The Nature of Knowledge

Have you ever contemplated the nature of knowledge? Put another way, how do you know what you know? It's a good question, and an aspect of life all of us take for granted.

Facts. They are how we know what we know, and for the most part this means that ‘seeing is believing.’ Eyewitness testimony is the highest level of evidence in a court of law.

Facts are indisputable, and the archeological fact has completely changed how we view the world. So why do people believe and interpret life in so many different ways?

Skepticism is good, and, realistically everybody is a skeptic. Those who are religious or creationists are skeptic of modern evolutionary theory just as much as scientists, in general, are skeptical of mystical experiences. The same goes for those who believe that there is a 'reptilian' conspiracy to take over the world, or a 'shadow' government, which is the real government behind the government we elect every four years.

The truth of the matter is that evidence and facts do not rule. What rules is the interpretation of facts, which are used to form concepts and theories for describing our state of existence, or current events, or historical events.

For example, there are no eye witnesses or a written history describing how us human beings came to be. And, there are few facts so these are the possibilities...

1.	Humans evolved by accident without the aid any intelligent design.
2.	Humans evolved through the providence of an unknown intelligence.
3.	Humans were created 'as is' by an unknown intelligence.
4.	Humans were placed here by extra terrestrials.
5.	Humans have always existed.

Although you may argue that four of these theories explaining how human beings came to be are pure fiction or even idiocy, all five are valid hypotheses for the simple fact that we know very little beyond our own existence and experience.

So, how do we know what we know?

By shared experience and the dissemination of that experience throughout the generations. Aside from there is induction and deduction in the observation of natural phenomenon, which brings us back to the role of interpretation.