Understanding history as accurately as possible is important because a person’s orientation toward the present and the way that they go about life is very much based on their conception of the past.  At the most basic level, this starts with one’s personal memories and those their family, their community, and those with whom they most closely identify.  There is no way any of us could engage with the world without a model of the past because this is essential to our personal and group identity and also that of our family and our nation and our world.  It is vital to for each of us to reference the past in all aspects of our lives because that is what tells us what works and what doesn’t work and the range of possibilities for future actions and also the ideals toward which we should strive.

Our conception of history has powerful psychological effects on us, for better or worse.  Families, communities, and nations feel driven by the need to fulfill the original purpose of the founders of their culture and of their nation and they feel the need to stay true to the vision outlined by these forefathers and to the ways of life exemplified by the great people of the past.  Some people think there is this eternal ancient wisdom, or perhaps that there are commandments and exemplars and perfect people from the past.  These ideas and stories are very powerful in forming one’s identity, purpose, and connection to the world.

Stories and narratives are an important part of how people think and conceptualize reality.  They need to feel like they, their family, their community, their nation, and their world are a part of a greater story.  This includes the recent past and distant historical events of great achievement and tragedy, such as the oppression of ethnic groups, the horrendous acts committed by tyrants, and the supposed past greatness of one’s nation.  This also includes stories that explain who came up with some invention or innovation originally, what was the origin of certain things that are now commonplace in our lives, and who was responsible for certain bad deeds in the past.  Stories along these lines are necessary for all kinds of things in life because they give us needed information that connect memories to our understanding of the present in a way that guides our actions into the future.  This also plays into accountability and justice and attempts to address past injustices and to prevent similar atrocities and inhumane events and suffering from recurring.  If we have no conception of the past, we will never make progress as a society.

Whether these narratives are accurate or not, they drive people’s thinking processes and societal norms, values, and ideals.  We can imagine that much of our history is true, but unfortunately some stories that one might read will be partially inaccurate or entirely fabricated.  We cannot afford to ignore the importance of historical accuracy because history can be weaponized.  A society based on false and highly skewed history will be as problematic as building a skyscraper based on bad and erroneous physics, math, and engineering.  If we have a false conception of history, we can become tools of the powerful and charismatic who would like to deceive us for their gain and for their small inner circle.  There are some people wish to perpetuate myths of the past in order to benefit themselves personally and without regard to the multitude of people who could be harmed by the furor and frenzy that they would incite as a result of them promoting such myths.  Those who have a hard time getting along with people of other ethnic groups will sometimes try to invent myths of the prior greatness of their ethnic group and the evil acts committed by other ethnic groups.  When charismatic demagogues come to power in times of economic and political crisis, these factors can coincide and result in bloodbaths and genocides.

The people’s conception of history has the potential to lead to political and governmental upheavals.  For this reason, some people would like to rewrite historical records so as to remold our collective memories and to provide more favorable societal conditions for them.  There is lots of money and power on the line and there are people who will relentlessly manipulate and spin false narratives to achieve power and to maintain it.  If these stories that are so influential to our lives and to society are not investigated and refined through reliable and evidence-based processes, then they will inevitably be revised and rewritten so as to be more convenient to a certain powerful class that wishes to legitimize their authority.  We cannot allow people’s hearts and minds to be taken and captured by people with ulterior motives because this would be a threat to global stability.

Cover photo created by freepik – www.freepik.com

In order to present the evidence in favor of expanding the definition of empirical knowledge to include some things considered subjective, perhaps including things such as experiences that may lead one to form beliefs regarding value judgments and ethics, it will be necessary to elevate some subjective knowledge to a more reputable status similar to that which is given to objectivity.  First, it is necessary to analyze how knowledge can become objective, according to the definition provided earlier in this section.

The most important aspect of the more accurate definition provided above is that objectivity becomes possible not when someone has a perfect understanding of external reality, but when people are able to reasonably conclude that other people can have a similar understanding of some object if they are using similar methods of unbiased observation.  There is a process through which my bias and your bias get whittled away, which leaves us both with a conception of an object that is as unbiased and accurate as any could be.  If a situation is set up in a way such that one is able to imagine what it is like from someone else’s point of view, which they can then be compared and contrasted with their own point of view, then this can allow them to form a conceptualization of an object as it would be observed by anyone.

