let me put it another way?

Question

If I was to ask the question, how tall is mount Everest, everyone would look it up on the internet or maybe have heard it said, that it is a bit more than 29,000 feet tall,

BUT THE TRUTH IS, YOU DONT KNOW THIS, so therefore we believe everything we read, therefore how can we be sure that any answers that are given, about factual things, are correct. THE ANSWER IS THAT YOU DONT REALLY KNOW

TRUE OR FALSE

Its just a though I had tonight, but maybe everything we hear is not true,

Answer 1

You are correct. There are two ways to gain knowledge. The first is by "doing" yourself: investigating everything for yourself. Clearly this limits the amount of information you can actually gather--- and there are some things you'll never know at all. (Like who your father is, for one! You must ask your mother...)
The other method is to "hear" (read, etc.) from someone who does know. And to do this, one must know and trust the source of the knowledge.
Obviously there is much misinformation spread by people who either are ignorant and speak anyway, or people who have agendas which are served by misinforming people.
So... be careful who you believe.

If the subject matters enough to me I do three things. I check the person's credentials... are they honest, what's in it for them, etc. I also check other references--- what is written on this topic. And then I check within myself--- does this ring true to ME... Not necessarily in that order... depends on the circumstances and the topic. If all thiings ring true, then I accept.
This is my opinion BTW. Not a fact... just how I see it.

Answer 2

True.

The thing is, you can’t pull out a measuring tape and find out that Mount Everest is 29,000+ feet tall. We can’t ask a tiger if it wants to be called a tiger, or crack open a skull and smell the brain and say, “Oh, it does smell like cottage cheese.” So yes, we don’t know. We just remember and repeat what we’re spoon fed. On the other hand, nobody is a walking textbook, we all remix what we learn with personal experience and self-perspective on the world.

However, if you pick up a tabloid and it reads that a mummy gave birth, something has to tell you that that doesn’t sound exactly right. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen a corpse push out a kid.

Answer 3

There are some things, like the height of a mountain or the length of a river that are difficult to measure because they are constantly changing or they are just too inaccessible. That doesn't mean we are wrong if we give a good educated guess or an estimate based on the "best" measurements we can obtain. Technically nothing has an"exact" measurement because on a microscopic level the molecules are constantly shifting position, thus their exact measurement is not constant. If you ask a question and someone gives a carefully researched and intelligent answer, then you should be satisfied.
Below is a website on the measuring of Mount Everest - if you are truly interested.

Answer 4

We're getting deep here!

Socrates, a famous philosopher, once said "I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance." In other words, all we can truly know is that we do not know.

I think that's what you stumbled onto - a bigger philosophical question:

What is truth, and can we ever really know it?

For example, how do you know that when you see a blue sweater, your friend perceives it to be the exact same shade? How can something really be "blue" if colour is just light, and when there is low light, everything turns black or grey? Is the blue sweater now a grey sweater?

Or, if you close your eyes, is everything still there? Or does it all disappear and reappear when you open them? What if a friend is with you, and keeps his/her eyes open, and insists everything remained there? How do you know your two realities are the same?

If everything we hear, with the exception of our own experiences, is based on someone else's knowledge, is anything true?

What's more, what if even our own experiences are sometimes false - for example, people who once looked out into enormous flat fields and said "Look, the earth is flat!"? Or what if - as psychologists know - people's firsthand understanding of the world is often cluttered with mistakes and errors?

A well-known science fiction writer named Philip K. Dick once wrote that reality is "that which doesn't go away after you stop believing in it". For example, try as you might, it would be hard to convince yourself that adding 2 apples to 3 apples doesn't give you 5 apples. You also know with certainty that you have two legs, like pancakes, etc.

The scientific process is largely structured around proving that despite everyone's beliefs, the phenomena continues.

I suppose my answer is that when it comes down to it, there's a lot of things we can never truly know, but "secondhand evidence" is the least of our worries!

Also, psychology understands the importance of believing that reality, as you understand it, is true. I mean, think about it: if a rabbit is constantly asking itself, "Is this fox chasing after me real, or a dream? Are foxes really dangerous? Do I really need to run?" it will probably be the first to die, even though it will likely do less unnecessary running than its fellow rabbits.

It comes down to balance: we can't function as humans constantly in doubt, but society will be a huge mess if we don't question and evaluate the things we hear, see, and experience.

But don't ask me how to manage that! *grins*

Anyway, those are my two cents.

Answer 5

I understand your point, and you are right about some information. May I point out that the height of mount Everest is changing continuously as it is rising up due to India bashing into Asia...I read that somewhere, so you see, I and the others who have answered you seem to be saying, yes you are right in part, but.......

For my part of the but...as I said before, consider the car.
It seems to me we are all right in a way, it is up to you the asked to decide if the information or view points that have been offered are the answer to the question you could not answer yourself. Or if the answers that were given have given you a wider prospective on an idea you had. Remember, the question you posed has many variables, these type of questions can never have a definite answer.

Answer 6

Well i admit i don`t know , and if i`m being honest if some one told me Mount Everest was 1.000 metre`s high or a 100,000 i wouldn`t have a clue which might be closest .(how do they measure mountains anyway .along the slope or in a straight line up thats level with the top ) I just might need to ask a question about that now .You can tell me the right answer or the wrong one if you want : )

Answer 7

This is where philosophy comes into play it helps with logic and reasoning. If things follow certain rules then it can be proven true according to philosophy. Such as if A and B are true, then Z must be true. Such as the logical argument A: "Things that are equal to the same are equal to each other"
B: "The two sides of this triangle are things that are equal to the same"
Therefore Z: "The two sides of this triangle are equal to each other"

Answer 8

I absolutely agree. Some people believe that there are certain government departments set up to control the media and filter information so that we get to hear and see only what the government wants us to see. How many times do we get our opinions based on what we see and hear? If we were to take away all tv's radios, books, newspapers and the internet what else would we have to give us information?

Answer 9

Sure - but think about it. How long would you have to live to EXPERIENCE all the things that you could otherwise learn through reading and sharing in someone else's knowledge.

You're sounds like the Cogito argument from Decartes by the way - but in his argument he goes beyond experience because he believes that his senses aren't to be trusted (otherwise why would he have such vivid dreams).

You could also probably dig up a whole bunch of philiosophical arguments on what constitues knowledge. Its defo more philosophy than psychology tho.

Answer 10

The more we know,
The less we know,
The less we know, the more,
I believe that I know nothing,
But I can never know, for sure.

(part of a poem I believe was written by someone I believe I once knew, which I believe, I believe.)

If you correctly identify a colour as Red, and everyone agrees that it is Red, how do we know that each of us is not seeing a completely different colour, from each other? But when we learnt the colour we see as red, the person who taught us it was red, actually saw it the colour which I think is Green.