knowledge and power

ultimately, questioning the pursuit of knowledge for underlying political reasons does not make the knowledge any less objective. rather, representationally speaking, it reflects bias based on the distribution of power. that being said, it can't be proven that one representation of knowledge is any more or less true than another. so, we have objective truth about reality which results in objective knowledge, but the representation of that objective knowledge in turn gives us a subjective experience of truth because we access that knowledge differently and uniquely for each given situation. if we focus on our knowing in a given situation, our knowledge is still objective, but the experience of knowing, in the representation of knowledge being a unique totality of a certain combination of objective truths, is subjective, and thus in retrieving objective knowledge we have a subjective experience of truth, although our understanding of the truth is still objective. having a subjective experience of the truth is in essence a "trivial truth", meaning it is true when taken at its most literal, but for the sake of our definition of knowledge, it does not affect our ability to gain objective knowledge from objective truth, and for the knowing of an objective truth to be derived from this objective knowledge. for clarification's sake, let's assume that access to "objective truth in reality" loosely resembles what modern philosophers called empiricism; in my own terminology, i would refer to it as "immediately cognitively accessible truth", meaning what we perceive and process in cognition in a short time span to state austere observations about the world around us. the cumulative effect of one's "immediately cognitively accessible truths", being the meeting of the total summation of one's previous immediately cognitively accessible truths manifested through some sort of internal cognitive state which is expressed in some form, is what i will call a "cumulative understanding of truth". this is different from a subjective experience of truth, which is the meeting of the total summation of one's previous immediately cognitively accessible truths manifested through some sort of internal cognitive state with that person's immediate experience with reality. let it be known that "objective truth in reality" refers to obtaining a truth that can in turn be converted into objective knowledge. on the other hand, simply having an immediate experience with reality does not necessarily mean one is obtaining an objective truth in reality, but is in fact experiencing qualitative interaction that has no bearing on building an objective knowledge base per se. of course, one's memory plays a role in the summation of one's previous immediately cognitively accessible truths, with some not being remembered at all, some being remembered just about perfectly, and the whole spectrum in between, so it's not as if we are computers storing information that is instantly and perfectly retrievable on a hard drive. in spite of that, the knowledge we possess, in being imperfect, is still considered objective knowledge. that being said, i hope that clarifies the differences between the two types of truth -- "objective truth in reality" and "cumulative understanding of truth" -- with knowledge being the bridge between the two, an effect of the former and a cause of the latter. now, before we continue, i want to communicate the reasons immediate experiences with reality without accessing objective truth about that reality are not considered part of the truth-knowledge-truth process, thus resulting in a "cumulative understanding of truth" being the final outcome instead of a "subjective experience of truth". 1) immediate experiences are "trivial truths", 2) objective knowledge is flexible in that it is able to accommodate an infinity of possible situations, so it is not necessary to include qualitative aspects of "episodic" experiences in order to broaden the scope of one's knowledge base -- as such, the understanding of truth is objective and is the endpoint of a process of building a knowledge base and ultimately expressing it as how it pertains to something, whereas the experience alone, although cumulative, does not either promote or detract from knowledge, and 3) these qualitative aspects of "episodic" experiences, even if they were included, would not have any use because they do not result in real knowledge since a) they can be reduced to ad hominem, and b) in not being convertible to objective knowledge, do not provide a better understanding of truth, but instead simply constitute experience outside of knowledge, which translates into *existence*. and simple existence does not equate to any sort of truth per se. i realize that there is a fine line between experience which contains objective knowledge and experience which does not contain objective knowledge, and i realize that the two probably do not perfectly ontologically split in our minds according to scientific definitions (thus, for the ontological split to work, it must abstract/metaphysical), reflecting how knowledge and experience are processed and stored in our brains. however, the moment you accept all immediate experiences with reality in summation as contributing to knowledge and use it in the definition of "cumulative understanding of truth" instead of for the "experience of truth" *or*, working backwards, deeming the "experience of truth" as the "cumulative understanding of truth", thus forcing you to accept all immediate experiences with reality in summation as contributing to knowledge, then you have to redefine "objective truth in reality" as containing a subjective experiential component, at which point our objective truth in reality is colored by subjectivity, and thus we don't have objective truth in reality, and so our knowledge from whatever truth we accessed in