Objectivity depends on being able to convey empathy through communication in a way that is integrated with acts of perception.  The process through which objectivity is constructed becomes possible only when one perceives an object while also observing other people (and perhaps other conscious beings) who are judged to be perceiving this same object.  The central aspect of this interaction is that one’s perception of objects in a shared space occur simultaneously with perception of other beings who can also perceive, think, and feel.  Our minds automatically analyze our sensory data, and each of us should correctly conclude that there are other beings similar to ourselves.  One can get an idea that other people are having similar subjective experiences based on their reaction to an experience.  If someone else reacts to their perception the same way as oneself does, then it is reasonable to conclude that the other person is having similar subjective experiences.  This empathy allows one to imagine what others are likely experiencing from their point of view, and through this a more detailed conception of the shared space and the objects within it can appear within one’s mind.

The process of realizing through this kind of analogy – that other people’s experiences are similar to one’s own – is what we can call social verification.  Social verification of the inner world is the process through which the private understanding becomes public.  Of course one might say that the physical world is public anyways and that it is publicly accessible whether anyone recognizes it or not, but the truth is that all understandings that one might have of the outer world start within their inner world.  There is a process through which one can differentiate between the public access knowledge and their own private access knowledge.  Before someone has undergone this process, they would have no way of making this mental differentiation.

For example, one can start with actually seeing a tree in front of them and also imagining a different tree near there.  Perhaps this person is a small child who might not be able to easily discern real from imaginary and therefore might not be able to tell which image of a tree is public and which is private.  If this child sees other people and animals touching a tree and these other people and animals are interactive and are therefore clearly understood to not be mere figments of the imagination, this should sort out pretty well that this tree exists in the same outer world as everyone else.  This child does not experience anything similar in relation to their imagined image of a tree, and thus is able to conclude that tree is only in their mind.  To some extent, situations like this occur even to adults.  There are slight variations in our experience in small details that sometimes are misconceptions of reality and we rely on other conscious beings to help us make corrections to our mental models.  Often times, this process is still a work in progress, even for the things in the physical world that we think we know quite well.  For instance, we might sometimes think we hear or see things and we can’t be sure that they are real unless we others corroborate this with reports of their own similar observations.  As such, we rely on others to help calibrate our senses and refine our understanding of external reality and also to weed out illusion and misunderstanding.

Any knowledge gained from experience where one can reasonably conclude that other beings can and do have very similar experiences is therefore socially verifiable, even if it has not yet been socially verified.  Knowledge can be socially verified through a communicative medium, such as the visual medium or the auditory medium.  There is a communicative medium any time two or more beings have the ability to act in a way that affects the other’s perceptions.  The action, which can be anything from a speech act to writing to body gestures, is then a communication that travels through the medium and is perceived by the other.

For example, if we were to take something as simple as a rock and have two or more people touch the rock and pick it up and drop it and listen to the sound, and each of them could see the other’s reaction to looking at it and picking it up and dropping it, and discussing the features of the rock amongst themselves, then the features of the rock are then socially verified.  This process has also allowed them to have a good idea of how the rock is in reality and to minimize biases that are introduced from their own personal point of view, since they have all had opportunities to eliminate prejudices they may have otherwise had towards the rock in the process of viewing it, hearing it, and discussing it amongst themselves.  Each person present therefore can be said to understand the rock objectively.

It should be noted that the process of social verification does not eliminate all biases but does work to minimize them.  Before the social verification process, each person had personal biases.  Afterwards, each of them should have minimized personal biases, and there are likely processes through which a deeper and fuller mutual understanding of this object can be developed.  It is possible, however, for certain kinds of group biases or societal biases to remain if each member of the group that conducted the social verification had certain biases towards the object that were shared amongst them.  Though it may sometimes be difficult, it is possible for people to minimize group and societal biases and to get to the point where the only biases that remain are those that are simply inherent to any person or perhaps to any sentient being.

