Zebriski point

[cema]

The point of this whole zebra exercise is, I think, to see what the meaning of the word "know" is. In the original posting, rezoner suggested there is a cultural difference between what we can call Eastern and Western approaches. In the comments, I saw more versions. Because I have not studied philosophy for a long time (and before learning anything new here I would have first to forget what I was treated to back when), and because I felt like it, I, together with other, perhaps more enlightened but not less playful, LJ friends engaged in a reductio ad absurdum testing of possible borders of the meaning of "know".

And you know what?

Comments

[spamsink.livejournal.com]

Yes we can. There were tests to demonstrate the distinction. A situation was constructed, when the subjects would honestly answer "No" to the question, e.g. "Do you know if there was a circle or a square in the picture you saw?" (e.g. it flashed for single milliseconds between two frames of a movie) but when asked to guess performed statistically better than chance.

[cema.livejournal.com]

Good news!

Thus, the word "know" is closely related to the conscious realization of being aware of something.

[spamsink.livejournal.com]

Sure, so what?

[cema.livejournal.com]

Well, that's more or less the question in the posting.