I recognize the possibility of being wrong here, but I think we can’t know anything with 100% certainty.
Here would be my basic argument: We don’t know everything, as such there is something we don’t know, there is a possibility that something we don’t know could show that anything we think we do know is wrong, as such everything is less than 100% certain by some amount.
Do you agree, might you have a better argument?
Do you disagree, how would you show that, or what is it that you think is 100% certain?
I would think that you only think that you are 100% certain. For is it not possible that all your thoughts were simply just inserted into your brain by some force you are unaware of. While I admit the idea is fantastical, the mere fact that it is possible, suggest that one can’t actually be 100% certain, on the matter.
The problem is that a negative answer leads to a paradox. We cannot be certain we cannot be certain according to whatever argument we put forward. You argument seems to be certain about both some premises, the conclusion and the logic.
And how could someone who is certain they cannot be certain be sure at all about other people?
But you can’t be certain that is a possibility or you are even making sense. You refer to this possibility as a fact and in that assertion you snuck in certainty.
Someone who does not believe there can be 100% certainty cannot be sure this is true and certainly would have little hope of being sure it is a universal truth. Perhaps some people out there can for all I know.
It is true, if one were to think they can’t know they wouldn’t be able to know that they don’t know.
But one can still function according to probabilities. then you might say that if your not certain you can’t be certain that probabilities are accurate. And i would agree with this. What this leads to is the idea that everything is indeterminate. but if everything is indeterminate it is indeterminate that everything is indeterminate. as such one simply out of necessity, and perhaps lack of any other option, is lead to and must operate with regards to possibilities. Not by certain numbers as in suggesting say something is 98% certain, but just recognizing conceptually that something is likely or unlikely, and then posing all the different issues together such as to recognize that certain things are seemingly more likely than others, but not by some definite amount.
I assure you I function without being certain of anything. I call it Faith. In actually i would think everyone does and that it is just that some people simply think that they know with 100% certainty…Because they aren’t recognizing that despite the other possibilities be unlikely that they nonetheless reduce the certainty of things.
Frankly, I don’t think that is possible. I am sure if a specific belief is raised as a topic, you can bring an unsure position to bear on it. But if nothing else we tend to be 100% - when not discussing the issue - of all sorts of things - like that we cannot be certain, or meta-beliefs about arguments and epistemology, or about what is happening in the moment.
In a sense what I am saying is that there is a confusion between what one says when one specifically focuses on the issue of certainty and how one lives the rest of the time, both in action and in thoughts. I don’t think the occasionally ‘official’ thought that one is not certain outweighs the way one lives the rest of the time.
Also you would have to be uncertain that you function without being certain of anything, also.
Note: I am not saying you or others really are 100% certain and correct about this or that. I just don’t think one can really function thinking that one is not sure about anything at all. How can one be sure that the arguments supporting this position make any sense - or the next layers?
Another way to put this is that it is a poor heuristic for an animal to believe it cannot be 100% certain.
Are you really uncertain that this argument made sense or are you simply officially, now that I have asked, uncertain as a kind of policy?
Is it possible for me to be certain of X, while I am at the same time wrong about X? I’m not sure certainty has any important connection to knowledge and truth.
When we are speaking about the existence of certainty, we can only speak of our knowledge about it and call this knowledge certainty.
If you were to get out of this confinement of knowledge, the question of certainty is not there any more for you. The question of certainty arises from this knowledge, which is still interested in finding out the certainty of things, and to experience what its existence is all about. When this knowledge is not there, the question is also not there. Then there is no need for finding any answer. This question which you are posing is born out of the assumption that there is a certainty, and that assumption is born out of this knowledge you have of and about it. The knowledge is the answer you already have. That is why you are asking the question. The question automatically arises.
If you are really interested in finding certainty, what has to dawn on you is that your very questioning mechanism is born out of the answers that you already have, which is the knowledge. Otherwise there can’t be any question.
First of all, there is an assumption on your part that there is a certainty, and then, that there is something that you can do to experience that. Without the knowledge about its existence, you have no experience of certainty, that is for sure. ‘If this knowledge is not there, is there any other way of experiencing its existence?’ That question goes with the answer. So there is no need to ask questions and there is no need to answer.
I agree with part of this analysis. Once you weigh in and state an opinion about the existence of 100% certainty, you are 100% certain of something - your premises, that they relate to the topic, that you are making sense, that what you are saying is relevent, whatever. You may, when challenged, say ‘Oh I am not 100% certain of X.’ But you probably were up to that moment 100% certain that you were correct.
Denials that there can be 100% certainty contradict themselves in practice at the very least.
No I am rather sure I am uncertain, it seems to me that anything I do think or see, is possible to not be what i think it is.
While I recognize arguments like “I think therefore I am” as being highly irrefutable, I can still recognize the possibility that what i don’t know might later lead me to think otherwise. Though in this case i do find such as highly unlikely. Nonetheless the fact that i can see a possibility shows that the opposite should be actually 100% certain. I would think one could only say something is 100% certain if they couldn’t actually think of some other possibility. Plus i think that this is one of the biggest problems How can say someone be 100% certain about their beliefs and later be shown to be wrong… why is it that most of our ideas of the past get shown to be wrong later, and what certainty do we have that what we are thinking now might not later be dis-proven by something else. (i don’t like the words proven and known, but i mean to say show to be otherwise likely or unlikely)
I’m just suggesting that something doesn’t seem to be able to have a 100% probability of being accurate or even false. For example even when we have no evidence of something, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. As such even with zero evidence something is possible. Look at it like this if zero evidence as some indeterminate but greater than zero probability x, then no matter how much evidence accumulated to show that the opposite is true the truth of the opposite will be some higher probability but will be less than 100% by at least an amount of x. Or you could think of it this way, how many pieces of evidence must one gather to make something 100% likely. By logic we might infer that particular evidence is most likely but even then It is possible that what we don’t know will later become evident to show that what we think we know now will be wrong…
I recognize it is hard to grasp this because people like the comfort of thinking they are 100% certain about things. but I have found that after Questioning everything i began to approach answers to everything faster. It is like Descartes thought experiment but I remain uncertain that “I think, I exist” is 100% certain. Because again what I don’t know might later show to me that what I think or “I think, I exist” is illogical when I discover that thing I don’t know.
By no means am i assuming that there is certainty with regards to actually being 100% sure, when i say certainty i am referring to the fact that we can assert something as being likely…
And I think that what we have always referred to as knowledge has just been ideas that we consider likely or think are actually 100% certain.
I am 100% certain that I am thinking. If it were otherwise, this interaction would not be possible. The concepts of certainty and uncertainty could not exist.
According to what we understand and think we know that would seem to be the most logical deduction. but just because we cannot see something doesn’t mean it is not there. There could be other forms of logic, functioning things without logic…who knows, there are so many fantastical possibilities. Seemingly illogical but possible nonetheless.
And i recognize that you might refuse to think of such as possible, if that is the case then I would ask what else is 100% certain?
of being wrong here, but I think we can’t know anything with 100% certainty.