The question of how to minimize such societal biases is a more complex matter that is mostly outside the scope of this project.  But just to briefly attempt to solve this problem, people can understand their own societal biases by empathizing with people who have had different experiences in life.  If some person observes other people from different cultures and different backgrounds and tries to get a feel for how these others conceive of a given object, then this can allow that person to understand this object with minimal personal biases and also minimal societal biases.

Everything a person believes starts within their own mind as perceptions, emotions, and other experiences that are operated on through the innate capabilities of the brain.  It is easy enough to say that external reality exists and that it is self-evident, but for one to know anything about this reality and to be able to speak about it, they would need to first perceive it and understand it to some extent.    Our mental processes produce our conception of reality, which takes the form of mental models that probably have some accuracy but are never 100% accurate.  Sometimes they are very inaccurate, as in when we imagine things that don’t exist and we completely miss things that do exist.  Some of our perceptions are fleeting and easily forgotten, but some are quite vivid and might give us particular perspectives on the world that would seem to us naively as completely true.

We should not take for granted that these processes are necessary for knowledge, especially anything that is mutually understood.  One probably would not be able to reliably discern fact from fiction entirely on their own.  We can home in on the truth through social processes that involve multiple beings communicating with each other so as to develop mutual understanding and to help each other weed out falsehood and to develop more accurate mental models of reality.  Some things that we experience are entirely in our minds and some things are models of external reality.  These processes allow people to differentiate between the public access knowledge of external reality from that which is only within their own mind and which is therefore private access only.  Objectivity is the gold standard for knowledge, but that is not always possible for all aspects of life.

In order to judge whether it is conceivable that anything subjective could be mutually understood by groups of people while still being beyond the reach of objective study, it is important to understand the distinction between these two modes of understanding.  Some may intuitively think that the word “objective” is synonymous with “reality” or that this word refers to the reality that exists regardless of anyone’s beliefs.  Some people do seem to use these words interchangeably, but that is sloppy and imprecise.  A more refined usage of the word “objective” would refer to a fully unbiased understanding of things as they actually are and treatment of things in a way that is mind-independent.  This sense of the word is useful because that is often what journalists and scientists aim for in their work.

There is, however, an inherent problem with this because objectivity, as so defined, is not fully possible.  Objectivity is not a view from nowhere since that would be impossible.  We can work to minimize our biases, but we can’t eliminate them altogether.  And while there are ways of knowing external reality more directly, it is impossible to know something in a way that is entirely mind-independent because one depends on their own mind for any knowledge.  In light of this, we should try to formulate a definition that isn’t so absolute and hard-edged.  The following is an attempt to provide a more accurate definition of “objective”, based on the real life usage of the word: detailed knowledge of an object that is as unbiased as possible, using the most direct methods of perception that are available, with the aim being that anyone else should be able to have a very similar understanding of the same object using similar methods of observation and bias minimization.

This contrasts with the term “subjective”, which is traditionally defined as experience from one’s own point of view.  Now, some may think that “subjective” refers to beliefs that are imaginary and cannot be grounded in reality or ideas that do not have truth beyond someone’s opinion, but this need not be the case.  This word sometimes refers to one’s personal opinions and biases, but there is another sense of this word that leaves open the possibility that some subjective beliefs could actually refer to universal facts that can be mutually understood by groups of conscious beings.  In this other sense of the word, that which is subjective is simply limited to one’s own personal feelings and experiences that other people can never fully know about because these experiences are internal to the mind.  It is possible, however, that one being’s conscious inner world might have strong similarities to others, and they might possibly come to understand each other’s inner world at a certain level.

The idea of objective thinking suggests that there is a way of looking at the world that is not influenced by a person’s particular, subjective viewpoints, the latter of which are often shaped by each person’s cultural and biological conditioning.  Some people think that which is objective is something that is not altered by opinion, such as that 2 + 2 is always 4, no matter what country one is in or what one’s political beliefs might happen to be.  This popular understanding of objective reality is contrasted with subjective reality, which is supposedly always open to interpretation or opinion, such as what is beautiful or what is art.  Within this line of reasoning, it generally comes down to the difference between fact (objective) and opinion (subjective).

