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I can’t know is what’s lacking from the zeitgeist. Too many people say I don’t know which implies they can. No, often it is can’t know.
by pyinstallwoes 4y ago
I can’t know is what’s lacking from the zeitgeist. Too many people say I don’t know which implies they can. No, often it is can’t know.
- benj111 4y agoReally? What is the meaning of life? Where did the universe come from? Some of the most interesting questions are unanswerable / don't have a correct answer. In the field of archaeology there generally isn't the absolute 'can't know' though. Until the Rosetta stone came along we didn't know what various hieroglyphs meant. But the hypothetical existence, however remote of another Rosetta stone means we can know the answer to these various questions.
- i_am_proteus 4y ago"I can't know" is good shorthand for "this cannot be known with precision, given available information." Good scientists discuss and, when possible, quantify uncertainty.
- benj111 4y agoIs it good shorthand? Seems as flawed as hypothecating ritual use. Again if you don't know something, just say you don't know. If something can't be known, hypothecate, fine, but be honest about your ability to know. Good scientists should surely be precise and intellectually honest at minimum.
- i_am_proteus 4y agoYes, it's good shorthand.
- svnt 4y ago> But the hypothetical existence, however remote of another Rosetta stone means we can know the answer to these various questions. Partially flawed logic here aside, a Rosetta stone needs to be qualified in this case. We most likely (almost definitely) cannot know whether these tools at these sites were made and used by hominins or monkeys without time travel, as the sites themselves have been processed and additional discoveries likely eliminated as a result of the destruction of the sites. A Rosetta stone in this setting would be a recorded observation by hominins that lived in the time of themselves making and using these tools at every site that is at question, made in a format we could interpret, because anything else leaves open the possibility that at least one of them, and thus many other sites, were made by monkeys. Recovering this Rosetta stone, or its equivalent, is so unlikely that can’t is the better answer.
- benj111 4y agoI disagree that it's flawed logic. It is possible to know, we just don't. You for example are presupposing that no technology will come along that will eg allow us to detect fingerprints, or tooth marks in bones or nuts found nearby. You're also presupposing that no new sites will come to light. If anyone postulated the existence of the Rosetta stone before it's discovery, do you think anyone would have said it's existence was in any way likely?
- svnt 4y agoIt’s flawed logic because you are collapsing the idea that you can imagine it with the idea that it can happen. Whether or not it can happen is unknowable, i.e. can’t be known, which is the point you were refuting.
- benj111 4y agoI gave 2 concrete examples. Are both of those impossible? > Whether or not it can happen is unknowable, i.e. can’t be known, which is the point you were refuting. If I play the lottery, it is unknowable whether I will ever win, it can't be known. That doesn't mean I will never win the lottery. The possibility of me winning the lottery is independent of possibility of me knowing whether I'm going to win. Which is kind of the point. But eventually I might win the lottery, and the unknowable question of whether I will win the lottery will have a concrete answer. So by definition, it was never unknowable to start with!
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- pyinstallwoes 4y agoBut you can't know something you've never personally experienced. You're collapsing that which you can experience with that which you can't and assuming that because there are things unknown that are possible to experience they are the same as things that are unknown that you can't experience. That's a very different type of knowing. It is certainly more accurate to say that one may believe in something to be true, but one can't know.