Knowledge As A Justified True Belief
One gains knowledge through personal experience or when taught by a mentor in terms of familiarity or following the masses. The knowledge that we produce and the conclusions that we accept isn’t the same for everyone majorly due to variance in perspectives and application of that certain knowledge thus what conclusions are “accepted” varies notably for everyone. In this essay, we shall use the term “accepted” to indicate it’s widely acknowledged by the general public. The conclusions we accept is what makes us believe to why what we know is true. We conclude using many techniques some being influence (the person giving the information may be of higher stance or position in power), emotional attachment, perceptions due to personal knowledge, and finally logic. We can say that “evidences” fall under justifications, proof and reasoning that base us to interpret these empirical evidences in order to justify knowledge. This essay shall focus on how in the very different worlds of Mathematics and Human Sciences simplification of knowledge is used to justify a notion by accepting conclusions regardless of evidences provided. The production of knowledge significantly is different between these two Areas of Knowledge therefore the central knowledge question “How much of evidence is required for a notion to be accepted by the general society?” will be focused on to enable me extend my perspectives about the extent to which human beings accept a conclusion to produce knowledge.
In order to study any subject one begins with learning the basics. In mathematics, from an initial state of learning numbers, a student bases his or her knowledge and learns more and more things and this basic knowledge acts as a foundation to learn tremendous amounts of new stuff. Thus, the formation of these myriad of equations has led to application in the real world making it extremely useful for an average human. We use mathematics every day and this has led us to accept widely known conventions made by other intellects on this field simply because they made sense to the average human being and were beneficial to be used. By using imagination, Pythagoras, a Greek philosopher mostly known for his contribution in mathematics by proposing the Pythagoras’ Theorem made it possible for the average human to find the length of a hypotenuse without the need of measuring. This theory proposed induced a butterfly effect and it was the foundation to be applied fundamentally in the fields of geometry and trigonometry. Its application in navigation and emergency systems makes us realize that after having enough evidences, one can accept a conclusion and based on that, can discover and produce new and innovative knowledge.
Mathematics is a discipline which employs concrete reasoning and methodical justifications before an equation or expression is accepted. However, due to its complexity, the average human being would unquestionably follow through and accept the proposed theories and symbols as they are to use in equations in our daily lives just because they’re taught by a person on higher stance. Many concepts such as pie “e” and infinity are abstract and their exact values remain unknown to mankind however, their applications in geometry, astrology, astronomy, medicine, engineering and navigation makes these concepts extremely valuable to mankind. For example, we plainly are not being able to discover the largest number thus we humans simply use the term infinity to treat it as a number in mathematics.
However, infinity is just a concept that depicts it is larger than any real or natural number and simply cannot be measured. So how did human beings accept this to be a number, is by simplifying an immeasurable number to be a symbol known as infinity.
‘Curiosity kills the cat’ is what we’ve always been taught since a young age. This phrase or “proverb” is often coined to discourage excessive investigation or experimentation of a certain notion. Therefore we may say that not enough evidences are needed by human beings due to certain unexplainable facts that fill up our universal minds. Learning is the process of obtaining knowledge. Throughout the process of learning one may experience doubts, or even be more inquisitive and formulate new questions in regard to existing knowledge. In regard to the quote aforementioned, human beings thrive to question why a theory, fact or any knowledge exists. The human mind consisting of trillions of neurons is designed to form connections, in terms of a puzzle joining pieces of information together and relating what we already know to the newly acquired knowledge by cognitive and spatial abilities such as formation of memories, selective attention, auditory and visual processing to mention a few. These cognitive abilities greatly affect our spatial abilities such as logic, reasoning therefore it allows making a conclusion or decision by identifying a certain pattern in based on a series of steps known as neurotransmission. The result of this process called learning may or may not be always justified therefore human beings, due to evolution have a tendency of simplifying our cognitive abilities and accepting already existing theories with just little evidence provided.
Upon reading the title I had firm belief that we accept conclusions only after thorough justifications and ample evidences are provided to us. However, when digging deeper I realized this was not the case. Knowledge produced by us human beings is either a result of one’s own experiences (personal knowledge) or just accepting a conventional already existing belief (shared knowledge). Though we do have personal knowledge thanks to evolution, much of what we know is taught to us, and that makes us prone to establishing a certainty that what we are taught is true and we often deny questioning the particular notion. Therefore, to accept a “conclusion” human beings underestimate evidences and justifications as well as logic and frequently rely on personal interpretation to accept whether or not a theory or fact proposed is true or not.
