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Clear as Mud ... (or, definitive proof you know everything)

9/17/2017

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Picture

...

Let me prove to you unambiguously that you know everything.

Begin:

1: To yourself, your ideas and your sensations are everything that exist.

2: Therefore, you have access to everything that exists.

Conclusion: As all the following are included in "everything":
you know everything,
understand everything,
feel everything,
sense everything,
do everything,
try everything,
are everything.

Done.

I will now allow you to state your objections to my logic and conclusion, if you hold any.

...

10 such objections follow:

Objection 1:
But what about knowledge you do not know yet, say, that others have?


Response:
The idea that there is knowledge you do not yet have only exists in you, not in anyone else. Therefore this does not show that there exists something outside of you which you do not have. The conclusion stands.


Objection 2:
But, in my life I have learned things I did not know before? Does not this mean the same is true for now, that there are things yet to learn?


Response:
You prove only that existence is subject to change, not that there is anything that exists that you do not know. You have not disproven the conclusion.


Objection 3:
Surely I know more now than I did when I was born. Can I be said to have known everything when I was born if I know more now?


Response:
I cannot claim you knew everything when you were a baby, only that you know it now.


Objection 4:
But let’s go back in time: could you say I knew everything when I was a baby?


Response:
Yes, the conclusion is true for everyone for which the premises are true, and as the premises are true for a baby, so the conclusion is true for a baby as well.


Objection 5:
You seem to contradict yourself. You claim I know everything now, and cannot claim I knew everything as a baby. Indeed, as a baby I must not have known everything, because I knew different than I know now wherein you say I know everything. Yet you also claim, that if we went back in time you would say I did in fact know everything as a baby. How can this be so?


Response:
When you were a baby, you, as you are now, did not exist yet. So there was no one to contradict the conclusion. As you exist now, there is no you as a baby, so there is no one to contradict the conclusion. The conclusion cannot be contradicted in this way.


Objection 6:
You say I understand everything, yet I feel I am confused. How can you say this about me? Don’t only I know whether I understand or not?


Response:
Even in your confusion, you understand the fact that you are confused. This is all there is to understand, and you understand it. The conclusion holds.


Objection 7:
But how can confusion exist then? Aren’t you just redefining words to say I am not confused when I feel I am?


Response:
There is nothing in my conclusion to say that confusion does not exist. Certainly it does. You wrongly assume confusion and understanding are not compatible.


Objection 8:
But I seek to eliminate my confusion!


Response:
That may be, but it does not contradict the conclusion. I will give you, however, that confusion is rid by inspecting the sources from where it comes. Know why you are confused, and you will no longer be confused.


Objection 9:
But if I already know and understand everything, what is the point of learning? How can I ever improve? Or why would I want to?


Response:
Everything is always in flux, as I’ve told you. The point of learning is change, which you are free to do if you like.


Objection 10:
It seems, upon questioning, that all your insights are reduced to mere simple definitions, like some sort of tautology. It seems you are telling me nothing I do not already know.


Response: Correct.
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