Chapter 16
What
we can know: The Proximity Factor
Do you know how many mountains there are on the planet Proxima b in the Alpha Centauri system? Do you know (with detailed certainty) everything that will happen in your life tomorrow? Do you know (beyond belief) what happens to humans after they die? Do you know the first words your great-great-great-grandparents spoke to each other the day they first met? I’m at least 99.9% certain you don’t know the answer to any of these questions. (I’m 100% positive that I don’t.) Aside from the question of why you should need to know these things, the Proximity Model of knowledge gives us a picture of why we have so little certain declarative knowledge.
In the Proximity Model, the Y-axis (pointing upward) represents physical space spanning from where you presently stand (or sit or lie) to the outer reaches of the cosmos and beyond to a possible metaphysical plane. The X-axis represents a continuum of time from its beginning to its end.
Can we agree that prehistory (unrecorded history) is likely unknowable? Written and oft-repeated oral history is potentially knowable. But as the saying goes, “Only the victors write history”. So, there are bound to be omissions and distortions of past events which we didn’t personally experience. This applies to past events, as well as events which are occurring at a physical distance from us (if we don’t count distant events we can access via modern technology).
The metaphysical plane? You may believe you have access to that reality, but I suspect it would be hard for you to prove it. Over a lifetime, I’ve had a few experiences that felt like a close friend, or I touched that level. But those were just fleeting experiences we had no control over, and that had little bearing on the decisions or actions I had to make in my life. So, I choose to retain an open-minded skepticism on the subject.
What about the future? While we might guess what might happen tomorrow or next year based on present trends, we can never know with certainty what will actually happen. That leaves two areas of the model we can claim to have reliable knowledge of – our first-hand past experiences and our knowledge of what is happening in this very moment.
As we saw in the chapter on Memory, we can’t rely on that capacity for accurate recall of personally experienced past events. So, what about the present? Sadly, given the limitations of our perceptions and our cognitive biases, even this here-and-now awareness is fallible. So, we must live our lives with a bit of intellectual humility in what we think we know as facts and truth.
It is hard for us to accept the
limitations of our knowledge. Humans abhor ignorance and the feeling that it
engenders. Belief fills in the gap where thoughts of our ignorance might
paralyze us. But it might not. Consider one of the wisest humans to ever ponder
such questions. Socrates said (in rough translation), “The only thing I know for
certain is that I know nothing.” Perhaps he should have at least known enough
to keep this opinion to himself. When he used his method (Socratic) of
challenging other people’s knowledge, he upset too many people. Result? The
authorities offered him a hemlock cocktail. Cheers! (and please excuse my own
audacity).