Epistemology: What is knowledge?; How is knowledge acquired?; What do people know? [My Day in a school that I might have gone to}

Questions of the day:

1. How will I know if I really do know what I think I know?

2. Knowledge = Justified True Belief?


Before I continue any further, I must state that I am in NO way a nerd! (not that there is anything wrong being a nerd, in the 1st place.)

I went to crash HC (Hwa Chong which is one of the top Junior Colleges in S'pore) today - legally! Kudos to Jam & Dra for helping me seek permission to do that!

You might be thinking, "What on earth is she doing? Why is she going to school (voluntarily) while on holiday?" Well.. I would have almost certainly be in HC, if I had chosen not to go to Perth. So I guess, I wanted to see how JC life is, to experience what I have missed, and to be a HC student, even just for one day. I realised that I did miss much.

Here was my timetable for the day! Pretty exciting for me, since I currently am not studying any arts subject, although I wish I could (but you see... I need to take my current subject combination, in case I chose to study engineering next year).

1. Physics Lecture (I seriously think Physics in S'pore is cheem-er than that in Perth. But Frank's got the cool demonstrations! The MIT Prof. Walter Lewin is cool too! See... Aussie physics teachers are awesome!)

2. Maths Tutorial (Pretty much the same as what I did for Calculus last term - applications of differentiation. Not much difference between the two different Maths courses)

3. Economics Lecture & Tutorial (I scribe-d my very 1st Econs assignment! whoohoo!!)

4. Project Work (well.. not really.. only sat in for the last 2 min? By then, Jam and her frens were already discussing about the Chem lab lesson)

5. Chem Lab

The fun-nest! I was Jam's chem lab assistant for the 1st hour. Measuring (hopefully) accurate amounts of HCl and H2SO4.

The next hour was spent trying to cook an egg in propanol and octan-1-ol. Fun! Our group (erm.. actually Jam's group) was hopeless at blowing the flame out! We had to use distilled water to put it out! Nevertheless, it was still fun! Though... the washing the-soot/carbon-covered-beaker & getting my hands all black n gross part was NOT fun...

Btw.. some of Jam's classmates (and ex-classmates) are really funny! Though I shan't post anything about their hilarious-ness since they think I am scary! But come on, who in their right mind will think I am scary? They seem to think that MG gals are scary... hm.. IMHO, it's juz tat some of those 'boys' cant handle REAL women!!! wahaha. Just joking

Oh! One of Jam's classmates really does look like Wu Zun. Again, it's only my opinion. Jam and Dra (Wu Zun's rabid fans) beg to differ. Well I guess it's cause I DON'T stare at Wu Zun's pictures, so at 1st glance, I think they look alike.


6. Knowledge & Inquiry (KI)

This was really really interesting! Today's lecture was on Epistemology. For those who do not know what Epistemology is, fret not! I didn't know what it is, but I have since be sufficiently enlightened during the 1.5 h lecture. Plus, there is always wikipedia!

'Epistemology or theory of knowledge is the branch of philosophy that studies the nature, methods, limitations, and validity of knowledge and belief. Much of the debate in this field has focused on analzying the nature of knowledge and how it relates to similar notions such as truth, belief, and justification. It also deals with the means of production of knowledge, as well as skepticism about different knowledge claims. In other words, epistemology primarily addresses the following questions: "What is knowledge?", "How is knowledge acquired?", and "What do people know?".'

-Wikipedia

I got bombarded with jargon, left, right, centre: A priori knowledge, rationalism, externalism, internalism, empiricism and many other -isms.

And in this class I meant Edmund Gettier and his problem. He argued that there are situations in which one's belief may be justified and true, yet fail to count as knowledge. Some rather hilarious examples of such problems were discussed in class.

So basically... I've learnt that I cannot totally rely on my senses, nor my mind. All that I can be certain is that my mind doubts what I sense and what I think.

I came to my conclusion:
Since I cannot simply take what I perceive to be knowledge, therefore Science (which relies heavily on observations, experiments and interpretations) might not necessarily allow me to gain knowledge.
Since I cannot also simply take what I rationalize to be knowledge, therefore Philosophy might not be a credible field of study.

Many people (scientist, evolutionists, philosophers) have tried to prove (and in my opinion, failed to) that God doesn't exist and that people with a religious faith are delusional. Being scientists and philosophers, they use science and philosophy to support their views (duh!). Since Science and Philosophy might not be true sources of knowledge (according to what I THINK I've learnt, since I cannot be sure, can I?), then on what do they really base their arguments on?

Hence,
EITHER
we shouldn't really think sooo hard [unless you can give me good reasons as to why taking a simple thing as viewing a pencil and turning it into "something so paradoxical that no one will believe it" (Bertrand Russell) will do anyone any good]
OR
there is something or someone else who is genuinely knowledgable. One who is ABSOLUTE. One who has been around since the beginning of time and knows what truly happened during the dinosaur age (if there was ever one) and how the universe came into form. (I mean, as much as I love Science and Physics, I don't think we can ever be certain as to what happened eons ago, unless we were actually there. Even then, we might still not know for sure.) There is only ONE - God!
OR BOTH
Personally, I think is both.


Chew on it!



P.S.: I STILL find KI very intriging!

P.P.S.: Shoutouts to Dra, Jam, Phoebe & Lai for being excellent 'tour guides' and for showing me around your sch. Thanks for letting me tag along! You AFs rawk!

P.P.P.S.: in line with what I've already said, well.. whatever I said might be rubbish too... since my perception and thinking capablities can fail me and prove to be wrong! -.-""