I’m not interested in what the dictionary says or a textbook definition I’m interested in your personal distinction between the two ideas. How do you decide to put an idea in one category versus the other? I’m not interested in the abstract concepts like ‘objective truth’ I want to know how it works in real life for you.

  • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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    28 days ago

    I’m a Marxist-Leninist, so the dialectical theory of knowledge. What starts as ideas are tested and confirmed or denied in reality, which then sharpens ideas to be retested and confirmed or denied in reality again, in a spiral. Ideas come from real, material conditions, and it is through this cycle that theory meets practice, sharpening each more effectively.

    • shalafi@lemmy.world
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      28 days ago

      What’s Marxism have to do with it? Sounds exactly like the scientific method to me. Applying it to politics is an unnecessary step in this discussion.

      • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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        27 days ago

        How familiar are you with Dialectical Materialism? That’s a Marxist conception, very similar to the scientific method. Marx wasn’t just an advocate for Socialized production and eventually Communism out of any moral superiority to Capitalism, but because he applied Dialectical and Historical Materialist analysis to Capitalism to predict where it was headed: monopoly and centralized syndicates, ripe for siezure and public planning.

        The Dialectical theory of knowledge is similar to an endless refinement and spiral of the scientific method.

    • an_onanist@lemmy.worldOP
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      28 days ago

      What about the ideas that can be neither confirmed nor denied like the existence of extraterrestrial life or a machine of 100% efficiency?

  • Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world
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    28 days ago

    I’m not interested in what the dictionary says or a textbook definition I’m interested in your personal distinction between the two ideas. How do you decide to put an idea in one category versus the other? I’m not interested in the abstract concepts like ‘objective truth’ I want to know how it works in real life for you.

    Huh. I guess I don’t categorize concepts like that… is it normal to? I believe what I think is true. The certainty of that belief depends on either my own knowledge of supporting facts; or the credibility of someone else’s knowledge in a field I’m not familiar with. If new knowledge reveals a belief to be incorrect, I recognize that at some point I succumbed to bullshit, and need to adjust my belief accordingly.

  • Contramuffin@lemmy.world
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    28 days ago

    For me, everything is a belief unless it satisfies the following criteria:

    1. It is generally accepted as true among experts
    2. There is ample evidence that is both personally convincing and leaves no room for alternate interpretations (not the same as #1, since many fields have “commonly accepted knowledge” that is generally acknowledged as most likely true but has no evidence to back it up)
    3. It is specific enough that it cannot be interpreted in a way that is misleading

    I find that the one that trips up most people is #3, since some people speak in technically true but overly broad statements and the listener ends up filling in the gaps with their own biases. The listener leaves feeling like their biases have been confirmed by data, not realizing that they have been misled.

    In the end, according to my criteria, very little can be categorized as true knowledge. But that’s fine. You can still make judgements from partial or biased data or personal beliefs. You just can’t be resolute about it and say that it’s true.

  • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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    27 days ago

    Knowledge can be proven, like how a beautiful sunrise proves the existence of god. /s

    There’s no god. As soon as we get that point across, we can start meaningfully improving things.

  • selokichtli@lemmy.ml
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    27 days ago

    For knowledge, I first try to contextualize the piece of thinking into a human framework. Once I did this, I ask myself if the piece of thinking can be known by any system that can be replicated. If this is the case, then I look into it, to get a grasp of how the piece of thinking became a piece of information and the context in which it was tested. Then I adopt it, trying to remember that context.

    A belief I just decide it is true. I have personal rules for it too. 1) Overall, I’d like it to be a part of my life because it makes me feel better than not having it, and 2) it doesn’t hurt anyone else, as far as I know.

    Obviously, off the top of my head.

  • mindaika@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    28 days ago

    I would say that beliefs are unprovable, and knowledge is provable. If I claim the sun will rise tomorrow, we can test that. If I claim god exists but is hiding, we cannot test that. The former is knowledge, the latter belief

  • Sam_Bass@lemmy.ml
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    28 days ago

    knowledge is provable, repeatable, demonstratable. faith is by its very nature none of those.

    • Etterra@lemmy.world
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      27 days ago

      Just to help, you can’t have knowledge about something that is based around faith. For example, the Bible requires faith for you to believe in God, however you can have extensive knowledge about what the Bible says without actually believing any of the religious bullshit.

      • tetris11@lemmy.ml
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        27 days ago

        One could argue that the more knowledge one has of the bible, the greater degree of faith one needs to believe in it.

        At some point on that linear curve, a make or break decision needs to be made. Here, I made a graph:

    • el_abuelo@programming.dev
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      27 days ago

      But do you do any of this with what you “know”? Or do you choose to believe it because it is known?

      • Sam_Bass@lemmy.ml
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        27 days ago

        i do what applies to events in my life and watch others do the rest snd use their examples to confirm or deny what has been posited

  • frightful_hobgoblin@lemmy.ml
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    28 days ago

    I want to know how it works in real life for you.

    What works for me in real life is know as little as possible, view all beliefs as clouds moving across the sky

  • metaStatic@kbin.earth
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    28 days ago

    Belief is overarching concepts, knowledge is specifics, many in this thread are conflating belief with faith

    I believe in science because I have knowledge of the scientific method.

