The personal development quest probably involves the questions: How do we become happy, or stay happy? How do we flourish? What should we do or be doing? Why are we here? Who or what are we? What is reality? Any answer or answers to these and other important questions in turn raise the question, 'How do you know that?' This means that we need to know how we know things and to what degree we can trust the answers and the questions. It becomes more important when people have turned to powerful people, organisations, or cultures which claim to ask the right questions and give the right answers. We need to be able to ask, 'How do they know this?' and know what sort of answers are going to be satisfactory. In the well known illusion, the two horizontal lines are equal in length, but one looks longer than the other. Now the top line looks longer to me than the bottom one. However, both are really the same length. So what am I seeing? Am I seeing the real lines? Presumably not, because the real lines are the same length and these look different.

So where are the illusory lines? Clearly not where I am looking because the real lines are there. And they are the same length. So I am not looking where the real lines are, but somewhere else. Also I am not looking at the real lines, but at something else. Something has got to be wrong with my perception or my thinking here. Something is deceiving me.

Consider this classic illusion below:

Some people quite clearly see a picture of a young woman. Others see a picture of an old woman. Sometimes people quarrel quite vigourously and maintain that their impression is correct. When we get used to the picture we see the two pictures of the old woman and the young one. But others see other things in the picture! Can you see the rat?

Once again, we have the question where is the picture of the young woman, when the picture appears to be that of an old woman? Where is the picture of the old woman when the picture appears to be that of the young woman? What am I looking at, in either case? Clearly not a picture of an old woman or a young woman, and clearly not both! Nor is it a changing picture, because by all other tests, the ink on the drawing does not change. The change occurs in our own minds. And what we see is clearly in our own minds. Now what does this tell us when we perceive 'normally?' Yet even when we observe common objects, such as bent sticks in the water, and train lines that appear to converge at a distance, we are clearly being deceived. We are even more likely to be deceived when we consider ideas. Can we therefore ever be arrogantly sure of being right about ideas again? We could claim that we know that the illusions are false because under some conditions we can 'see' accurately. Scientists usually specify very accurately the conditions under which they carried out their experiments. Yet, if the conditions are not the same on further occasions, how can we believe that the results are true. (Does what works in the lab work in the field?) In the same way, are we seeing a straight stick in the water which looks bent. Or are we seeing, outside the water, a bent stick which looks straight? Which is true? Further, what can we as humans actually know? Can we know about life after death? About reincarnation? Can we know about our real nature? What is knowledge?

In normal conversation we use knowledge to mean:

• Knowing that (facts and information)

• Knowing how (the ability to do something)

Sometimes, we use the word knowledge to mean that we have some information, we know that Mary drinks lemonade, for example. When we have this type of knowledge then we are able to express it. I cannot say that I know when the Battle of Hastings took place, if I cannot, under any circumstances, say the date! This is not true of knowing how.

If I know how to swim, then when placed in the water I make certain movements and do not sink! However, I may be unable to say how, exactly, I am able to swim. Knowing how does not mean I know that ... If I cannot say the date of the Battle of Hastings, I cannot be said to know it. But if, while swimming, I cannot tell you exactly how I do it, you cannot say I don't know how to swim!

Failing to understand the above can lead us into certain fallacies. If we get instruction from the best public speaker in the world, it does not mean that because he or she can speak excellently, that they know how to instruct others. They might be able to say what they do. For example they might say how they practice. But this might work for them and not for others! A much less able public speaker, or even one who might never have spoken in public might be a much better teacher. The point is that knowing that and knowing how are two different kinds of knowledge!

There are three ways we might say that something is true:

1. It is self-evident?

2. It accords with the facts?

3. It is consistent with our knowledge and reasoning?

Intuition

To know something is the case without reasoning or using sense experience is to use intuition. For example, in 'a straight line is the shortest line that can be drawn connecting two points,' we do not imagine every possible scenario, let alone observe every case, nor do we use reason. It is something we intuitively know as true. (Even if it isn't true in all mathematical systems!) Likewise, if we recognise something as great art, then we may not be able to categorise every reason that makes it great art. Similarly, in English, no one can state the rules for the use of the word 'the' in every case, but native speakers intuitively know what is right.

However, have you ever refused to do something because you were afraid? Have you ever felt that something could be so good for you that you jumped in without thinking? Aren't some things which are so obvious at the time, later considered rash and misguided? Does this mean that intuition depends on such things as:

• Being free of early trauma?

• Being unselfish?

• Being free of cultural conditioning?

• Being unemotional?

• Using reason to dispel the irrational?

Strictly, intuition is a clear, certain and immediate knowledge that something is so. Some types of intuition, such as knowing that a given artifact is a valuable antique may require that we know about antiques. So other types of knowledge are important. The list of conditions above for true intuition are a rough jotting down of ideas, rather than a comprehensive list. Reason is mentioned in the sense that for an intuition to be true it might have to agree with other knowledge. This does not mean that the intuition was arrived at by reasoning (which is contradictory), simply that reason might be needed to support it or to eliminate barriers to intuition.

According with fact

Suppose we all landed on Mars, a dusty dead planet. I see a bunch of grapes growing on a vine. I look away, and look back and they are still there. I eat one, and carry out various tests, all proving that there is a bunch of grapes growing on a vine. I call you over, and you to can see and experience the grapes. (Or you say you can't see them, and that's the end of it, I'm hallucinating!) We involve others and they all see the grapes and have the same experiences (by now they've probably eaten most of them, though.) Do we conclude that there is a vine with grapes growing on Mars, a dead planet with no water, or what? The evidence accords with the facts, so I suppose we do.

Is consistent with our knowledge.

