It is impossible to logically know the past

[boagie]

The existence of history is acknowledged,good night sweet prince!

History is today unfolding, do you know today, again in what comprehensive way do know today? Notice it is called human history, history is an expression of the psyche of man, of the nature of man in the context of the world. Presently history is if it is a science, the poorest of sciences, history is a cloud which has never fully formed. If you do not know today in a comprehensive way, how do you expect to know the past in a comperhensive way. You know dates, names and the names of events, not their causes. Even the environment is an important factor in the unfolding of history, this too we do not fully understand. Yes we know history, do we understand history-----------------no!

[kennethamy]

Originally Posted by boagie

The existence of history is acknowledged,good night sweet prince!

So we do know the past? Or not. Please tell me.

[Fido]

Why not just admit that you can know it, but not KNOW it. If you are standing on a broad plane, and under your feet grass is growing, and there are trees nearby, and more grass, and further off there are more trees, and more grass, and at the limits of your sight there are barely descernable, grass and trees. What if beyond your exact perception is more green and grays breaking the even rim of the sky? Are you to assume they are not trees and grass because you do not know that they are? It is not like there is no evidence, but the distance of time is like the distance measure, as the distance grows, so grows uncertainty.

What is hanging on it, first of all. Are we drivng our lives by the rear view mirror? Is not the recent past more essential to know than the distant past? Certainly, recent history is more clouded by the machinations of the powerful, and the hand of the propagandists; but they leave their mark. If the past is unknowable, then the near past inscrutable. Nothing makes sense today, and nothing will make sense that happens today, tomorrow, without some grasp of the past. Does it have to be perfect?

I think all one has to do, is know enough of the history of failed states to recognize which way our house of cards is tumbling. Then, what does it matter if people are revisiting history while it happens, and writing it like Caesar, or Napoleon to fit themselves? So long as people know the history of states, and nothing more, they can guess the truth. We are controled because so long as we do not feel we know the truth we do not feel justified to act out of frustration and anger. For that reason, intelligence, as the day to day knowledge of our affairs is called, is kept strictly under government control. That the governemnt feels the need to keep secrets, and not few, but many, does not ever mean we do not know the facts.

What does the fact of government secrets tell us about us? That we are feared? That ignorence for us is victory for them? The fact is, we have more trouble knowing what is going on today than in guessing what happened in the past. It is because we cannot grasp the present that the past seems so out of focus. Our president is wrong to believe history happens after we die. We are living history, and if we are struggling we cannot expect the next person is better off. It does not matter what the government says, but what it does. It matters what your neighbor says, because your neighbor never lies. Ask him how he is doing, really? It is a dangerous question. Listen to the answer.

[Fido]

Originally Posted by kennethamy

So we do know the past? Or not. Please tell me.

I'll tell you. We have a more or less accurate sense of the past. We have more or less useful information about the past. We have a more or less exacting interest in the past. As a thing, it will always be myth. People are still writing books about Lincoln, and not so much because they have a book's price of worth to add; but because they are captured by the myth, and they are trapped in it with other caught by the myth as in a giant's labyrinth. I've been there. Lincoln is a good study. I have read several big feet of Lincoln, and several feet of civil war. What do I know? I guess, enough.

[kennethamy]

Originally Posted by Fido

Why not just admit that you can know it, but not KNOW it. If you are standing on a broad plane, and under your feet grass is growing, and there are trees nearby, and more grass, and further off there are more trees, and more grass, and at the limits of your sight there are barely descernable, grass and trees. What if beyond your exact perception is more green and grays breaking the even rim of the sky? Are you to assume they are not trees and grass because you do not know that they are? It is not like there is no evidence, but the distance of time is like the distance measure, as the distance grows, so grows uncertainty.

What is hanging on it, first of all. Are we drivng our lives by the rear view mirror? Is not the recent past more essential to know than the distant past? Certainly, recent history is more clouded by the machinations of the powerful, and the hand of the propagandists; but they leave their mark. If the past is unknowable, then the near past inscrutable. Nothing makes sense today, and nothing will make sense that happens today, tomorrow, without some grasp of the past. Does it have to be perfect?

I think all one has to do, is know enough of the history of failed states to recognize which way our house of cards is tumbling. Then, what does it matter if people are revisiting history while it happens, and writing it like Caesar, or Napoleon to fit themselves? So long as people know the history of states, and nothing more, they can guess the truth. We are controled because so long as we do not feel we know the truth we do not feel justified to act out of frustration and anger. For that reason, intelligence, as the day to day knowledge of our affairs is called, is kept strictly under government control. That the governemnt feels the need to keep secrets, and not few, but many, does not ever mean we do not know the facts.

