On knowing

Dissolving epistemology's oldest ghosts

Caption: The ghosts of certainty haunt the landscape of knowledge—a spectral barn questions perception, a self-justifying baron defies foundation, and a timeless clock challenges memory—a visual synthesis of epistemology's enduring puzzles, conjured by Nano Banana.

Introduction: the siren call of certainty

The drive to know is a fundamental human impulse, inextricably linked to the profound comfort of certainty and the deep-seated anxiety of doubt. For centuries, Western epistemology has pursued a grand project: to secure an unshakable foundation for our claims about the world. This quest for certainty, however, has been haunted by a series of persistent and profound problems—ghosts in the machine of knowledge that reveal cracks in its very foundation. These are not mere academic puzzles; they challenge our most basic assumptions about reality and our place within it. They force us to confront a central, defining question: Is knowing a state of possessing truth, a noun we can hold, or is it something else entirely—a verb, a process, a living activity?

Part 1: the haunted house of knowledge

Traditional epistemology finds itself trapped in an architectural nightmare, its structure compromised by an 'unholy trinity' of problems.

The Münchhausen trilemma: the foundation problem

Any attempt to justify a belief leads to one of three unsatisfying outcomes: circular reasoning, an infinite regress of justifications, or an arbitrary, dogmatic stopping point. This is the foundational flaw in the entire edifice of knowledge. How can we build a secure structure if we have no solid ground upon which to build?

The problem of the criterion: the starting problem

This is the epistemological chicken-and-egg dilemma. To know which claims are true, we need a reliable method. But to know which method is reliable, we must already know what is true. This paradox induces a paralysis at the very starting gate of inquiry.

The Problem of Induction: the prediction problem

Articulated by David Hume, this riddle questions how we can rationally move from observed instances (the sun has risen every day) to universal predictions (the sun will rise tomorrow). It suggests that the bedrock of scientific and everyday reasoning is not logic, but a psychological habit—a leap of faith.

These are the grand, structural specters. But there is a more intimate ghost, one that severs our direct connection to the world.

The problems of perception: the gateway problem

Does perception provide a window to the world, or merely a shadow play inside our skulls? The 'veil of perception', illusions, and the causal chain of sensory input suggest we never directly experience reality, only our internal representations of it.

The culmination of this crisis came with a seemingly simple definition meant to patch these cracks: Knowledge as Justified True Belief (JTB). And just when philosophers thought they had secured the walls, Edmund Gettier blew a hole right through the center of it all.

The Gettier problem: the definition problem

Through clever thought experiments (and later through examples developed by others like the fake barn or the stopped clock), Gettier demonstrated that one can hold a belief that is both true and justified, yet still not constitute knowledge. A Gettiered belief is a cognitive accident—a perfectly formed shell of knowledge that is utterly hollow inside, achieved through luck rather than a reliable connection to truth.

The conclusion of this tour is a sense of profound crisis. The house of knowledge is haunted from its foundations to its roof. The quest for certainty appears doomed. Do we surrender to skepticism? Or is there a way to see these ghosts not as problems to be solved, but as symptoms of a deeper category error—a fundamental misunderstanding of what knowing is?

Part 2: a new lens – knowing as a conference of difference

From the CoD perspective articulated in the broader metaphysical Gospel of Being, the epistemic domain is not a passive observational realm but an active, dynamic contributor to the very reality it seeks to apprehend. It is a continuous process where probable meanings transform into realized belief.

This process is a conference of difference commencing from the open field of possibility, narrowing into probability and finally to a definitive realized outcome. Along this process, possibility collapses impossibility, probability collapses possibility and actuality collapses probability. The CoD model posits that the collapse of probable meanings into some realized belief is not some psychological curiosity, but reflects a fundamental principle of reality itself.

