New Matrix Epistemology: Truth-Seeking Processes and Epistemic Domains (NME Blog 2)
In my first post on this topic, I outlined my dissatisfaction with the state of the philosophy of epistemology, and how one ferry trip along the Brisbane river at the age of 16, during which I defined for myself 11 different meanings of the word ‘truth’, has undergirded my professional career and thinking.
I asked ChatGPT about the Matrix approach. It supported my contention that the Matrix is both novel and useful. I’ve slogged through Karl Popper’s “Conjectures and Refutations” twice, and followed an excellent video series explaining Popper’s thought. He gets close to my Matrix thinking, but I could not find a holistic structure of the type I propose.
Thomas S Kuhn’s “Structure of Scientific Revolutions” is fascinating for how paradigm shifts occur, with great insights useful for what I will later describe as something like a worldview.
What struck me again is the versatility, and therefore imprecision, of the English verb “to know”. Romance languages have two separate verbs, one for knowing people or a city, the other to know facts, or “savior faire”, to know how to do something. Those who have learned another language where two verbs in one meet only a single verb in another (e.g. make / do = ‘faire’ in French, the Spanish ser / estar = ‘to be’ in English) will know that going from a single verb in your native language to two verbs in another is hard work, and shades of meaning you have never considered subtly change your thinking.
Even more extreme, New Testament Greek has seven verbs translated as ‘to love’. To fully appreciate the nuances in some passages a detailed explanation is necessary. No wonder people are confused about the meaning of “God is love”.
Then we come to our single, versatile, and imprecise verb “to know”. This verb is applied to facts, to people, to how to do your job, or what vaccinations to take — a huge variety of meanings ranging from competence and skills, through rote learning, or simply an assent to authority. Or even a repetition of a Shibboleth to show your allegiance to a group.
We seem careless with the definition of knowledge, saying ‘yep, I know that’. Maybe this linguistic trap is a factor in the ‘Dunning Kruger’ effect?
We may say we “know” such a person or a city, but we never really know all aspects. Our minds build maps of people and cities, but we only ever learn about parts of them. We see only certain sides of a person. Each person brings out different qualities in us, so we may seem charming to one person and nasty to another. Therefore each person’s mind-map of a city or another human will differ. Similarly for professions or trade skills, or political or religious ideas.
Our ‘knowledge’ is forever built on a limited set of facts, colored by evidence filters and team allegiances. Hence we read, “If anyone thinks they know something, they do not yet know as they ought” (1Cor 8:2).
It seems much conflict could be solved if we had several different verbs for ‘to know’ and indeed we have some linguistic conventions which I will flesh out in later blogs. I will suggest wider adoption and improvements, including to how these things are expressed in schooling. I will suggest some phrasal verbs that will allow better definition of what we mean by ‘know’ and hopefully defuse quite a bit of conflict.
But first, to the essence of the Matrix. Like any good engineer, I have this in a spreadsheet. The ‘Truth-Seeking Processes’ are across the top row, and ‘Epistemic Domains’ down the first column.
Truth seeking processes: Top row of the Matrix.
- Axioms — self evident (e.g. Euclid’s geometry)
- Propositions and Theorems (derived from Axioms)
- Mathematical proofs (incl Gödel’s theorem)
- Experimentally supported or “verified” (better “not yet refuted”, or “not conceivably refutable”) truths. Predictive and Explanatory Theories, typical of hard sciences.
- Interpretations, typical of soft sciences & history (also Quantum Mechanics!)
- Archetypal truths (Jungian, morals, found in literature and Scripture, “poetic”, as one friend suggested)
- Systemically defined truths (analytic, as Kant called them)
Some of these processes can be grounded in pure reason. Most cannot. Some almost defy being pinned down empirically.
Epistemic Domains: First column of the Matrix.
- Geometry
- Mathematics
- Hard Sciences (Physics, Chemistry)
- Semi-hard Sciences (Medicine)
- Applied Sciences (Engineering)
- Soft Sciences (Psychology, Politics, Economics, Sociology)
- Cultural Knowledge (incl History, humanities and Archetypes / memeplexes)
- Genetic knowledge (incl Archetypes)
- Revelatory (Religious and metaphysical)
ChatGPT suggested each cell of the spreadsheet could then contain “relative weight or emphasis given to each truth-seeking process in each domain of knowledge”. I had been thinking of some kind of percentage, or maybe just ‘tee-shirt size’, but what is more important to me is to talk about how the different truth-seeking processes work in each domain. So far, the Matrix seems to be original. Whilst I hark back to that ferry trip in 1981, I must also give credit to David Deutsch, who got me thinking with “The Beginning of Infinity”, and Micah Redding for introducing me to Popper, and the wrestling with truth we all share in the community of CTA.
What about foundationalism? I will contend that some solid foundations exist, such as geometric axioms, and most mathematics (I will be downplaying Gödel). Some knowledge grows and changes with society, most commonly soft sciences, yet even here there will be some axioms to carefully discover.
“Explanatory Knowledge” (David Deutsch) is powerful to predict and modify creation, but I will distinguish between Predictive and Explanatory knowledge, and explore how they continue to grow in paradigms, acknowledging Thomas S Kuhn and linking Kuhn’s work to Deutsch’s.
I will depart from Deutsch’s orthodoxy by strongly supporting Instrumentalism (“shut up and calculate”) and express critiques of Deutsch’s thought processes around Quantum Mechanics. This is bold of me, because I hold Deutsch in awe for his achievements (he is the Alan Turing of quantum computing and should be just as famous) and has greatly influenced my epistemology.
Popper’s framework struggles to get a grip on how to use Jung’s archetypes. They may be unfalsifiable, but having lately struggled through Jung’s classic, “The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious”, I am hoping to find a path to integrate these as a kind of knowledge that Popper could support. But with the caveat that in my view Jung’s ‘pattern recognition system’ runs in overdrive, and at times seems to invent things to see and draw very long bows. That does not mean his work is not useful, at least from an instrumentalist perspective.
It may be easy to ignore the category of Revelatory truths, but they drive so much of society. The USA is founded on “We hold these truths to be self-evident…” couched in Christian revelation. So many other social movements have a similar Revelatory process, (metaphysical truths they take as axioms) although they may deny it. Therefore, failing to tackle these is to ignore the elephant in the room. (And yes, for those who have heard me speak, I will refer to the secular parable of the blind men and the elephant.)
I think something like a ‘worldview’ (German weltanschauung) will be an important conclusion. Nothing is more important for the future of Earth than learning and disseminating a better Epistemology, couched in a robust worldview that corrects what Deutsch sees as failings of philosophy over the last century or two, from logical positivism through deconstructivism and postmodernism.
We need to constrain our public debate to an ethically-driven knowledge handling process, rather than the stream of exaggeration, catastrophizing and denialism that passes for discourse. Journalists must cease being propagandists, networks must cease partisanship, and the route to Knowledge, or at least being ‘less wrong’ must displace our broken discourse.
You may think “Climate Action Now” is important, but if we get “Culture Action Now”, managing knowledge properly, not only will we be better able to tackle Climate Change but all other challenges. I will argue a categorical imperative exists that we need this as we extend human knowledge across the solar system (and over coming centuries, as far as we are able to send it within the laws of physics).
Thank you for joining me on this journey, which will take much of this year in blog form. I’m not sure where the end game is, but I’ve been building bridges with some academics and people who may help. A published paper in 2024–5 and a book in some years would be ideal. I hope to have heaps of feedback along the way, and plan to modify my thinking based on it. Anyone with suggestions on the breakdown of columns and rows, or other insights is only too welcome to contact me.