) physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, vicarious and virtual
experience(s).
Physical experience
Physical experience occurs
whenever an object or environment changes.
In other words, physical
experiences relate to observables. They need not involve modal properties or
mental experiences.
Mental experience
Mental experience involves the
aspect of intellect and consciousness experienced as combinations of thought,
perception, memory, emotion, will and imagination, including all unconscious
cognitive processes. The term can refer, by implication, to a thought process.
Mental experience and its relation to the physical brain form an area of
philosophical debate: some identity theorists originally argued that the
identity of brain and mental states held only for a few sensations. Most
theorists, however, generalized the view to cover all mental experience.
Mathematicians can exemplify
cumulative mental experience in the approaches and skills with which they work.
Mathematical realism, like realism
in general, holds that mathematical entities exist independently of the human
mind. Thus humans do not invent mathematics, but rather discover and experience
it, and any other intelligent beings in the universe would presumably do the
same.
This point of view regards only
one sort of mathematics as discoverable; it sees triangles, right angles, and
curves, for example, as real entities, not just the creations of the human
mind.
Some working mathematicians have
espoused mathematical realism as they see themselves experiencing naturally occurring
objects.
Examples include Paul Erdos and
Kurt Godel. Gödel believed in an objective mathematical reality that could be
perceived in a manner analogous to sense perception. Certain principles (for
example: for any two objects, there is a collection of objects consisting of
precisely those two objects) could be directly seen to be true, but some
conjectures, like the continuum hypothesis, might prove un-decidable just on
the basis of such principles.
Gödel suggested that
quasi-empirical methodology such as experience could provide sufficient
evidence to be able to reasonably assume such a conjecture. With experience,
there are distinctions depending on what sort of existence one takes
mathematical entities to have, and how we know about them.
Emotional experience
Humans can rationalize falling in
(and out) of love as "emotional experience". Societies which lack
institutional arranged marriages can call on emotional experience in
individuals to influence mate-selection.
The concept of emotional
experience also appears in the notion of emotional intelligence and empathy.
Spiritual experience
Newberg and Newberg provide a
view on spiritual experience.
Religious Experience
Mystics can describe their
visions as "spiritual experiences". However, psychology may explain
the same experiences in terms of altered states of consciousness, which may
come about accidentally through (for example) very high fever, infections such
as meningitis, sleep deprivation, fasting, oxygen deprivation, nitrogen
narcosis (deep diving), psychosis, temporal-lobe epilepsy, or a traumatic
accident. People can likewise achieve such experiences more deliberately
through recognized mystical practices such as sensory deprivation or
mind-control techniques, hypnosis, meditation, prayer or mystical disciplines
such as mantra meditation, yoga, Sufism, dream yoga or surat shabda yoga.
Social experience
Growing up and living within a
society can foster the development and observation of social experience.
Social experience provides
individuals with the skills and habits necessary for participating within their
own societies, as a society itself is formed through a plurality of shared
experiences forming norms, customs, values, traditions, social roles, symbols
and languages.
Virtual experience and simulation gaming
Using computer simulations can
enable a person or groups of persons to have virtual experiences in virtual
reality.
Immediacy of experience
Someone able to recount an event
they witnessed or took part in has "first
hand experience". First hand experience of the "you had to be
there" variety can seem especially valuable and privileged, but it often
remains potentially subject to errors in sense-perception and in personal
interpretation.
Second-hand experience can offer
richer resources: recorded and/or summarised from first-hand observers or
experiencers or from instruments, and potentially expressing multiple points of
view.
Third-hand experience, based on
indirect and possibly unreliable rumour or hearsay,
can (even given reliable accounts) potentially stray perilously close to blind
honouring of authority.
Subjective experience
Subjective experience can involve
a state of individual subjectivity, perception on which one builds one's own
state of reality; a reality based on one’s interaction with one's environment.
The subjective experience depends on one’s individual ability to
process data, to store and internalize it. For example: our senses collect
data, which we then process according to biological programming (genetics), neurological
network-relationships and other variables such as relativity etc., all of which
affect our individual experience of any given situation in such a way as to
render it subjective.
Contexts of experience
Experience plays an important
role in experimental groups.
Changes in
experience through history
Some post-modernists suggest that
the nature of human experiencing (quite apart from the details of the
experienced surrounds) has undergone qualitative change during transition from
the pre-modern through the modern to the post-modern.
Alternatives to experience
Immanuel Kant contrasted
experience with reason: "Nothing, indeed, can be more harmful or more
unworthy of the philosopher, than the vulgar appeal to so-called experience.
Such experience would never have existed at all, if at the proper time, those
institutions had been established in accordance with ideas."
Writing
The American author Ralph Waldo
Emerson wrote an essay entitled "Experience" (published in 1844), in
which he asks readers to disregard emotions that could alienate them from the
divine; it provides a somewhat pessimistic representation of the
Transcendentalism associated with Emerson.
