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On first glance, it is difficult to imagine my knowledge is influenced by me.

We all believe knowledge of nominal world is gained through our sensory inputs (from the five senses -sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste). This knowledge is empirical knowledge. These inputs rely on instruments that are so individual, no two instruments read identical data from same event, for example, for someone who is color blind, world is in all shades of gray.

Now let me give an example to prove senses alone cannot provide all the knowledge.

Matt is at the baseball game; he saw John ready to bat at home plate. Matt went to get a drink from the concession stand. When he came back, he saw John is on the second base. Now there are two distinct sensory inputs, 1) John is on home plate 2) John is on second base. What senses cannot provide is causality of events. Immanuel Kant explained this in detail and filled the gaps in theory of empirical philosophers. There is a real cause for John to move to second base from home plate. Our intuition provides answers for the causality to organize and make sense of enormous number of inputs, we receive from senses continuously. In this case, Matt assumes John had a double because of his high opinion of John’s batting record. In real world, this could be true, or John might have scored a single and reached second base on an error.  Even in this simple situation, our intuition may serve us wrong.

What I know to be true is somehow tainted by my own influence. The more tainted knowledge I accumulate, the further it takes me in the path of erroneous conclusions. At some point in the journey, the reason will be so far removed from events, what was unbelievable a few years ago will become the hypothesis on which all future knowledge will rely. Thus, link between events and causality is broken and one will live in world that borders on delusion.

These days, social media is controlling information flow, one wonders how much of our intuition is corrupted by the constant biased messaging.  One must reject any information, favorable or otherwise, that deviates too much from one’s own understanding. A study and through analysis with considering both sides of argument should provide better balance and peace of mind. One should not only read publications that present favorable topics, should also study what the opposition is arguing about.

Always remember that no one knows the nominal world in its true manifestation. Don’t throw the spear where you saw the fish, throw it where the fish will be. Use sensory data to arrive at reasonable conclusions with an unbiased intuition.