This distinction is problematic for two reasons.  First, it sometimes happens that people can have an objective understanding of something, but this can turn out to be inaccurate.  Objectivity is not the same thing as reality.  We can do our best at investigating something and reporting it objectively, but it can still be incorrect.  We know that there are scientific studies that were conducted with upmost professionalism and the best efforts to minimize bias that were nonetheless wrong in their conclusions.

Second, our opinions are true for us, within our own experience.  If someone feels positively about some music or film, then it is true that they feel that way.  Therefore, an opinion is a kind of fact, albeit one that is local to the person.  Sometimes opinions can be shared across a population and it is conceivable that there might even be opinions that are universal to all conscious beings, perhaps such as the qualitatively distinct feeling that one has when they are in awe of beauty, regardless of what object happens to trigger this feeling.  And so we can realize that it is conceivable that for any conscious being, whatever object that individual finds beautiful, that there is still this sort of feeling.  We might disagree on what causes us to be in awe, but there could be something similar about our experiences.  This is not to presume that this is the case, but this is at lease conceivable.  Thus, we can’t reasonably say that the distinction between objectivity and subjectivity hinges on the distinction between fact and opinion.  Instead, it makes more sense to go with the distinction mentioned above, which essentially hinges on the distinction between having an entirely mind-dependent understanding of something (subjective) versus going through a best-effort process to achieve a mind-independent understanding of something (objective).

These definitions are important, because if any subjective experiences can be mutually understood by people, but there is also something about these experiences that cannot be known objectively (because there is no way of minimizing personal biases among multiple people in a way that would meet the requirements for this designation) then this would entail that radical empiricism is true and that positivism is false.  There are some who claim that they have certain personal experiences that could never be fully understood objectively, such as qualia, free will, and a sense of morality that allows them to make value judgments.  These might all be imaginary, but it is conceivable that there could be truth to some of this.  As philosopher Edith Stein pointed out, one can never get an orientation from which one can directly perceive the other’s pain in full detail, even though this is a real phenomenon that is experienced by the other person.  This contrasts with the example given by G.E. Moore about having an objective understanding of someone’s hand, which other people can directly perceive in full detail.

To clarify, if any single thing can be known subjectively but not objectively, then this alone would be the necessary and sufficient condition for radical empiricism to be the most accurate theory of knowledge formation.  In this scenario, radical empiricism would more inclusively describe the methods of knowledge formation than any version of positivism, including scientism and naturalized epistemology.  If this were the case then there would have to be some experiences that would end up in a certain midpoint between subjectivity and objectivity, but at this point nothing of the sort has yet been established.

When a person is born, their mind is not a blank slate because humans do have certain innate knowledge that is determined by DNA, but nearly all knowledge that a full grown adult has was gained from experience over the course of their life.   Early in life, the most basic empirical knowledge is formed by the totality of one’s experiences.  The ideas and concepts formed early in life are significantly more influential to life than those learned later.   The worldview that a person forms in late childhood and early adulthood ends up heavily influencing how they think and feel and their relationships with other people and how they interact with the world.  A person’s worldview can gradually shift throughout their life, especially in response to internal tensions brought about by new life circumstances.

We can imagine a few hypothetical cases of people whose lives are significantly impacted by the beliefs they form early in life, the worldview that is constructed in their minds in adolescence, and how they utilize their foundational beliefs into adulthood.  We can consider how they might react to new circumstances in life and how this might impact their worldview.  Through these thought experiments, we might get a better idea of the psychological and socio-cultural dynamics of how people’s worldviews are constructed, how they can be maintained in a stable state as one goes through the stages of life, and how they might in some cases be shifted, destructed, and rebuilt in response to new experiences and new life events.

