You could claim that it knows the pattern of how references are formatted, depending on what you mean by the word know. Therefore, 100% uninteresting discussion of semantics.

[–] irmoz@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

The theory of knowledge (epistemology) is a distinct and storied area of philosophy, not a debate about semantics.

There remains to this day strong philosophical debate on how we can be sure we really "know" anything at all, and thought experiments such as the Chinese Room illustrate that "knowing" is far, far more complex than we might believe.

For instance, is it simply following a set path like a river in a gorge? Is it ever actually "considering" anything, or just doing what it's told?

[–] capybara@lemm.ee 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

No one cares about the definition of knowledge to this extent except for philosophers. The person who originally used the word "know" most definitely didn't give a single shit about the philosophical perspective. Therefore, you shitting yourself a word not being used exactly as you'd like instead of understanding the usage in the context is very much semantics.

[–] irmoz@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

When you debate whether a being truly knows something or not, you are, in fact, engaging in the philosophy of epistemology. You can no more avoid epistemology when discussing knowledge than you can avoid discussing physics when describing the flight of a baseball.