During one of our discussions on the nature of knowledge earlier this semester, I showed a clip from the movie "Men in Black," where Tommy Lee Jones' character makes some comments about knowledge and the way people handle knowledge. Unfortunately, the only individuals who offered any comment in class couldn't seem to move past their (apparent) excitement about the movie itself. So, with a little more time, knowledge, and thought under our collective belts, I thought I would offer another opportunity to comment on the clip.
Trying to convince soon-to-be Agent J (Will Smith's character) to join his agency, Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones' character) says to him: "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Everything they've ever 'known' has been proven to be wrong. A thousand years ago everybody knew as a fact, that the earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew that the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on it....Imagine what you'll know tomorrow."
Click here to see a video of this scene, as well as some other clips from the movie that the person who posted this on YouTube describes as "...important knowledge scenes you need to see...."
Issues & questions to consider:
1) What does the word "know," in the various forms used in this quote from the third sentence on, mean? Is it referring to knowledge as philosophy has traditionally defined it?
2) Does the word "know," as it is used from the third sentence on, mean the same thing as Agent K's use of know in the second sentence? What do you make of this apparent irony?
3) What does Agent K's statement imply about the nature of human knowledge? Is it progressive? Is it provisional? How would you describe the nature of the knowledge claims Agent K refers to from 1000 years ago, 500 years ago, and 15 minutes ago?
4) What does Agent K's statement imply about the value and/or validity of "consensus gentium" (or "common sense") as a basis, or "good reason," for claiming to know something?
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I think that it is important to note that Tommy Lee's character is using the word "know" in a very sarcastic way. The overall effect of this is that it gives a certain ironic humor to the dialogue. Will Smith's character, however, uses the word "know" in a manner that most resembles its everday connotation. However, I would like to talk about something more broad:
We read a packet earlier this year that delt with "knowledge webs," or something along those lines. In that reading was also something called "conservatism." In lamest terms, the way I understand it is that we as humans like to pick propositions of truth that "fit" in with our prior beliefs, or this case, our Knowledge webs. I think it is important to note that when tommy Lee's character mensions how people are "panicky dangerous animals," it is not because they are like that all the time but rather only when something is introduced to them that is not conservative (that is, something that would undermine or not fit in with prior beliefs). Thus, Lee's character helps reinforce the notion that human knowledge is unprogressive because humans favor conservative truth propositions.
I think that it is important to note that Tommy Lee's character is using the word "know" in a very sarcastic way. The overall effect of this is that it gives a certain ironic humor to the dialogue. Will Smith's character, however, uses the word "know" in a manner that most resembles its everday connotation. However, I would like to talk about something more broad:
We read a packet earlier this year that delt with "knowledge webs," or something along those lines. In that reading was also something called "conservatism." In lamest terms, the way I understand it is that we as humans like to pick propositions of truth that "fit" in with our prior beliefs, or this case, our Knowledge webs. I think it is important to note that when tommy Lee's character mensions how people are "panicky dangerous animals," it is not because they are like that all the time but rather only when something is introduced to them that is not conservative (that is, something that would undermine or not fit in with prior beliefs). Thus, Lee's character helps reinforce the notion that human knowledge is unprogressive because humans favor conservative truth propositions.
Though Agent K seems to believe that the use of consensus gentium will always lead mankind to the wrong answers, he still shows that it gets us closer to the right ones. Though the consensus of the world and the universe has been wrong in the past, is it not right now? Or at least, more right...
Consensus gentium in this way is not something to base knowledge off of, if anything it hinders most people from discovering the real answers. It simply makes a partial correction to the wrong answers.
Agent K implies that the knowledge of the individual is more important than the knowledge of society, because as a society we're "dumb, panicky dangerous animals" that will always be wrong. But as the individual willing to stray from society, only then can we be enlightened with the truth. Society will probably catch up eventually, but it is too slow a process. To get close to knowledge, first individuals have to be willing to break off from the influences of the society around them. Otherwise, these influences will continue to cloud the truth by creating for us a false sense of certainty.
In the first part of my post I would like to talk about using common sense as knowldge. Using common sense as a way to obtain knowledge was something that I believe we decided was not a good idea in class during discussions. And I think that this video clip backs it up. Will Smith's character belived that it was common sense that their was no such thing as aliens. But he found out that it was not a good assumption to make. I feel like a majority of the time when we are running off of our common sense we are just making assumptions and these assumptions can be very falliable and are not a good way of obtaining knowledge.
Also I believe that this clip shows us that know is very progressive. I think that the clip lays out great evidence for why that is true. It references to the earth being the center of the universe, and then they realized that it was false and then they believed that the earth was flat. Their are many other issues like this in science that have once been believed as true and are now known to be false. And I can safely say that I know this trend will carry on into the future. This is why I believe that the clip shows us that knowldge is progressive and not stagnent.