Let’s call our first person Jack.  He is born into an environment where his parents and family are secular and trust in science.  He is told things in school that are based on science and he is not at any point indoctrinated with ideas that lack evidence.  In his first few years of school, he is not actually taught the line of reasoning nor the evidence that supports the facts that he is taught, nor is he taught critical thinking skills.  The scientific theories and facts that Jack is taught in school are presented to him as a set of information that he needs to learn and memorize in order to pass his classes and get good grades.  Jack has never been taught anything from a religious book and nobody ever told him accept his scientific teachings on the basis of faith.  However, based on the way that the science is presented to him, Jack has not developed the cognitive skills to be able to easily tell the difference between legitimate science and religious dogma at his young age.  He could have been inculcated with religious scriptures and he would not have known the difference because neither his parents nor his teachers put much emphasis on how to think critically and independently.

As he grows to adolescence, he starts to understand science at a deeper level through his firsthand experience of phenomena such as gravity, the growth of plants, the psychological development of himself and his peers, etc.  As he has developed a commonsense understanding of how things work in the world and this maps closely to the things he was taught to memorize for his tests, he is able to find that his basic beliefs do, in fact, make sense and can be confirmed by observation.  This is significant because the science that he was taught now seems to make intuitive sense to him and he consequently has developed an understanding of why science is reasonable and why it is worth knowing and worth appreciating.  Prior to this, his beliefs were structured within his mind somewhat dogmatically (since he never thought why things were assumed to be true) and now his beliefs are structured on the basis of the commonsense concepts of observation and reason.  He has also developed light version of skepticism regarding unjustified claims, since by this point in his life, he knows that many of the claims he hears or reads will not be true.

Another child, Jill, is instead born into an environment where her parents, family, and community strongly believe that the truth about the world and about one’s own self can be found by having strong faith in a religious book written several centuries ago, before the advent of modern science.  Jill is told to believe ideas in this book involving the origin of the world and numerous supernatural claims and she is taught that this book is the complete and infallible truth.  Knowing no other reality, she comes to strongly and unquestionably believe these things.  As Jill reaches adolescence, she begins hearing about scientific theories regarding the origin of the world.  Some of these things she is taught in school and some of them she sees on television shows.  Although these are presented to Jill as facts, her initial feeling is one of suspicion and she chooses not to believe because these claims are contrary to what her holy book says.  There are even circumstances where the scientific theories are presented with clear evidence to back them up, but she still rejects them without seriously considering the evidence that is presented.  The science is not presented as a polemic against her religious beliefs, but in effect the abundance of evidence that is given to her, if it had been fully considered, would have shown that much of her holy book is unreliable as a source of genuine knowledge.  Fearful of this consequence, Jill chooses to take a defensive stance against any scientific evidence that is presented to her.  As such, she preserves her dogmatic worldview, but she has a deep insecurity and a feeling of suspicion of most people who are supposed to be scientific experts.

If we consider that both Jack and Jill would have been presented with the same scientific evidence regarding the natural world at some point in their childhoods, then we can see a marked contrast.  Only Jack embraces this evidence because he was never taught to believe that certain things are true simply because they are written in a book.  Sure, Jack was initially taught to simply believe was he was taught, but he was never taught to uncritically accept anything based on authority.  He was never taught to simply believe in things regardless of the lack of evidence.  He was taught certain things that later made intuitive sense to him as he became old enough.  He came to realize that some of the things he was taught were indeed evident to him based on the commonsense science that he observed firsthand.  Jill, on the other hand, was raised to believe wholeheartedly in religious book that is full of unreasonable claims that are scientifically inaccurate.

Yet another child, Janie, is raised in the same community as Jill and enters adolescence with similar religious views.  Like Jill, she is presented with scientific theories and the evidence that supports these theories.  Nothing is ever presented to her as an attack on her faith or her holy book, but the evidence strongly points to much of this being unreasonable, unscientific, and unreliable.  Unlike Jill, Janie is put into a special teaching program where she is presented with a lot of clear scientific evidence, much from experiments that she personally participates in and directly observes.  People also explain to her in detail how each of these experiments work.  Up to this point, Janie’s beliefs are structured on the premise that her holy book is true and that all other questions of life need to be answered from this book.  She is also taught about certain philosophical principles, such as critical thinking and the philosophical underpinnings of the science itself.  Through this, Janie understands how science works, how scientists do their job, and she also realizes how science makes sense on the basis of things that she sees and hears every day.