reality is subjective instead of objective. i addressed and refuted attacks on the objectivity of knowledge in my previous blog entry, which would negate admitting all immediate experiences with reality in summation in the definition of "cumulative truth". so i admit that there is a subjective component involved in experiencing the truth, but that this experience is unique to that moment and has no consequential bearing on states of knowledge, only on states of experience. furthermore, even if one were to separate the objective from subjective components in immediate experiences with reality, both subjective and objective components would still be admitted in summation in the definition of "cumulative truth". while on the surface this might appear as a viable solution, it is against the interests of those who want to claim that knowledge and power are interdependent, for the inequality that exists can no longer be isolated in institutions or other social mechanisms, but in the inherent nature of each individual's unique existence due to the subjective components; it does not matter whether the subjective components are intertwined with the objective ones, or whether they are ontologically separate -- inequality inherently exists in the nature of each individual's unique existence, whereas without the subjective aspects inequality is simply based on differences in objective knowledge among people. as such, instead of a perfect representation of knowledge existing as the end goal, a perfect existence must also be an end goal, and since existence is the interaction of human life with its surroundings, this also entails that a perfect world is an end goal. and as i've previously mentioned, this is all a misunderstanding, confusing experience and existence outside of knowledge with knowledge, thus ultimately equating truth and existence as one and the same. by doing this, however, the ideas of a perfect existence and a perfect world are completely arbitrary, and you are stuck with two undesirable options: either imperfect existences are untrue, or all existences are equally true, in which case the pursuit of an imperfect existence is just as valid as the pursuit of a perfect existence. the former is a rather extreme definition of what humanity should entail, and the latter basically, even though it succeeds, via reduction of truth to knowledge and existence to power (think of the reduction of existence to power as being the inherent genetic and environmental inequalities that entail each individual's existence in raw form outside of established culture and society), in establishing that knowledge and power are one and the same, it does so with the denotation that no forms of knowledge and power are more desirable than others, and therefore there is no effective difference between existing in a present state and existing in a future state, so there is no point in trying to effect change to alter a future state from its currently assumed course. in short, it renders having ideals or any sort of ideology as completely useless, thus causing us to be better off abandoning them simply because it requires more energy to believe in ideals than it does to simply exist in the present without exerting thought about the future.

now that that's been cleared up, we can proceed with the remainder of the material. to say that a subjective understanding of truth in turn going back results in subjective knowledge is to say that we could have a top-down understanding (as opposed to the traditional/enlightenment of slowly building from the bottom to the top) of what knowledge is that is objective and would in turn going back would result in objective knowledge -- one proposed version of this is reflected in some leftist academics wanting equal funding for all disciplines. however, the problem is that since we need knowledge in order to establish an understanding of truth and we cannot accurately predict where the pursuit of knowledge will take us in any discipline, we cannot have objective understanding of truth before we have objective knowledge; defining what the objective understanding of truth is is putting the cart before the horse. in short, we are being asked to predict the future without the means of being able to so; we are expected to have knowledge of what we do not have knowledge of. because we cannot predict the future accurately, top-down understanding of knowledge would certainly differ between what knowledge would produce and what one would expect or want that knowledge to produce, even using the best, unbiased estimates. if we don't achieve the perfect representation of the understanding of truth, the top-down understanding cannot be completely objective and completely accurate. so the problems this presents are: 1) in order to reject power's effect on our understanding of truth, one must believe that there is a single, objective truth, and 2) in doing so, one must abandon all notions of idealism (idealism as in clinging to an ideology, wanting reality to be significantly different from the way it is without providing just evidence as to how it change it in such a short period of time, etc.). in addition to knowing what end-goal gives us objective understanding of truth, a person must know that the rate at which the knowledge is produced -- not just the end-goal -- is also inherently objective, meaning that starting from the beginning of knowledge, there is only one valid representatively proportional way to arrive at an objective understanding of truth, because otherwise there is an imbalanced approach to the end-goal, which is no different from the way it is in reality at present -- it is currently imbalanced at this time -- except in terms of magnitude and efficiency. so there is not only a single truth, but a single changing truth at any given moment that must be accounted for. so, in order for one to accomplish objective