Men in Black is a great knowledge barrier breaker, because it dares to question the validity of knowledge itself. What you know may not be the case for the person next to you, or your neighbor, parents. In various parts of Tommy Lee's quote know stood for, outdated opinions. People knew that the world was flat or the center of the universe, though they had no justifications for such a claim. What we know today will still be here two days from now, but the knowledge that we have gathered may evolove into something greater. Knowledge grows and evoloves through time and it is not certain that the same knowledge today will be here tommorow.No matter if it's 1000 years ago, 500, or 15 minutes ago, the more we discover about the world around us, the more knowledge we obtain. Even our common sense is changed, which goes hand and hand with the knowledge we obtain throughout our daily lives. And the only way we could keep up with the knowledge that is constantly entering our brains, is to change right along with it. Which is one of the reaons why the human race is so fragile, because we are fearful of lossing everthing we know about today, including our common sense.
This scene brings up a key knowledge issue present within language; the varied use of the verb "to know". Knowing has been reduced to the same field as believing by most people today in society, and when most people "know something" they do not usually possess JTB, they usually have just memorized a fact or hold a strong opinion or belief about a topic.
The mentioning of the idea that everyhing we have known has been proven to be wrong is ironic because the very definition of knowledge is Justified True Belief, which requires knowledge to be true. So if this so called "knowledge" isnt true, it was never knowledge in the first place.
This clip initially brought to me thoughts of how far the human race has come, but after further inspection I have come to the conclusion that just as we are proving the past's "knowledge" not be real knowledge, the very same will come of much of the "knowledge" we hold today. It almost seems as if there is an infinit amount of knowledge and that the truth will never be reached completly. We can get closer and closer, but there will always be farther to go.
Agent K does not value common sense, and for a good reason. Popular consensus has been proven to be wrong many times over time and will be wrong in the future. Other factors must take an active part in the justification of beliefs for it to have a chance at being closer to the truth than the idea before it.
To me the word "know" is what we accept as truth but don't truly believe or can not truly prove if its true or not. I see kinda like science, there are so many theories and words that scientist use that we have come to accept but how do we know it is really true. I think he used 15 minutes instead of 1000 years or something to create an effect of unimportance that people have created it to be. It like in a blink of an eye we are not in reality but instead in our dreams. I mean how can we truly say that we are not dreaming instead of living in reality or vise versa. This is the same with the world big the center of the world, or the world being flat. We accept as truth but we cant prove it. We manipulate certain things to make them convenient to our beliefs.
Obviously, we can see that K is no fan of consensus gentium. Just because everybody believes in something doesn't make it true. I'm trying not to use any of the examples he already gave. We can certainly say that we know a lot of things based on the evidence that we have. With what they did really know, people 600 years ago would have had a very hard time proving that the Earth was round, especially with the accusations of heresy they would face. Actually, around 2200 years ago, many Greek writers and intellectuals had theorized the Earth was spherical and had even calculated its circumference to with 5 to 10 percent of our value today. Of course, we can thank the Dark Ages for wiping out almost all of Greek knowledge. Were people in the Medieval era capable of doing the same? Certainly. Would they have been ridiculed and had their intestines pulled out? Most likely. The only way to greatly challenge consensus gentium is with your own consensus gentium. Once the minority side has enough people to make a difference, the majority will begin to take them seriously.
The people who 'knew' that the earth was flat only knew it because the evidence that they had at the time didn't tell them anything otherwise. K wouldn't think that consensus gentium is the best way to gain knowledge and our class agreed when we did that exercise in class. The population often believes in whatever is easiest to believe and not necessarily what is true. People do not go looking for ways to prove the accepted belief wrong either.
My question is are people paniky and dangerous because what they 'know' is always being changed or proven wrong?
This is where the "ignorance is bliss" concept came up again. K says "People don't have a clue. They don't want one or need one. They're happy." I think it is interesting that this concept keeps coming up in this class. People seem to need something to hold on to as true, and it causes panick when they lose that.
Gosh, I remember the way everyone reacted to this scene. I think it was a very very interesting and quite an effective er... moment. Thinking back, I felt a lot of the other people had done some thinking to the questions being thrown at us, but most of us were very thoughtful on it. I think the most thoughtful we've ever been, in that class. But since the scene was about former knowledges being proved wrong we would have to talk about being wrong (or right). Something I believed a lot of us don't like being (being wrong), because half of us are IB students; who must always get the right answers. The questions that Agent K asked weren't ones that asked for procedures, on HOW to come to a conclusion, but whether our conclusions are right or whether it was wrong. If we knew or we didn't. Something we all should of found easy to answer and responsed to, and I believed we all had a response. But no one said anything because if they did they had to be the first one to say something that is wrong or right. And it'd be shameful to say the wrong answer... This thing, this block people get from trying to get the right answer, is something I'm not sure is good or bad for a person. But it sure didn't help for that discussion.
