Knowing Anything

In all of the discussions I have had as a result of this blog and all of the other philosophical discussions I have had over the last few years there is one phrase which never fails to bug the hell out of me.

“Well, you can’t really know anything.”

People always feel very clever when they roll this one out. It is, they feel a knockout blow to any declarative statement, logical progression or even simple list of facts. “You can’t really know anything.” That’s it. They win.

This phrase, and other’s like it (“Everything is subjective.” “You can’t disprove the existence of God.” etc.) are not conversation starters but rather conversation enders.

Of course, on some level, they’re right.

Are we incredibly limited creatures who’s only ability to understand the world around us is through the conduit of our own narrow senses? Yes. Is it possible that those senses are lying to us? Yes. Are we subjective creatures who perceive reality through the filter of our background, desires and prejudices? Yes. Is it possible that our perception of reality is entirely manufactured? Yes.

We could be locked in a chemical coma with our brains hot-wired, as in The Matrix, or lying in a padded cell in a mental institution. It is even possible that we don’t exist at all.

In fact, once you start going down this road absolutely anything is possible.

And that’s the problem.

If you can’t really know anything, then the sun could rise in the north tomorrow. Pigs could fly and fire could freeze. How could we survive in a world where we can’t know anything?

I’m not saying that ideas like this should never be discussed. Any idea which forces us to rethink our perceptions and preconceptions is a useful tool. Asking the question “Can we really know anything?” is the beginning of a wonderful conversation. Although in my opinion a much more interesting conversation can be had by asking, as my friend, Mike Hoover, does, “How do we know what we know?” There is a lot of mileage and introspection to be got out of that one.

However stating that nothing can be known is in my opinion both irresponsible and even dangerous.

Here’s why:

1. It’s not scientific. Disprovability, is in many ways a more, important, scientific criteria than provability. People often say, “You can’t disprove the existence of God.” Which is true, but so what? As Bertrand Russell used to say. “You also can’t disprove the existence of a flying, invisible, spaghetti monster.” In fact, there are an infinite number of things which I cannot disprove. Science is interested in those things which could be disproved. I could disprove evolution right now. All I have to do is find a porcupine that gives birth to a cactus. However, there is no experiment on earth, or mathematical equation I can produce, or even logical argument I can create to disprove the existence of God or the spaghetti monsters or anything else. If the same statement can be used to argue for or against anything, it has no scientific value.

2. It’s Lazy. Anyone can say it, at any time. It requires no work, no education. There is no research involved or years of labor. It requires no intelligence or discipline. It is, in my opinion, the last argument of a lazy mind and represents, the desire to close, not only the eyes of the speaker, but the eyes of the world.

3. It isn’t useful. And this is really the big one. “You can’t really know anything.” Puts us back in the caves without even a fire to keep us warm.

Imagine two primitive men back in the ice age. One says, “I don’t know why those wooly mammoths come back to the same watering hole every year but I know that they do, so let’s set a trap.” The other says,”Well you can’t really know anything.” Which one of them is more likely to feed his family? Which one of them is more likely to learn why the mammoths return each year? Which one of them will pass that knowledge onto his children and, more importantly, the knowledge that you can, in fact, know some things? In short, which one of them will survive and grow and which one of them will remain stagnant and probably die?

Try saying “You can’t really know anything.” the next time you fly in airplane, drive across a bridge or go to the pharmacy to pick up your antibiotics. Those things, and many others were created by people who believed that knowledge was something that could be gained and used for the betterment of themselves and the rest of the human race.

“You can’t really know anything.” Has the wonderful advantage of sounding, smart, cynical, and superior all at once but it is, in my opinion, a very clever dead end. We can’t know everything. That’s true. The pursuit of knowledge, however, begins with the idea that we can know some things and that knowledge, itself, is worth pursuing.

The Prisoner and The Pawn

Two men.

Both wealthy and respected. Both learned and disciplined. Both the heads of large and influential families. Both doomed to suffering, not by their vices, but rather, by their virtues.

One was a man of faith, the other, a man of science.

The man of faith was the foremost citizen in the foremost city of the known world but despite his power and wealth, he was humble and pious. He knew that the most important values in the world were not those that could be tallied or traded but only felt. He was, in short a devout follower of unseen, unfathomable God and he knew, without a shadow of doubt, not only that his God was real, but that God loved him.

The man of science was born in a city devoted to God where all the teachers were God’s servants and all truth was defined by his holy church. But when he looked around, the truth he witnessed wasn’t what he had been taught and that left him in a terrible dilemma. “Does it take more courage to open one’s eyes or to close them?”

There were those who were unimpressed by the man of faith’s devotion. “It’s easy”, they would say, “to have faith when you are a rich.” It does not take great character to have faith in luxury but faith in suffering is hard and sometimes the greatest lessons come with the greatest price.

The man of science knew that closing his eyes to the truth would be easier, but the call of knowledge was too beautiful to ignore and so he opened his eyes ever wider and began to study. He measured the movements of the planets and the stars. He touched earth and stone. He sought truth in fire and water and the more he learned, the more he came to understand that the word of God, so long spoken with certainty, was at best in error and at worst an outright lie.

How do you keep your faith in the face of tragedy? How can you love a God who takes away everything you hold dear? The man of faith watched his wife and children die of disease. He lost his fortune, his status in the community, and his home. Even his health deserted him and this once proud pillar of society became homeless, destitute and diseased. He valued faith above all other things and now faith was all he had left.

If you are going to argue with God, you better have your facts straight. Years went by. Decades. The man of science spent long nights charting the stars and long days working out the mysteries of their movements. Even when he was certain he had unlocked their secrets he returned to his studies and sought out his own mistakes. Doubting what the rest of the world takes for granted might be the pathway to new knowledge, but turning the light of doubt on your own preconceptions and fallibility is the first step towards wisdom. When he was finally certain, the man of science told his story to the world and it almost cost him his life.

Everyone told the man of faith to abandon God. “How can you love a God who clearly doesn’t love you?” “How can a just God allow such suffering to be visited on a just and faithful man?” The logic, they said, was self evident. “Either God does not exist, or, if he does, he does not love you.” The man of faith listened patiently but in his heart he knew the truth.

In 1633 Galileo Galilei was called before the inquisition in Rome under the charge of heresy. His believe in a heliocentric universe was in direct contradiction to the geocentric universe described in scripture. Galileo was imprisoned and forced to recant his views. However, there is a legend (probably apocryphal) that after admitting, under threat of torture and death, that the earth was the stationary center of the universe, he whispered under his breath, “And yet, it moves.”

Job never gave up his faith and, in the end, God returned his health, wealth and status. That God was also responsible for his suffering is the wellspring of a great debate. How can we love a God who could so callously torture one of his most devoted followers simply to prove a point to Satan? Is Job a saint to be admired and emulated, or a fool?

The journeys of faith and science are both long and difficult. They both require dedication and discipline. They both often mean pitting yourself against the prevailing culture and enduring the derision of the world. However, in the end, these two journey’s are walked in opposite directions. The discipline of science is one of doubt, of seeking facts not feelings, of believing not what we wish is true but only what can be proven. The discipline of faith is internal. It is about letting go of doubt. It’s power is derived not from the head but from heart. It is a way of finding hope, when logic would say all hope is gone.

Science and faith can both save lives, change civilizations and, perhaps, even move mountains but they have walked so long in opposite directions that they have lost site of each other and that might be a tragedy for both.