As part of an interesting discussion on knowledge, belief, faith and religion, I was told these exact words – “Beliefs and knowledge are mutually exclusive.  You either have a belief in something or you have knowledge about something.  You cannot have a belief in knowledge“. There are many others who have similarly asserted this difference, and even the superiority of what they called scientifically acquired knowledge over, say, religious beliefs and faith. I have always thought of belief and knowledge as the effectively the same, the difference between the two being  significant only when we believe there’s one omniscient source that can be trusted to tell true beliefs from false ones. In other words, the difference between “I think/believe” and “I know” is only in the degree of conviction of the believer/knower.To take an example, consider the statement “I know that the earth is flat“. This is what many people would have said many centuries ago because that is what everyday experience told them. Some time later there were some who said “I believe the earth is spherical“, because some of their observations suggested this possibility. Over time, when more and more people subscribed to this view, people started saying “I know that the earth is spherical“, and this is what we believe today. Is there a reason  (which itself is not subject to change) to believe that this knowledge would not change again in future? To emphasize this possibility, we might very well say, “Today we believe that the earth is spherical“. The difference between this statement and an assertion of knowledge is only in the degree of conviction we have in our belief.

Let us now turn to the ways in which knowledge and beliefs are acquired. Usually, both are acquired through the same means. There are at least two important ones among these, analyzing which will strengthen our case that knowledge and beliefs are not distinct from each other.

Observation – Knowledge or beliefs acquired through our senses perhaps form a majority, and are also the base for most other beliefs. For example, we know that fire is hot because at some point in our life we have touched it. We make many inferences based on direct observations, which also become part of our beliefs or knowledge. There are some beliefs which are not directly connected to anything we have observed. Though we cannot rule out any subconscious link between that belief and an observation, to give the benefit of doubt to my opponents, I can accept that some beliefs originate in our mind and have no basis in any observation. This, however, is immaterial because, if we look at how our senses work, any information that is gathered by our senses are interpreted by our mind before they become a belief or knowledge. So what we see or hear or smell or taste or touch is actually our mind’s interpretation of what we see or hear or smell or taste or touch. And this interpretation is no more trustworthy than any other thought in our mind, including beliefs that are not based on any observation.

We know very well (or strongly believe) that neither the senses, nor our mind is truly dependable when it comes to gathering knowledge. It would be sufficient to stimulate certain nerves in a prescribed way to give us a sensation of touch, smell, taste, sound or vision. In the layer of mind as well, there are many agents (including chemicals) that can alter what we sense of the external world. Mental disorders such as Schizophrenia are good examples.

Given that we cannot fully trust our senses, and that we cannot be everywhere all the time to sense everything ourselves, we depend on the second source of knowledge/belief, which is testimony. We trust sources which we know/believe to be dependable, and use their inputs to build our knowledge/beliefs. I have not been to Europe, but many sources I trust tell me that there is such a continent, and so I believe it. This is exactly how almost everybody “knows” that the speed of light is constant, or that black-holes exist, or that the universe was formed in a big bang. This is again how many people believe in God, Karma and life-after-death. The best sources also tell us how we can independently verify the veracity of the knowledge they present. This is what modern science claims to do, and this is what seers of India have always done – lay down steps which one can follow to achieve similar results. Some religions ignore this part, just as many beginner level courses in modern science do not go into such details. Nevertheless, if knowledge is based on faith – either in our senses, or in other sources, how is that more dependable than and/or superior to faith itself?

To what extent testimony is dependable is another interesting question. First of all, if we have to read/hear from this trusted source, all the risks associated with trusting our mind and senses are equally present in this case. If I am in a dream, suffering from a terrible disease, I would be able to experience the agony and know that something is wrong. The doctors in the dream would also assure me that my disease is real, and so would all my friends and others in the dream. So I believe/know that I am ill. When I wake up, I will realize that all the observations as well as testimonies were part of the dream and do not exist anymore, so the illness will also cease to be real. Is reality any more real?

I know, that knowledge acquired externally, and the world built on such knowledge, are no more real or dependable than beliefs or any other thought in our mind. I also believe that only that knowledge, which we always possess, which is not based on any external input, which is the underlying basis of all other knowledge and of all our beliefs, and which does not change between states such as dream and waking, is true knowledge.