Eventually, Janie is presented an abundance of clear and irrefutable evidence to the point where the her core structure of beliefs begins to shift.  Even though some of these things run counter to the teachings of her religious book, she eventually realizes that she cannot ignore this evidence that is so clearly presented to her.  This is a process that takes years, but she reconstructs her worldview in a way that is based on common sense, critical thinking, and an appreciation of modern science.  She no longer believes that her holy book is infallible, since it contains claims that can be disproven by the findings of modern science.  Janie still finds inspiration from this book, however, but in a more symbolic sense and as a way of filling the gaps in life that are not covered by modern science, such as morality and the meaning and purpose of life.  This detachment from her former core beliefs did cause her some suffering, but it allowed her to become more at peace with herself and with nature and she was also to become more enlightened through this shift in her worldview.

For Janie, it is notable that it was not just an appreciation of common sense, critical thinking, and modern science that allowed her to become more enlightened.  Even though she realized that her holy book was not infallible, it was nonetheless able to help her find answers to some important questions of life.  She still used her holy book as a source of inspiration about things such as morality and the meaning of life, which modern science could not adequately address for her.  She is able to find answers to these questions through her holy book and she accepts them on the basis of faith, which she believes is necessary in situations where science is not able to provide one with answers.

Yet another person named Joe has had very similar life experiences as Janie.  He was raised in a religious household and eventually came to believe in modern science through education and through his own intuitive understanding of nature.  In his adult life, he stopped believing that any religious book held reliable knowledge.  He found that he could still find inspiration from such books, and he sought assistance from the scriptures in his effort to better understand certain aspects of life that seem outside the realm of modern science, such as morality and the meaning and purpose of life.  Unlike Janie, however, Joe learned about some scientific innovations that had recently been developed to integrate the established scientific fields with phenomenology.  Joe came to believe that through such innovations, modern science could be expanded to apply to these areas of life that had previously been understood to be in the domain of faith.  Joe figured that this new integral science, which would apply to both the objective and the intersubjective, could perhaps allow him to find reasonable and evidence-based answers to these great questions of life without having to rely on blind faith.

This more reliable form of phenomenology helped Joe gain integral insights regarding the nature of conscious experience and its relation to the social landscape.  The underlying methodology of this discipline is somewhat similar to those of the physical, biological, psychological, and social sciences, which Joe was already familiar with.  Future posts will explain the philosophical underpinnings of a framework for integrating science with phenomenology.  I want to make the case how this can eventually be used to find reasonable and evidence-based answers to the questions of life that, up to now, have usually been thought to be outside the realm of science.

People vector created by pch.vector – www.freepik.com

All empirical knowledge is formed through a combination of experience (sense, emotions, etc.), reasoning (that which is logically implied by other knowledge), and a priori knowledge.  So this means that experience, analytic reasoning, and the innate functioning of the mind are the foundation of all knowledge.  This also means that foundationalism, the belief that all knowledge has a foundation in the mind, must be true, at least in theory.  Every single thing that one knows or believes has to stand in relation to one or more of these foundations.  There are lots of details that are not well understood regarding how our complex knowledge might be constructed from these foundations.

There are some who are attracted to coherentism, which is an alternative belief that there is no actual foundation of knowledge and that instead all knowledge is a coherent cloud of interdependency.  The draw of coherentism is that it is difficult to see how the complex cloud of interdependent assumptions that are constantly spinning through the mind can all ultimately rest on fundamental beliefs and assumptions.  However, people have certain innate knowledge and also that all experiences that one has had in their life must be the foundation of all other knowledge.  So the biggest problem with coherentism is that it does not involve solid knowledge that is foundational and unchanging.  This foundation must exist, even though it is difficult to identify how our lived experience is built up from it.  As with all attempts to understand the nature of the mind, understanding how knowledge derives from the aforementioned foundation is quite difficult, though not impossible.

