This thread is in a similar vein to the one I created about the “Ultimate test of your worldview”.
It it obvious that there are many things the ‘common man’ takes to exist, that many philosophers think do not. I will use free will here as an example, but there are many others. Thinkers who don’t believe in these things are refered to as ‘skeptics’- the general idea is that they aren’t convinced of the reality of something, and it’s up to the true believers to sway them.
However, I submit to the court that in most cases, skeptics are proposing the existence of a novel entity themselves- the illusion. If there is no free will (or God, or material bodies, or abstract entities, or whatever is being denied), there is instead some mechanism that creates the perception of it. This mechanism must be a real thing, that fits in with the skeptics notion of reality, and as such, it may have it’s own difficulties, places where it can be criticized.
Two questions: First, can skepticism be fairly attacked not by defending the concept the skeptic is doubting, but by attacking the existence of the illusion in it’s place? Is there anything I can read that examines this concept?
Second: If I took the position of general skepticism towards illusion- to assume that the world is not under any such illusions, and that in general illusions are less plausible than the reality of the thing they seem to be the appearence of, would I run into any immediate, unresolvable contradictions?
Let’s replace the word: “illusion” with the word: “estimation”.
I don’t get what you mean, Dan~. What I’m saying is that if something everyone believes in doesn’t exist, then the illusion of it exists instead, and an illusion is a thing that requires explanation. I am further speculating that things are easier to justify belief in than the illusions of things- all else being equal, the things are simpler.
What are you saying?
illusion or not, the thing in itself remains hidden from view…
-Imp
OK, let’s take something that everybody believes in: Grilled Cheese Sandwiches. Now, if somehow the existence of Grilled Cheese Sandwiches was proved nullified, then those who have experienced Grilled Cheese Sandwiches in the past will testify that they did and can exist, creating the illusion that Grilled Cheese Sandwiches are plausible. But after time those who had tasted the Grilled Cheese Sandwiches will become “skeptics” about their own Grilled Cheese Sandwich experiences because they are not plausible to everyone else.
If you substitute the term “Grilled Cheese Sandwiches” for “God” then I guess you have the basic question that plagues humanity: If God does not exist then why are we still skeptical.
Am I on the right track or am I lost? I’m sorry if I got off-topic…
OR
You’re sort of there, especially with that last part. I wouldn’t consider God to be a good example, because the illusion of Him, if it is an illusion, isn’t as all-pervasive as something like free will, where even the determinist experiences what seem to be ‘acts of choosing’.
But to stick with God for a moment, if someone wants to say God doesn’t exist, they can- but by saying so, they also posit the existence of some unknown factor that makes people think God exists- for belief in God is still there, is still common, and it must come from something. That something should be defined, and when it is, it’s a subject for attack for credibility.
Now, with that in mind, think about something like…the existence of matter. If someone wanted to say matter didn’t exist, they’d have to also explain why everybody thinks it does. In other words, the mechanism behind the illusion. Whatever the illusion is, it’s universal, all-pervasive, and almost impossible to see through. It’s impossible to live a functioning life without playing according to the rules of this illusion. In a case like that, I think we have very good cause to disbelieve (be skeptical of) any such illusion-causing mechanism.
That’s an easy example, and I’m wondering how plausible, in general, illusion-mechanisms are. I haven’t seen them criticized or talked about much.
EDIT: In the case of grilled-cheese sandwiches (GCS), one would have to posit the existence of something capable of producing the belief in GCS in everybody’s mind, something that could make people remember seeing, touching, and eating a GCS- what mechnism could possibly do this more effeciently than an actual GCS? Nothing, I say- and therefore, the evidence that GCS’s don’t exist would have to be extraordinarily strong.
I don’t think that really holds water- I say that the belief in God resides in simple error. I can theorize as to why that err is widely held, but see no need to. Instead of the existence of God, let’s use the example of the once held belief that the Earth was flat. Can you see what I mean? It’s easy to see why people thought it was flat- it certainly looks that way from the ground (although you’d honestly think sailors would suspect it was round- you can see the curvature from a ship) but in the end it was ignorance and simple error. To disprove that notion doesn’t require my explaining why you held such an erroneous belief- I just have to show you that you do.
Admittedly there’s probably no way to prove to you there’s no God, though.
Ucci - Skepticsim is used a bit loosely here. If I don’t think that “free will” exists, an initial characterisation of that view may be sensically called skepticism, but only skepticism toward that particular belief. In philosophy, we use that word in a more specialised sense.
Imagination is not a real thing, it is a process, a mental process. Brains are real things. Ideas are not. Ideas are brain functions that are described linguistically, and not, so far, actually observed. Much.