Art
In 2005 the
art group Monochrom organized a
series of happenings that ironically took up the implications of the term
"experience": Experience the Exper. . ..
Selected and
edited from Wikipedia Offline
** **
You also need to include 'knowledge' here
and use both as a base from a soul's perspective (as seen in the blog and the
Merlyn books).
** **
Knowledge is a familiarity with someone or something, which can include
information, facts, descriptions or skills acquired through experience or
education. It can refer to the theoretical or practical understanding of a
subject. It can be implicit (as with practical skill or expertise) or explicit
(as with the theoretical understanding of a subject); and it can be more or
less formal or systematic.
In philosophy, the study of
knowledge is called epistemology, and the philosopher Plato famously defined
knowledge as "justified true belief." However no single agreed upon
definition of knowledge exists, and there are numerous theories to explain it.
The following quote from Bertrand Russell's "Theory of Knowledge"
illustrates the difficulty in defining knowledge. "The question how
knowledge should be defined is perhaps the most important and difficult of the
three with which we shall deal. This may seem surprising: at first sight it
might be thought that knowledge might be defined as belief, which is in
agreement with the facts. The trouble is that no one knows what a belief is, no
one knows what a fact is, and no one knows what sort of agreement between them would
make a belief true. Let us begin with belief."
Knowledge acquisition involves
complex cognitive processes: perception, communication, association and reasoning;
while knowledge is also said to be related to the capacity of acknowledgment
in human beings.
Theories of knowledge
The definition of knowledge is a
matter of on-going debate among philosophers in the field of epistemology. The
classical definition, described but not ultimately endorsed by Plato, specifies that a statement must meet three in order to be
considered knowledge: it must be justified, true and believed. Some claim that
these conditions are not sufficient, as Gettier case examples allegedly
demonstrate. There are a number of alternatives proposed, including Robert
Nozick's arguments for a requirement that knowledge 'tracks the truth' and
Simon Blackburn's additional requirement that we do not want to say that those
who meet any of these conditions 'through a defect, flaw, or failure' have
knowledge. Richard Kirkham suggests that our definition of knowledge requires
that the evidence for the belief necessitates its truth.
In contrast to this approach, Wittgenstein
observed, following Moore's paradox, that one can say "He believes it, but
it isn't so", but not "He knows it, but it isn't so". He goes on
to argue that these do not correspond to distinct mental states, but rather to
distinct ways of talking about conviction. What is different here is not the mental
state of the speaker, but the activity in which they are engaged.
For example, on this account, to know
that the kettle is boiling is not to be in a particular state of mind, but to
perform a particular task with the statement that the kettle is boiling.
Wittgenstein sought to bypass the difficulty of definition by looking to the
way "knowledge" is used in natural languages. He saw knowledge as a
case of a family resemblance. Following this idea, "knowledge" has
been re-constructed as a cluster concept that points out relevant features but
that is not adequately captured by any definition.
Communicating knowledge
Symbolic representations can be
used to indicate meaning and can be thought of as a dynamic process. Hence the
transfer of the symbolic representation can be viewed as one process whereby
knowledge can be transferred. Other forms of communication include observation
and imitation, verbal exchange, and audio and video recordings. Philosophers of
language and semioticians construct and analyze theories of knowledge transfer
or communication.
While many would agree that one
of the most universal and significant tools for the transfer of knowledge is
writing (of many kinds), argument over the usefulness of the written word
exists however, with some scholars skeptical of its impact on societies.
Andrew Robinson also highlights,
in his work The Origins of Writing, the possibility for writing to be
used to spread false information and therefore the ability of the written word
to decrease social knowledge (Robinson, Andrew (2003) The Origins of Writing
in Crowley and Heyer (eds) Communication in History: Technology, Culture,
Society, Boston pp 34). People are often internalizing new information, which
they perceive to be knowledge but in reality fill their minds with false
knowledge.
The above points are moot in the
modern world. Verbal communication lends itself to the spread of falsehoods
much more so than written, as there is no record of exactly what was said or
who originally said it (usually neither the source nor the content can be
verified). Gossip and rumors are common examples. As to value of writing, the
extent of human knowledge is now so great that it is only possible to record it
and to communicate it through writing.
Major libraries today can have
millions of books of knowledge (in addition to works of fiction). It is only
recently that audio and video technology for recording knowledge have become
available and the use of these still requires replay equipment and electricity.
Verbal teaching and handing down of knowledge is limited to those few who would
have contact with the transmitter person - far too limited for today's world.
Writing is still the most
available and most universal of all forms of recording and transmitting
knowledge. It stands unchallenged as mankind's primary technology of knowledge
transfer down through the ages and to all cultures and languages of the world.
Situated knowledge
Situated knowledge is knowledge
specific to a particular situation.
Some methods of generating
knowledge, such as trial and error, or learning from experience, tend to create
highly situational knowledge. One of the main attributes of the scientific
method is that the theories it generates are much less situational than
knowledge gained by other methods.
Situational knowledge is often
embedded in language, culture, or traditions.