The foundation of knowledge is so named because it is an analogy to how a physical structure is built up atop a foundation.  In any structure, such as a tower, there are points where it touches the ground and all of the weight of the tower rests on these points.  As the tower grows taller and heavier, the foundation must be strong enough to support this weight and also the infrastructure of the tower must be put together correctly and the pieces need to be joined securely or else the tower will likely collapse.  If a tower is poorly built, a collapse is especially likely the taller it grows.  For it to maintain structural integrity, there will have to be beams that support weight and there will have to be points above the foundation where these beams are joined.  These join points, which might be several stories in the air, then serve as foundations to the additional weight above them.  So not only is the foundation important, but the join points that are nearer to the foundation are also quite important to keep the overall structure intact.

The point of this analogy is to visualize the way that beliefs are built on top of each other within our minds.  Admittedly, the comparison has only limited applicability, but there are some genuine similarities between how buildings are constructed and how complex ideas are developed within the brain.  Our brains have certain innate functions and foundational ideas, and beliefs can be constructed within them.  Groups of neurons can join together in complex ways that produce foundational pathways for the flow of information.  The internal structure of these groupings can serve to filter information in certain ways and to implement algorithms to process the information and to produce results.  This often has the effect of causing someone to have certain foundational beliefs which are central to their personality and which are usually not challenged or questioned.  New information that is perceived that might run counter to the foundational beliefs would likely be rejected by the foundational structures of neurons.

As was stated earlier, the ultimate foundation of all knowledge has to be the mind’s innate cognitive capacity along with all information that is observed through the senses.  However, some things that are observed become more foundational than others.  The structures within the mind can operate on any information that it has access to and can summarize and synthesize it and try to make sense of it.  Everything that a person might perceive, think, or feel must somehow be a product of this.

The foundational neural structures are usually created early in life as a product of genetics and the cultural environment in which one lives.  The human brain grows from infancy through childhood, and core neural pathways are formed that determine a person’s thought processes, feelings, and behavior patterns.  When the mind is young, it has little knowledge, so the neural structures are relatively simple and more malleable.  As one ages, the core neural pathways become more rigidly configured so that they filter new information and end up often producing results that are in line with the foundational beliefs and overarching assumptions about reality.  This process is driven not only by one’s genes, but also by their exposure to culture, family, peers, and pivotal moments in life.  The prevailing cultural assumptions and social mores are programmed into a person’s mind in their early years, which eventually leads to the formation of the person’s worldview.

As a person ages and learns more, the foundational structures in the brain usually remain largely intact.  The person takes in a wide variety of information about the world by seeing, hearing, and reading things, and also by interacting and empathizing with other people.  Their mind is constantly at work trying to make sense of everything that is going on and this process utilizes the reasoning capacity and sensemaking algorithms that are implemented in the neural networks deep within their brain.  The foundational neural structures that were forged at an early age can be expanded and newer structures can be built “on top” of them, so to speak.

This can happen, for example, when someone takes in new information and accepts it, such as when they believe in a claim that they heard or read somewhere.  When one accepts new information, what often happens is that a join point is created to connect it to existing information, which allows it to become like a foundation for new beliefs that can be created later and also like a filter that would prevent contrary beliefs from subsequently being formed.  This can be very useful if one accepts a claim that relates to a proper way to live or a basic philosophical belief.  If the information contained in the claim makes sense and is consistent with the greater external reality, then accepting this claim should help the structure of ideas grow stronger and build an ever greater tower of understanding.

Examples of good join points that one can build solid knowledge on top of include the principles of common sense, language comprehension, social customs, critical thinking, and techniques to aid in investigation, reasoning, and claim evaluation.  These can then form the basis of an understanding of more complex ideas that depend on these sensemaking capabilities, such as the scientific method and mathematics.  If one has an understanding of the foundational theories of these subjects then they can use this as the basis for more detailed understanding in these areas, including specific scientific facts, complex mathematical subjects, etc.

On the other hand, if one accepts a claim that is not epistemically justified, then this can complicate the structure of ideas, especially if this claim is accepted early in life and ideas are built up on top of this claim.  This can happen if one hears or reads an unjustified and unreasonable claim early in life, such as a claim that everything written in a certain religious book is 100% true, and this leads the person to strongly believe in this and it then becomes a core component of their worldview.  If someone were to do this, they would be creating a join point within the core neural structures of their mind so that any subsequent beliefs would have to go through it, and the notion that their religious book is absolutely always true would therefore become an unchallengable dogmatic belief.