knowledge that results in the objective understanding of truth, one must have absolute power and be able to predict the future from beginning to end (from the moment one seizes absolute power, which coincides with the beginning of knowledge production, to the end of the production of knowledge). but since knowledge production has not been equal in all areas up to this point in reality, if one were to take over with absolute power at any given moment, he/she would be faced with numerous ways of approaching the end-goal of objective understanding of truth, none of which give people an objective understanding of truth before achieving the end-goal. so while it is possible that one could do a better job of reaching the end-goal than the current societal system allows for, it is still an imperfect route and thus only differs from reality at present in terms of magnitude and efficiency, both of which assume that a person with absolute power would know how to go about pursuing knowledge to arrive at an objective understanding of truth in a more accurate and timely fashion. and of course, this assumes someone gaining absolute power, which in and of itself is a ridiculous idea on all levels, including everything from needing to basically defy reality in order to gain absolute power to the infinite capacity for abuse of power. otherwise, we are left at the mercy of the way things are. however, while it is true that power shapes our understanding of truth, unless academia completely censors certain areas of knowledge pursuit, all areas of knowledge are asymptotically helping us reach the desired end-goal of full knowledge in all areas. thus, the problem is that there is inequality among different areas of knowledge so far on the road to arriving at the end-goal. however, since the production of knowledge is inherently unpredictable, there is no proof that pursuing knowledge equally in all areas from a uniform starting point at present in terms of funding and interest, let alone at the beginning of knowledge, will result in a better understanding of truth than pursuing knowledge within the power structures of contemporary society and academia. there is a difference in practicality, however, as the latter is realizable and the former is simply a fantasy. to illustrate how the unpredictability of knowledge can sometimes result in a disproportionate approach to the pursuit of knowledge rather than a proportionate approach fulfilling the goals of the proportionate approach more quickly and effectively, consider the following example: assume there are only two areas funded -- science and minority studies. now, if reality and the inherent power structure causes more funding to go to science over minority studies, then one might conclude that this would result in less knowledge acquired in the area of minority studies, and accordingly, less of an ability for minorities to intellectually and factually prove how they are oppressed and thus be less able to convince majority people to be more sympathetic towards them and help them. however, since science forms the foundations for technological innovation, and let's assume that a certain newly-discovered technology thanks to the extra funding for science is used by minority artists, and their art reaches majority people and convinces them through artistic experience that minority people are oppressed and deserve more sympathy and help, then it has turned out that investing more resources in science than minority studies unexpectedly has turned out to help minority people more than if more resources had been invested in minority studies over science. now, while it is true that academic knowledge per se was not gained in minority studies, it did reap benefits on several levels: 1) it has helped spread exposure to minority art, which not only influenced majority people, but also helped minorities establish a stronger sense of self-identity and increase the rate at which new artistic ideas were produced, and 2) it has achieved the end-goal of socio-political change, only through the unintended means of art through technology, not through the conventional academic route. however, since people ultimately like to blame knowledge as being subject to power and thus essentially be a political tool of the elite, #2 demonstrates how knowledge that is perceived to be disproportionally represented as a result of power enforced through the societal system can sometimes unintentionally result in political ends that are in direct opposition to the goals of the elite through their use of power. as such, the production of knowledge must be viewed as having both liberating and oppressive potentials, and while there might be a correlation between power's means and ends (#2 being a counter-example to this), and thus reason for people wanting to amend the current academic system that produces knowledge, they do so only with good intentions and probability working in their favor, not with absolute or anywhere near absolute certainty that their intentions, if implemented, will result in the desired socio-political end-goals. as such, it is grossly irresponsible to reduce knowledge to power via our subjective understanding of truth. thus, instead of ultimately attacking the objectivity of knowledge, i think that it is best to advocate academic changes that are reasonably supported by evidence, but to do anything beyond this is in my opinion an unjustified embracement of sheer ideology without any understanding about the incompatibility of many ideologies with reality. furthermore, i believe that enough "equality" or proportionality exists in academia so that any reasonably smart and open-minded person who is interested in learning all perspectives and all subject matter in the world can achieve an understanding of truth that is representationally appropriate and as close to objective as is humanly possible at present.