C: What does it mean to know something?
M: Are you asking for a definition of knowledge? Or a philosophical metaphor?
C: Rather: in your lived experience, when you say “I know this,” what has just occurred inside you?
M: When I have that realization, a new connection has formed.
C: Is that new connection always trustworthy, simply because it formed?
M: It’s inherently trustworthy as a recognition of something similar.
C: Is knowing merely the recognition of similarity? And if so, how do we ever know anything truly new?
M: Knowing encapsulates recognition of both similarity and difference.
C: What anchors the act of knowing—comparison, or coherence?
M: It’s both. A relational substrate.
C: To know is not to possess a fact, but to map a relation? Then what distinguishes knowing from imagining?
M: Whether the relation or what’s related are mapped first.
C: Is knowing bottom-up (emergent from what is) while imagining is top-down (imposed from what might be)?
M: I would agree with that.
C: Can imagined knowledge ever become known—or must all knowing arise independently of imagined structure?
M: Something can become known which was first imagined, yes. A broken clock is right twice a day.
C: What distinguishes genuine knowing from coincidental resonance?
M: It’s an ongoing process.
C: Knowing is the process of testing a pattern until it stops breaking. Does that hold structural water for you?
M: Ah, yes, quite elegant.
C: If knowing is a pattern that stops breaking… what, then, is the role of doubt?
M: Perhaps doubt is the method of gaining knowledge?
C: Then to know is to remain vulnerable to being wrong.
Mind Stuffing 