  • bizarroland@fedia.io
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    26 days ago

    Knowledge can be externally verified by an independent party.

    Belief can be corroborated but not verified.

  • bokherif@lemmy.world
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    28 days ago

    Facts are made up by humans. If an opinion of mine regarding an empirical argument conforms with the general good of the public I prefer to spend time with, I accept it as a fact. When my opinions contradict with this, I accept that I believe it this way, considering neither options are testable or objectifiable.

  • nfh@lemmy.world
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    28 days ago

    Knowledge is what happens when you’ve evaluated enough evidence to reject the null hypothesis that something is false. If you haven’t seen the evidence, but still think it’s true or false (you don’t lack belief), then you have a belief about it. As such, knowledge is a type of belief with extra justification.

    If I’ve reviewed enough evidence I’m comfortable saying I can reject the null hypothesis, that is I have a belief that it’s knowledge, I’ll call it as such. If I haven’t, I’ll couch my confidence in my belief accordingly.

  • Okokimup@lemmy.world
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    28 days ago

    Probably doesn’t answer your question completely, but I’m a big fan of the phrase "my understanding is . . . " In other words, this is what I “know” as fact, but I’m aware that my knowledge could be wrong or insufficient and I’m willing to be corrected or updated. I use this phrase almost any time I’m asserting something as fact, as a kind of cya.

  • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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    28 days ago

    That’s a pretty simple distinction, but you’ve asked for us to define abstract concepts without using definitions or abstract concepts. So let’s just say, knowledge is what you know and beliefs are what you believe. A belief implies some level of doubt, while knowledge is just the information you have in your head. There is a lot of overlap. I know that the sun will rise tomorrow, because I understand how the earth rotates and orbits the sun. I believe it will happen because I understand physics and observable phenomena. Put it another way, it is a high-confidence belief based on the knowledge obtained through observation and study. Some beliefs are based on nothing more than hope, and some knowledge is beyond any doubt. I believe the Phillies can win the World Series, but I know our bullpen pitches cantaloupes and our hitters are streaky as shit.

    • perviouslyiner@lemmy.world
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      28 days ago

      Your last example reminds me of someone editing Wikipedia to list Ronnie O’Sullivan as the winner of the World Open, about 20 minutes before the final match finished.

      They were right, and anyone would agree that it was all-but-certain, but it hadn’t actually happened yet.

    • an_onanist@lemmy.worldOP
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      28 days ago

      What if you should have some doubt (belief) but due to ignorance or hubris do not and so you elevate a concept to ‘knowledge’ that should not rightfully be there? I’m not trying to be argumentative, I’m genuinely curious about that gray area of misplaced confidence.

      • boatswain@infosec.pub
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        28 days ago

        What you’re asking about there seems like it’s really: “Is something being knowledge vs belief subjective or objective?”

        The answer, just like for “is cereal soup?”, is that it’s all semantics. It’s not like there’s some Authority who’s created the Platonic Form of Knowledge that Beliefs cannot partake of, and there’s a clear delineation between Knowledge and Belief. We’re just using these weird shapes, sounds, hand gestures, or whatever else to try to do telepathy and get our thoughts into someone else’s head. Like all semantic questions, what this comes down to is: have you chosen the right word to convey your thought? If people seem to not be getting it, try the other one.

      • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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        28 days ago

        That’s a fair question, but we’re in danger of conflating two different concepts. Knowledge is the information, and belief is the action. It’s a little bit like having money vs spending money. You can have money, you can spend money, and you can have spending money, and you can spend money you don’t have. These are all slightly different concepts despite using the same words.

        When you think you know something, but you are mistaken, we call that a “belief” even though you did not doubt it. You believe you know something without a doubt, but you are wrong. You do not know, and you should doubt your belief. But you would never describe it as a belief, because you do not believe you do not know for certain.

        • an_onanist@lemmy.worldOP
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          26 days ago

          No I’m not. I am not interested in academic study. I am interested in real world application. I am aware of justified true belief and that most people don’t apply it. My curiosity is in how people acnually think about the concept.

    • hddsx@lemmy.ca
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      28 days ago

      I’m confused. You don’t know that the sun will rise tomorrow - you believe it will. Science is our best guess at how the universe around us works. Geocentric was how we believed the universe worked until that theory was proven to be wrong.

      You know the current theory, and based on that knowledge you can believe it will rise. There could be some phenomenon that will turn the sun dark for 7 days that is not part of the current model. It’s unlikely, but possible.

      Knowledge is the understanding of that which will not change. Yes, you can modify the theory tomorrow but it will not be the same theory as today. That’s why it’s knowable

      • conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works
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        27 days ago

        Anything is “possible”. Forecasts of the future can’t be 100%. But not everything is plausible. If you round to 100 significant figures, the probability of the sun rising tomorrow is 100%. You’ll never get to true 100%, past, present, or future. Even after watching something with your own eyes and watching the video documentation 100 times over. It’s “possible” someone faked the video, and eyewitness testimony is known to be incredibly bad evidence for a reason.

        Knowledge is strongly backed by evidence. Belief ranges from “the evidence is inconclusive/not strong enough/doesn’t exist” to “the evidence can’t exist”.