Knowledge generated through
experience is called knowledge "a posteriori", meaning afterwards.
The pure existence of a term like "a posteriori" means this also has
a counterpart. In this case that is knowledge "a priori", meaning
before.
The knowledge prior to any
experience means that there are certain "assumptions" that one takes
for granted. For example if you are being told about a chair it is clear to you
that the chair is in space, that it is 3D. This knowledge is not knowledge that
one can "forget", even someone suffering from amnesia experiences the
world in 3D.
Partial knowledge
One discipline of epistemology
focuses on partial knowledge. In most realistic cases, it is not possible to
have an exhaustive understanding of an information domain, so then we have to
live with the fact that our knowledge is always not complete, that is,
partial. Most real problems have to be solved by taking advantage of a partial
understanding of the problem context and problem data. That is very different
from the typical simple math problems one might solve at school, where all data
is given and one has a perfect understanding of formulas necessary to solve
them.
This idea is also present in the
concept of bounded rationality, which assumes that in real life situations
people often have a limited amount of information and make decisions
accordingly.
Scientific knowledge
The development of the scientific
method has made a significant contribution to how knowledge is acquired. To be
termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable
and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning and
experimentation. The scientific method consists of the collection of data
through observation and experimentation, and the formulation and testing of
hypothesis. Science, and the nature of scientific knowledge has also become the
subject of Philosophy. As science itself has developed, knowledge has developed
a broader usage, which has been developing within biology/psychology—discussed
elsewhere as meta-epistemology, or genetic epistemology, and to some extent
related to "theory of cognitive development".
Note that "epistemology"
is the study of knowledge and how it is acquired. Science is “the process used
everyday to logically complete thoughts through inference of facts determined
by calculated experiments." Sir Francis Bacon was critical in the
historical development of the scientific method; his works established and
popularized an inductive methodology for scientific inquiry. His famous
aphorism, "knowledge is power", is found in the Meditations Sacrae (1597).
Until recent times, at least in
the Western tradition, it was simply taken for granted that knowledge was
something possessed only by humans — and probably adult humans at that. It
was not usual to consider unconscious knowledge in any systematic way
until Freud.
Other biological domains where
"knowledge" might be said to reside, include: (iii) the immune
system, and (iv) in the DNA of the genetic code.
Such considerations seem to call
for a separate definition of "knowledge" to cover the biological
systems. For biologists, knowledge must be usefully available to the
system, though that system need not be conscious. Thus the criteria seem to be:
•
The system should
apparently be dynamic and self-organizing (unlike a mere book on its own)
•
•
The knowledge must
constitute some sort of representation of "the outside world", or
ways of dealing with it (directly or indirectly)
•
•
Some way must exist
for the system to access this information quickly enough for it to be useful
•
Scientific knowledge may not
involve a claim to certainty, maintaining skepticism means that a scientist
will never be absolutely certain when they are correct and when they are not.
It is thus an irony of proper scientific method that one must doubt even when
correct, in the hopes that this practice will lead to greater convergence on
the truth in general.
Religious meaning of knowledge
The Old Testament's tree of
knowledge of good and evil contained the knowledge that separated Man from God:
"And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know
good and evil --"
In Gnosticism divine knowledge or gnosis is hoped to be attained.
In Thelema knowledge and conversation with one's Holy Guardian Angel
is the purpose of life.
Broadly following Dāna exist in
all Dharmic Religions.
Vidya Dāna/Vidya Daan: Donating/Sharing Knowledge for education. Give
a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him
for a lifetime.
Hindu Scriptures present
two kinds of knowledge:
Paroksh Gyan (also spelled Paroksha-Jnana) is secondhand knowledge: knowledge obtained from books, hearsay, etc.
Prataksh Gyan (also spelled Prataksha-Jnana) is the knowledge borne of direct experience, i.e., knowledge that one discovers
for oneself.
Jnana yoga ("path of knowledge") is one of three main types of
yoga expounded by Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita.
In Islam, knowledge is given
great significance. "The Knowing" (al-ʿAlīm) is one of the 99
names reflecting distinct attributes of God. The Qur'an asserts that knowledge
comes from God () and various hadith encourage
the acquisition of knowledge. Muhammad is reported to have said "Seek
knowledge from the cradle to the grave" and "Verily the men of
knowledge are the inheritors of the prophets". Islamic scholars,
theologians and jurists are often given the title alim, meaning "knowledgable".
In Jewish
tradition, knowledge (Hebrew: דעת da'ath) is considered one of the most
valuable traits a person can acquire. Observant Jews recite three times a day
in the Amidah "Favor us with knowledge, understanding and discretion that
come from you. Exalted are you, Existent-One, the gracious giver of knowledge."
The Tanakh states, "A wise man gains power, and a man of knowledge
maintains power", and "knowledge is chosen above gold".
Selected and
edited from Wikipedia Offline
** **
1444
hours. We are stopped at Mary Lou's.
Time to post, boy. - Amorella
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