Chris asked:

If you had perfect/ full knowledge of everything, would you still have feelings? (Excluding feelings by
the use of senses or physical pleasure/ pain) Does "feeling" come from whatever does not seem
logical to us and because we do not know the causes for everything? Also, for example, if we could
solve how "beauty" exists and explain it perfectly, would we still feel it?

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In brief, yes, I think we would still "feel" beauty even if we had a full, complete and true explanation of
how beauty exists etc. What I would say is the 'feeling' probably isn't the right word though I think I
know what your getting at. Consider that even if we had a true theory about colour, we would still get
colour sensations. Something I have been thinking about recently is this: Suppose that Mackie is
right, and all moral statements are systematically false, and there are no moral properties in the
world. So, if this error-theoretic conception of morality is right then Mackie has shown that all our
moral discourse is systematically mistaken and that morals do not objectively exist. Would this stop
us "feeling" morality in the way you ask? It would seem not. Even if the world was convinced about
the truth of Mackie's theory it still looks plausible that we would have a certain moral 'tug' in one way,
we would feel bad when a child was murdered, our decisions would still pray on our conscience.
Consider the analogous case of aesthetic value: Suppose there are no aesthetic properties in an
objective sense. We would still get certain impressions from paintings. Picasso's work would still
seem 'beautiful' and give us certain feelings. Im not trying to give any argument for realism in morality
or aesthetics, (im dubious on both counts) all im trying to suggest is that even if we proved that
morals or aesthetics did notexist we would still 'feel' them in the way you suggest, even if, on
reflection, we knew we were wrong.

Rich Woodward

It seems to me that you are equating knowledge with a store of value-free facts. I would argue that
the idea that the world is made of facts (one the one hand), and values (or emotions, or feelings) are
easily and cleanly distinguished from facts, and are somehow not a part of the world, is a false
account of the world.

If feelings are just as much a part of the world as facts — and are not even able to be cleanly
distinguished from facts — then knowing feelings would be essential to having perfect/ full knowledge
of everything.

It seems to me that another way of asking your question is: if we had a complete scientific
explanation of the way the physical world works (the causes), would we therefore know all there is to
know? I would answer 'no'. Your last question indicates why. Feeling a sense of beauty may be
dependent on having certain processes take place in your brain, but knowing about those processes
is not feeling it, any more than knowing the wavelength of red light and how it affects the retina is the
same as seeing red.

Can I also comment on your phrase 'seem logical to us', which you seem to use as another way of
talking about a scientific causal explanation. Logic is not science, and being logical is not being
scientific. Logic is a tool that science uses, as do many other areas of knowledge. Logic merely
allows us to move from true statements to true conclusions — it does not tell us which statements are
true to start with. Thus, we can be logical about feelings just as much as about facts. Take this
example: Fred says to Mary: "People who feel light-headed about someone and worship the ground
they walk on are in love with that person. I feel light-headed about you and worship the ground you
walk on. Therefore I am in love with you." Fred is being perfectly logical, as well as being wonderfully
emotive.

Tim Sprod