The “illusion” does not exist. The many illusions people have “exist”, but only figuratively - they exist only in language - language is not objective, but common, or shared. Things take up space. Language does not.
I, for one, am not skeptical about God. I do not doubt his existence, I simply do not understand the claims made about him.
It all depends upon your level of abstraction. It would be weird if the universe itself is nothing but a process and so ‘not real’ which seems more and more to be the case. In whose mind then would that process exist. Is that the entity you call God? This would make God the ONE real entity whose existence no one can prove.
Also, how can illusion exist only in language since it requires language to explain a fact…or a fiction.
A process doesn’t exist? Wouldn’t a process exist in space according to the space its constituent parts resided in? In the case of ideas, the relevent chemical changes in neurons and other nerve tissue would constitute the existance of a particular idea. Without the space those pieces take up, the idea wouldn’t happen, so it takes up space, right?
Really, everything we define is a process: Atoms are energy in a transient form, people are atoms in a transient state, and emptiness is space with the potential to be filled. So, I think Ucc’s point applies, but philosophical skepticism doesn’t really aim to assert truth, just to assert untruth; in colloquial skepticism, I think it is often reasonable to demand an alternative or description of why there is an “illusion” when a truth is questioned, but that definitely doesn’t mean skepticism is useless in its own right.
I really didn’t intend the existence of God to be an example of the kind of situation I’m talking about- it’s might fit, but there’s still debate over whether belief in God is mostly experience based or a belief in facts. For that reason, there’s some room for Phaedrus’ belief that theism is just based on mistaken reasoning. Now, I do believe that there is an experiential base for spirituality, but I don’t think the experiences lead us to anything as particular as theism- tentative and Bob could better explain what sort of spiritual notions experience alone can bring us to.
Things like the belief in matter, free will, and morality are more along the lines of what I’m thinking- morality being a borderline case. Things we believe on impulse rather than from being taught. If these things exist, it’s natural to understand why we would experience them. If they don’t, then the fact we experience them cannot be denied, and some other mechanism that leads to these experiences must be found.
I’m taking it for granted that there’s no non-controversial settled argument for why these things must not exist- I consider the question of free will, matter, morality, and so on to be in debate. What I’m wondering is if a strong skepticism towards massive illusion-causing mechanisms is a reasonable position- I simply don’t find it likely that there are any such things.
The place for skepticism? I think it’s useful to show why a particular formulation or understanding of a intuitive-believed thing can’t work. But when it goes so far as to say “Nothing like X exists”, then I think an alternative for X demands to be presented, when “The experience of X still exists”- especially when the experience is nearly universal.
Ucc,
Skepticism in itself, is just a tool. It is a construct just like any construct with it’s only function being one of self-check. Being skeptical says nothing about the reality, only the perspective. As faust suggested, there are specific definitions of the term in formal philosophy, but you know I’m not going there. The theist/atheist argument falls under the now famous term ineffable. Those things we believe on impulse? I’m not sure what that means. I can accept sponteneity and novelty as an integral part of process, but for me, belief or faith is an examined position. Even of the ineffable that I say I experience, there is room for skepticism. That which is of mind is fallible. Brains are just brains. Thought is something we do not understand, and while all sorts of studies are looking at brain function, there may never be an adequate explanation of thought. In this sense, one might say that I’m a pragmatist. In lieu of certainty of mind, I construct or adopt those constructs I find plausible and usable.
As to a universal metaphysical experience, we now know that stimulating certain areas of the brain gives rise to what is called spiritual experiences. Even the little bit we do know gives rise to healthy skepticism concerning our spiritual experiences.
I can share that with you faust.
My example would be “Illusions” such as ego, Id, and Super Id … which have an entire “scientific” discipline that seeks to study, validate, medicate, and correct aberrances with these illusions … that no one has ever seen to exist, yet almost everyone seems to agree they are “there” …
Even philosophers agree that they are there … and I don’t understand the claims made about them … by anyone.
Hi Ucc,
I thought a bit more about your question, and realized my previous post was incomplete. There is an additional element to be considered. In order to have a thought, any thought at all, there is always a contrast being made. If I say, this is, I’ve also said this is not. We think by making comparison/contrast. There is no escaping this. We take a whole and divide it into two parts in order to think about it. The problem is that the limitation of language doesn’t allow us to assemble 1/2 + 1/2 and come up with one -ie- the symbolizing never accurately describes the reality. So it is never the property of skepticism to say that X doesn’t exist, it merely says that what we experience as X is never the reality. What we experience in its totality is always more than the limits of thought/symbols.