wenglund wrote:Hi Runtu,
Here is an abbreviated version of how I "know" that the sky is blue:
1. Through the sensory mechanism of my eye, and by way of the filtering and organizing mechanism of my brain, I sense and perceive certain wavelengths of light.
OK, so this part would be subjective perception, right?
2. As a child, my parents and others ostensibly taught me that a certain perceived wavelength of light is a color called "blue". For example, my Mom would point to various objects and tell me that they are blue. Some of the objects were darker in color than the others and some lighter, and from that I learned that there is a range of colors that are called "blue". My Mom would also point at objects that were not called "blue", so as to help me discriminate between the range of colors called "blue" and those that were not blue.
This part would be subjective acceptance of others' subjective perceptions.
3. When I ventured outside, I noticed that the thing I had ostensibly been taught to call "sky", had various colors that I recognized as falling in the range of what I had ostensibly learned as "blue". And, when I would point to the sky and say "blue", my Mom would say, "yes, Wade, that is blue."
More subjectivity here.
4. Through extensive experience with others, where we each were looking at the same thing we all called "sky" and considered it "blue", I was able to take my perception and congitively form them into conceptulizations, then utilize those to comprehend, apply in varied circumstance, analyize, synthisize, and evaluate. As a result I grew in confidence that there is a sky and that sky is blue.
So, in other words, the more other people agreed with you, the more confident you were in your subjective perception.
5. While attending school, I learned about science (physics) and how instruments have been developed to measure wavelengths of light, and how those instruments could be used to determine if various objects reflect the wavelength of light we called "blue". I learned that by using these instruments, they measure the sky as "blue". Also, I was taught how various elements in the upper atmosphere we called "sky", worked together to reflect light in the color we called "blue". So, through scientific means I was better equiped, epistemically, to percieve, conceptualiz, comprehend, apply, analize, synthesize, and evaluate, and thereby grow in greater confidence that the sky was blue, to the point where I felt it appropriate to say "I know the sky is blue".
So, you don't really have an objective way of determining whether something actually is blue, but you subjectively trust those who say they have such a means of proof. Is this right?
Implicit in all these statements is the idea that there is some underlying reality that one can actually approach. Granted, your approach is a little more subjectively grounded than the postmoderns, but only by degrees.
Now, let's apply your process to Mormonism. How does one approach knowledge that Mormonism is true? Is it the same basically subjective process involving trust in shared experience, or is there something else going on?