In the scene in which Agent J is being convinced by Agent K, he is told that a person is smart and that people are dumb. he also goes to mention that everything they've ever "known" has been proven wrong.
The word "know" definetly sticks out and I do not feel they're referring to it as philosophy has traditionally defined it. Because Agent K makes it clear that what we thought we knew has been proven wrong, therefore we don't know what knowing is or how we know things.
He does make a couple of points with examples such as the earth been the center of the universe and the eath been flat. I mean we did only find out not too long ago that Pluto is not a planet. In the movie Stigmata there is also a moment where the woman realizes that the priests was wrong in daignosing her with Stigmata because as she looked at her wounds, they were on her wrist, then she lookes at a crusifix and saw that Jesus was nailed upon the cross at the palms of his hands. Then the preist turns to her and tells her that actually at that time they would crucify people by the wrist because if they did do it by the hands it would not be able to sustain the body weight, therefore every crucifix,portrait, necklace, etc. was wrong. Yet we aren't bothered in changing it. we're fine leaving things the way they are even if we know that what we believe to be true isn't true.
As can be seen in the video clip, Agent K is using the past tense form of the verb to know. This is interesting, because in class we have been using to know as something that you are certain of, to have knowledge of something; to have knowledge of something it must be justifiable true belief, and if this is true then how could it be used in the past tense. However, from using the way we normally use the verb to know, it can be used in various circumstances; we are able to mold it into how we want it to be. One thousand years ago (with this being my assumption of information I have gathered with no way of verifying if anything I am saying in this sentence is actually true), people believed the earth was the center of the universe because that was what they were told, that is how people were taught, and if you disagreed with that idea, especially if you were catholic, then you were excommunicated.
Agent K said that a person is smart, but people are dumb. This means that as an individual we are able to think clearly, but when we start to think for everyone else and use everyone else’s ideas, our knowledge becomes confusing and adverse to what we actually believe. Our common knowledge is actually made up of the small parts of everyone’s knowledge so that everyone can be right in some way, shape, or form. According to the book called The Book of General Ignorance, by John Lloyd and John Mitchinson, many things that we take as common knowledge are not true; they are just things that we keep on repeating that we eventually think are true. As stated by Vladimir Lenin “A lie told often enough becomes truth”; wow does that sound like a good TOK topic to go over in class or what (wink* wink*)?
Here is a good excerpt that I thought was interesting from The Book of General Ignorance:
“People sometimes accuse me of knowing a lot. “Stephen,” they say, accusingly, “you know a lot.” This is a bit like telling a person who has a few grains of sand clinging to him that he owns much sand. When you consider the vast amount of sand there is in the world such a person is, to all intents and purposes, sandless. We are all sandless. We are all ignorant. There are beaches and deserts and dunes of knowledge whose existence we have never even guessed at, let alone visited.
It’s the ones who think they know what there is to be known that we have to look out for. “All is explained in this text – there is nothing else you need to know,” they tell us. For thousands of years we have put up with this kind of thing. Those who said, “Hang on, I think we might be ignorant, let’s see…” were made to drink poison, or had their eyes put out and their bowels drawn out through their botties.
We are perhaps now more in danger of thinking we know everything than we were even in those dark times of religious superstition (if indeed they have gone away”). Today we have the whole store of human knowledge a mouse-click away, which is all very fine and dandy, but it’s in danger of becoming just another sacred text. What we need is a treasure house, not of knowledge, but of ignorance. Something that gives not answers but questions. Something that shines light, not on already garish facts, but into the dark, damp corners of ignorance. And volume you have in your hands is just such a blazing torch which can help us embark upon the journey of dumbing up.
Read it wisely, Little One, for the power of ignorance is great.”
The first reference to the word know, is more about a belief of something to be true without much evidence. The second use is that it is known and backed with evidence. Truly human knowledge is only provisional and continues to be provisional, the knowledge claims that people make today are mainly used to benefit themselves, to control the consensus gentium. And consensus gentium is the lowest value if any, and contains then same amount of validity, because when people get together they form either mob mentality or mass hysteria and that causes horrible things to happen. For example the crusades was that of consensus gentium as well as the holocaust, slavery, the worst things in human history were committed by groups of people not one man. The greatest acts of human kindness or spokespersons for humane treatment, were just that individual persons to stand up for the right things, because they knew by themselves what was right and wrong, they decided by them self, Dr. King, Ghandi, didn't use a group of people to decide, because they knew that nothing good would happen, but that they had to convince the group they were talking to. In the end the consensus gentium is completely useless for a valuable knowledge claim, but to spread rumors and lies there is nothing that can do that better.
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