What does the fact of government secrets tell us about us? That we are feared? That ignorence for us is victory for them? The fact is, we have more trouble knowing what is going on today than in guessing what happened in the past. It is because we cannot grasp the present that the past seems so out of focus. Our president is wrong to believe history happens after we die. We are living history, and if we are struggling we cannot expect the next person is better off. It does not matter what the government says, but what it does. It matters what your neighbor says, because your neighbor never lies. Ask him how he is doing, really? It is a dangerous question. Listen to the answer.

If "KNOW" means, "know with certainty" then since whether a past event occurred or not is an empirical matter, and no empirical matter can be known with certainty, then it follows that no past event can be known to have occurred with certainty. But, of course, the same is true of all events, past, present, and future. So the past is not unique in this regard. I do not think that "to know" is "to know with certainty" since, for one thing, that would mean that science does not provide us with knowledge, and that seems to me to be obviously false. But that is, really, another issue. What I am pointing out is that if "to know" does mean, "to know with certainty", the knowledge of the past is ruled out, but, knowledge of the present, and future, are equally ruled out, so there is nothing special in this regard with knowledge of the past.

[kennethamy]

Originally Posted by Fido

I'll tell you. We have a more or less accurate sense of the past. We have more or less useful information about the past. We have a more or less exacting interest in the past. As a thing, it will always be myth. People are still writing books about Lincoln, and not so much because they have a book's price of worth to add; but because they are captured by the myth, and they are trapped in it with other caught by the myth as in a giant's labyrinth. I've been there. Lincoln is a good study. I have read several big feet of Lincoln, and several feet of civil war. What do I know? I guess, enough.

But since, in the ordinary sense of "know" we know that Lincoln was assassinated, then there is at least on case of knowledge of the past. And, of course, that is not the only case of knowledge of the past of that kind. Another is that Napoleon lost the battle of Waterloo. So, the answer to the question, do we have some knowledge of the past? is yes.

[boagie]

Our knowledge of history is the map,not the terrain.Nuerology might be said to hold the secrets to understanding human history.



Although history has no meaning, we can give it a meaning.
Karl Popper (The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. 2, p. 278

[kennethamy]

Originally Posted by boagie

Our knowledge of history is the map,not the terrain.Nuerology might be said to hold the secrets to understanding human history.

Whoever said it was the terrain? But a map should correctly map the terrain, otherwise, it is worthless or a fantasy. I don't know how neurology would hold any secrets of understanding human history. But since the question was not about understanding the past (which may mean a lot of things) but, rather, of knowing about the past, what you say about neurology, even if it were true, would be irrelevant, since you first have to know the past before you can understand the past. I certainly cannot understand Lincoln's assassination unless I know Lincoln was assassinated. That's clear.

[Fido]

Originally Posted by kennethamy

If "KNOW" means, "know with certainty" then since whether a past event occurred or not is an empirical matter, and no empirical matter can be known with certainty, then it follows that no past event can be known to have occurred with certainty. But, of course, the same is true of all events, past, present, and future. So the past is not unique in this regard. I do not think that "to know" is "to know with certainty" since, for one thing, that would mean that science does not provide us with knowledge, and that seems to me to be obviously false. But that is, really, another issue. What I am pointing out is that if "to know" does mean, "to know with certainty", the knowledge of the past is ruled out, but, knowledge of the present, and future, are equally ruled out, so there is nothing special in this regard with knowledge of the past.

The thing that makes anything true, objectively true, is how many people agree that it is true. Here is the problem; call it the Baptist town analogy: If you got to a baptist town and you do not agree with the baptists your welcome may be short lived. Those people who agree with an objective view of the past are real even if the past is not. No one has to deal with the past or with dead people in the past. What people are today, that makes them a blessing or a danger, is their view of the past; what they think they know, which is also what they think they are. What you think you don't know or cannot know makes you vulnerable by comparison.

[kennethamy]

Originally Posted by Fido

The thing that makes anything true, objectively true, is how many people agree that it is true. .

That's not true. Many people agreed it was true that the earth was flat, but it wasn't, and isn't. Many people agreed that the earth was in the center of the heavens. It wasn't and isn't. Many people agreed that disease was caused by an imbalance of the four humors. It wasn't, and isn't. Many people agreed that combustion gave off a substance known then as "phlogiston". It wasn't and isn't. There is a long list, but you get the idea.