For any belief such as this, and any others that are not epistemically justified and are unreasonable, this can be analogous to building on top of a foundation that is not structurally sound.  As this person grows older and memorizes and believes in many passages in this book, they would then end up building more and more beliefs on top of the foundational idea that the book is infallible.  This can be thought of as like building a skyscraper on a join point that is not directly above the true foundation.  The most reasonable mental foundation would be one that would be based on critical thinking and science and that would avoid any fundamental beliefs that are taken on blind faith.  An adult who instead has fundamental beliefs based on unquestioned blind faith would probably not be firmly grounded in reality.  This person instead likely conceptualizes everything that they might see or hear in terms of whether or not it conforms to certain preconceived notions.  For this person, we can figure that reason and observation are not what matters, but rather, what their book might happen to say.

Perhaps this person could reevaluate whether their fundamental beliefs still make sense in their adult life, and they could do so on the basis of their personal observations in the world and by thinking about the implications and also by learning about critical thinking and science.  This would have to occur slowly and gradually, however.  It is uncommon for a person to simply take in new information in their adult life that would fundamentally alter the core neural structures, or to reconfigure the most foundational filtering algorithms that allow them to make sense of the world.  Early in life, newly perceived information can more easily be used to help construct the core neural structures that can be likened to the foundation of a building.  Later in life, it is far less likely for new information to be perceived that would cause someone to fundamentally reassess their core beliefs and assumptions.

People don’t go about their day constantly reevaluating their foundational beliefs and assumptions simply because they hear or read something that challenges them.  Nobody could live a stable and healthy life if their worldview could suddenly be upended because of little bits of information that they perceive.  It is possible, however, for one to gradually reassess some of their fundamental beliefs and to shift their worldview over time.  This can start to happen when one observes too much new information that cannot easily be made coherent with their more foundational beliefs.  If someone perceives certain things that are inconsistent with their foundational beliefs, they might at first try to come up with creative ways for it all to still make sense.  They might prefer to disbelieve what they see and hear, but that will only go so far for any reasonable and honest person.  At some point, they might start to simultaneously believe two contradictory notions, which is called cognitive dissonance.

These mental tactics might work at first, but when this person observes more and more things that fly in the face of their foundational beliefs, it would become more difficult for them to hold their worldview together.  The structure that is built within their mind needs to be able to hold up everything that they believe.  If a structure of beliefs within one’s mind is too large and build atop too shaky of a foundation then it might eventually come crashing down, so to speak.  For anyone who is not entirely closed minded, the structure of ideas in their mind should gradually shift with new experiences.  If one has certain beliefs that are not accurate representations of reality, then sooner or later they might experience things that are far contrary to their preconceived notions.  This then might cause a fundamental structural shift, which causes one to lose beliefs and then possibly to have difficulty building a new foundation and forming new beliefs.  For the one who experiences this fundamental shakeup of beliefs, this may result in confusion, depression, cynicism, insanity, and/or extreme skepticism.

In some cases, a positive psychological revolution might occur where one previously had a very complex structure that was not properly grounded in reality and not open to shifting regardless of what information came in.  A structure that is built on dogmatic beliefs is inevitably maintained through cognitive dissonance and avoiding taking seriously that which is observed in the world and by shunning any reasoned conclusions that might be derived from sober reflections.  If one is open minded, they might be able to shift away from this and to rebuild their belief structures.  Such a foundational might result in them creation of a new structure within their mind and a new worldview that is more enlightened.  As was explained in a previous post, enlightenment is the degree to which one is able find answers to the most basic questions in life on the basis of observation and reason, and wherein it is such realizations that lead to them finding peace within their life.  If a person’s core beliefs are stable and their mind is free from dogmatic faith and also of cognitive dissonance and if their mind remains open, then they stand a better chance of achieving a high level of enlightenment.