So back to Earth we go. 'How was Mars,' they say and we tell them about the grapes. What is their reaction? Pull the other one! 'Vines grow on soil with water. You didn't see any grapes or a vine.'

And are they right?

Yes. These observations are so inconsistent with our whole body of knowledge that they just aren't acceptable. No water, no grapes!

Suppose we say, 'Well, go and look for yourselves!', and off they go and low and behold they see the grapes. In this case, they have to change their theories. However, on most occasions this will not occur. We may well have thought we saw grapes, but what we really saw was different. Some Alien playing a trick? Hypnotism? Space hallucinations? But not grapes!

Does this sound like some group of arrogant scientists opposing challenging theories and experimental results? Does this show a lack of open-mindedness? Does it mean that consistency with other knowledge is not a guarantee of truth?

It appears that consistency with other knowledge is an essential of something being true, if we take knowledge to mean that it is true. However, what we claim as knowledge now, might not be what we claim in a 100 years time. Therefore what we now think is knowledge might be false.

In the Mars example, if the evidence we gave about the grapes were reliable, then further investigation would be required. If the grapes were videoed, and otherwise tested and we brought a sample back then our story would be all the more believable. But consider other examples.

A certain Eastern guru can make diamonds appear out of thin air. Is this believable? Of course not. It does not accord with what we know about science. Also, if such a person could do this wouldn't they be rich? Feed the starving? Help the suffering and the sick? If they, as holy people are above this sort of thing, how come they are not above showing off in front of their disciples? Sounds more like a charlatan than a shaman, doesn't it?

We might conclude from this that we can trust our judgements on the truth of sense experiences, intuitions, and evaluation of information if we do this while in the right conditions and if our observations accord with fact and knowledge.

None of the above guarantee truth. We need to use all of them to

Questions

1. (Of an intuition) Is this self evidently true? Am I being influenced by strong emotion or desire? Am I being influenced by my past experience? Early experience?

2. (Of fact or information) Does it accord with fact, experiment, experience? Am I observing under the right circumstances and conditions?

3. (General) Does it agree with what I already know about the subject? Does it agree with common sense
   

In the last article we suggested that truth should be consistent with our knowledge and reason. Reason can mean something like common sense, and consistent with our knowledge. Another sense of reason is logical, which can have two meanings. When we say that Harry is the logical choice of candidate for the job, we mean consistent with the facts. In this article we are going to use logical to mean valid reasoning. statements, etc can be impossible in the following ways:

1. Logically impossible.

2. Impossible in principle.

3. Impossible in practice.

Logically impossible

If I say: I was both at home and in town at a certain time, then this is logically impossible. I cannot be both located at home and be in town at the same time. This is logically impossible. Similarly, if my thoughts and the chemical and electrical events in the brain are the same, then when I look at them, both should look the same. If two things are the same thing then they are in the same place and have the same qualities. As my thoughts and chemical and electrical events in the brain do not have the same qualities, then they are not the same thing. It is logically impossible.

If something is logically impossible then it cannot be true. Further it cannot be true in any universe. This is the conventional view.

In modern times, however, quantum theory tells us that an electron is both in one position and at the same time in many other positions. This statement is logically inconsistent, and therefore nonsense. However, quantum theory is a very good theory in physics and predicts many new phenomenon. This too is inconsistent! (If the theory is illogical then it is nonsense, and nonsense cannot be a good theory!) We are going to ignore the implications of Quantum Theory here because:

• The mathematics used to derive it is not irrational. Presumably the proof doesn't involve sudden inconsistent jumps in reasoning, so the irrationality may be the difficulty in translating from mathematics to everyday English.

• Many thinkers, such as Einstein and Schrodinger (who developed the basic wave equation that is the basis of Quantum Theory) have very strongly opposed the interpretations of this theory in everyday language. (Schrodinger argued for the rest of his life against the interpretations of his equation!)

• Although it is claimed that there are no known disproof of Quantum Theory, clearly Quantum Theory doesn't work in the Middle Realm because footballs, for example, do not appear and disappear like electrons do in the Quantum Realm. We are not both out shopping and at home!

• Quantum physicists do not claim that at the very instant they are observing measurements indicating, for example,  a sugar molecule is present they are at the same time receiving measurements that a water molecule is present!

• They do not claim that Schroedinger's cat is observed both as a living mewing being and a dead one at the same time. They say that 'according to Quantum Theory it is both dead and alive', not that anyone sees it simultaneously in both states!

We will anyway assert that if something is illogical, it cannot be possible in any universe. A square circle cannot exist, even in a dream, because if it were square, it wouldn't be a circle! If anyone claimed to see a square circle we would simply ask if it had sides. If the answer was, yes, then it wasn't a circle, and if the answer was, no, then it wouldn't be a square!

Did you think, 'Why can't two things exist in the same space? After all, matter is supposed to mostly space so there is plenty of room.' If you did you would be making a mistake. We are not saying that two things can't exist in the same space at the same time, after all, sugar and water when mixed together do. However, the sugar and water molecules are not existing in exactly the same space. If in a given space there is a water molecule, then there isn't a sugar molecule there at that same instant of time!

Time Travel

It is claimed that time travel is impossible, logically. If I could travel in time, then I could in principle go back and murder my father when he was a baby. As he wouldn't then grow up and beget me then I wouldn't exist. If I didn't exist, then I couldn't go back in time to murder my father. Therefore, as he would grow up and beget me I would exist. As I can't both exist and not exist, which is what time travel implies, then time travel is impossible. It is not merely impossible, it is logically impossible. Therefore cannot occur.

The purpose of logic is not be arrogant and to have a closed mind. Nor is it to refuse to investigate things when there seems to be some information supporting them, even if they are illogical as we conceive them. However, if something is illogical then it is impossible.

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