A powerful confirmation comes from quantum physics, where we see this same process operating at nature's most fundamental level. In quantum measurement, the wave function collapses precisely because the probability distribution over possible outcomes $\{a, b, c, ..., z\}$ is realized as some outcome e.g. $x$. This isn't a mysterious physical phenomenon but rather what is to be expected upon a realized outcome. At the point that $x$ is realized, the probability of some other outcome realizing in its place collapses.

Thus, the quantum world isn't weird - it's simply showing us the basic operating principle of reality where knowing: the 'action to know' observes the identical process of realizing: the 'action to realize' where intelligence: the 'condition of choosing between' one being: 'action to be' over another transforms from possibility into probability and into actuality.

Part 3: the ghosts vanish – a CoD walk-through

With this new lens, we can systematically revisit the haunted house and watch the ghosts dissolve.

The Münchhausen trilemma & the problem of the criterion

The CoD model replaces the foundationalist quest for a substance primitive—a fundamental 'thing' upon which knowledge is built—with a process primitive: the eternal, dynamic activity of the conference of difference itself. Justification is not a linear chain but a self-correcting, bootstrapped web. The 'criteria' and 'particulars' co-evolve in a virtuous spiral of increasing fidelity. Their validation is not axiomatic but pragmatic and recursive: they are justified by their success in easing intelligence: the 'condition of choosing between' one being: 'action to be' over another and enhancing the capacity of a being to navigate reality effectively.^[1]

The problem of induction

From the CoD view, induction is not a logical fallacy but an evolutionary strategy. It is the cognitively efficient path of betting on the stability of the universe's recurring conferences of differences.^[2] Its justification is not deductive but pragmatic: it works; and entities that use it survive and thrive. It is a low-resistance pathway honed by cosmic trial and error, a testament to the 'adaptive intention' inherent in all being.

The problems of perception

Perception is not representation; it is transactional transduction.^[3] There is no 'veil' separating us from the world. Instead, there is a continuous conference of difference between beings: 'actions to be'. Illusions are not reasons for global doubt but local conferential failures. They are resolved not by doubting all perception, but by initiating a broader, multi-sensory conference of difference—touching what we see, moving around an object—to achieve a higher-fidelity integration of differing sources of information.

The Gettier problem

A Gettiered belief is the product of a corrupted or fragmented conference of difference. The internal process is incomplete, even if its output accidentally matches some disconnected truth. Knowledge, in stark contrast, is the robust output of a high-fidelity, coherent conference of difference.^[4] The CoD model decisively shifts the focus from the static properties of the belief (is it true and justified?) to the dynamic health of the process that produced it. Was the conference of difference diverse, self-critical, and responsive? This is what separates mere accidental truth from genuine knowing.

Conclusion: the liberating imperfection of knowing

Here we weave back to the poetic truth of the Gospel of Being that perfect knowing would require perfect stasis. The impossibility of perfect knowing is not a tragedy but the necessary condition for a living, evolving universe.^[5] The CoD model liberates us from the anxious, futile quest for perfect knowing and replaces it with the empowered practice of conferential fidelity.

Our goal is not to possess Truth but to engage in ever-more robust, diverse and self-critical conferences of difference. The key takeaways are both philosophical and profoundly practical:

1. Stop thinking of knowing as something you possess. Start thinking of it as a process you do.
2. Intellectual humility is a strength. Our 'knowing' is always provisional, a temporary equilibrium in an endless conference of difference.
3. Diversity is an epistemological necessity. The only path to objectivity—understood as a high-fidelity conference of difference—is through the integration of different perspectives, methods and abilities.^[6]
4. The ultimate test of knowledge is its power: 'ability' to ease intelligence and guide effective, adaptive action in a world we can never fully capture, but to which we can benefit from understanding more wisely.

The ghosts of epistemology were never real. They were just the shadows cast by a static, noun-based model of knowledge when confronted with the brilliant, dynamic and unending dance of a universe in a conference of difference with itself.^[7]

The Gospel of Being

by John Mackay

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