Radical Skepticism, Descartes, and the Pointlessness of Existence: Why Bother?

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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Proverb:
I’m new to this forum and to philosophy in general, so please excuse any potential breaches of etiquette.

In Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, René Descartes (R.D.) introduces existential doubt—the idea that we should question everything, even what seems self-evident. This skepticism has two key benefits: it leads to new discoveries and prevents us from accepting falsehoods.

R.D. takes this doubt further, questioning even our fundamental ways of knowing. If we can’t be sure that mathematics—pure logic itself—is correct due to possible miscalculations or faulty memory, how can we be certain that anything is real?

Ultimately, we can at least confirm that something exists because thought itself is evidence of existence (Cogito, ergo sum). But how do we know this reality isn’t just a lucid dream, one that only persists as long as we fuel our cognition—outrunning the inevitable collapse of the world as we perceive it?

I am going to be frank:
I do not believe in the concept of a good God or an evil God manipulating us, or even the idea that such a being exists.
I think approaching anything with this radical skepticism and then asserting that there is a God, without any foundation, is, at least within this framework of metaphysics, laughable. R.D. got this wrong, or should have elaborated more.

But this brings me to a conclusion:
If there is no proof of actual existence, no tangible reality, no proof that God or anything like it exists, and if everything could just collapse for no reason at all…

Why bother? I know that I can imagine myself feeling bad or imagine feeling good, but in reality, if all collapses and nothing is real, it just seems pointless to chase satisfaction.

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Metaphysics is where charlatans “ground” their claims.
In abstractions, existing entirely in human brains.

Metaphysical definitions of concept’s, such as god, such as morality, such as free-will, is where modern s and postmoderns seek relief form their personal existential anxieties and where charlatans roam taking advantage of them.

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Your answer dismisses metaphysics too quickly by reducing it to mere abstract claims made by “charlatans.” It overlooks the complexity of philosophical inquiry—ignoring how figures like Descartes used rigorous doubt (e.g., “Cogito, ergo sum”) to build a solid foundation for knowledge—and instead relies on a dismissive tone.
A more balanced answer, based on actual arguments and actual thought, would be more convincing and actually meaningful.
Lots of Love.

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Any inquiry that begins with metaphysics and attempts to adjust physics to it, is nihilistic.
I do not dismiss the entirely of metaphysics. It must start with physis…nature, the experienced, and must align with it.

But metaphysics is where charlatans go to exploit human anxieties.

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Descartes begins with the experienced…the thought.

Skepticism can also be used to reject any claim, because no claim is ever absolute.

As many on this very site have.

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Your claim oversimplifies the relationship between metaphysics and physics. Many scientific revolutions—like Einstein’s relativity—began with metaphysical questions that later reshaped our understanding of nature. Physics doesn’t exist in a vacuum; it relies on metaphysical assumptions like causality and identity. Dismissing all metaphysics as nihilistic ignores its role in shaping the very principles that science builds upon. While some misuse metaphysics, the same is true for physics—pseudoscience thrives in both domains. Serious metaphysical inquiry refines, rather than distorts, our understanding of reality.

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Example…those who reject morality by beginning with the abstraction and not the action.

Those who deny free-will by defining ‘freedom’ in metaphysical ways, so as to negate the experience as ‘illusory,’ but do not do the same for concepts like ‘power,’ or ‘life.’

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Einstein began with the experienced world.

I dismiss metaphysics as it is used by nihilists and charlatans to exploit human fears.

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That’s an oversimplification at best. Einstein’s theories didn’t just “begin with the experienced world”—they were driven by deep metaphysical questions about space, time, and causality that challenged classical physics. Dismissing all metaphysics because some misuse it is intellectually lazy. By that logic, should we also dismiss physics because some abuse it for pseudoscience? Serious thinkers engage with ideas critically, not by sweeping entire fields aside with blanket accusations.

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Beginning with metaphysical definitions, and not physical, is how religions are born.
First came the word.

I stated that metaphysics is where charlatans go to exploit human weakness.
It is where all snake oil salesmen place their claims.
I did not dismiss the entirely of metaphysics.

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The claim that “metaphysical definitions of concepts like God, morality, and free will” are merely refuges for existential anxieties—and that metaphysics is where “charlatans” exploit human weakness—mistakenly conflates isolated misuses with the discipline itself. While it is true that some opportunists may use vague, abstract language to manipulate others, this does not invalidate the entire field. Rigorous metaphysical inquiry is defined by systematic argumentation and critical analysis—methods that have shaped influential philosophical work from Descartes to Kant and continue to do so in contemporary scholarship. Dismissing metaphysics wholesale due to its occasional misuse is a textbook example of hasty generalization. Historically, metaphysics has been the very arena where thinkers challenge the fundamental assumptions underlying our understanding of reality.

Similarly, the assertion that “beginning with metaphysical definitions, rather than physical ones, is how religions are born” oversimplifies the origins of religious thought. Metaphysical concepts are often employed not as tools for deception but as means to express fundamental insights about existence, causality, and identity. Even within religious traditions, metaphysics is not merely a playground for charlatans but a language through which people articulate profound existential questions—questions that, while not always practical, are essential to a meaningful life. The fact that metaphysics is sometimes misused does not undermine its legitimacy as a serious and necessary field of inquiry.

Moreover, I would argue that metaphysical analysis and discussion are actually counterproductive for such “charlatans” (who, incidentally, also misuse physics for their personal gain). Questioning fundamental concepts enhances our perception and deepens our understanding—tools that ultimately expose, rather than enable, deception.

Finally, you have yet to provide a concrete example or argument related to the original topic. Instead, your critique remains a broad generalization, lacking a specific, non-blanket argument that does not simply invoke a “mysterious figure” as its source.

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Example:
Free-will
The conventional definition is metaphysical…claiming that a will can only be free if it is free from causality, or from necessity.

Example
God, in the Abrahamic definition.
Claiming that a ‘god’ must be omnipotent, omniscient, immortal…etc.

Both BEGIN with a metaphysical definition that contradicts physical expriences, or the experienced world.

Even Einstein begins with time, which is experienced as change…or the relationship of an observer’s subjective perceptions and a world in flux.

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Example
Morality
Many insist that its origins are metaphysical…god created them, or imposed them…or that they are entirely manmade.

Morality is a behaviour…an activity that can be witnessed in many species.
All of them adopting cooperative reproductive and survival strategies.
Morality refers to tolerance, altruism, love, sympathy…all observable and experienced in the real world, and in many species.
All inferences must begin with what is observable…in the experienced world.

All of them have common behavioural characteristics and offer the same advantages.

Man codified these behaviours, as it does everything in nature that exhibits a predictable consistency.
He, then, made amendments, to facilitate the development of complex human systems - civilizations.
Unfortunately, man also created amendments that nullify these behaviours, by defining them in supernatural terms.

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Your “examples” are not just irrelevant—they’re intellectually bankrupt. Let’s gut this nonsense line by line.

On Free Will:
You bleat about free will being defined as “free from causality,” as if this pedantry answers my question. I didn’t ask “How do we define free will?” but “Why act at all if reality is uncertain?” Your semantic nitpicking about metaphysical vs. physical definitions is a cowardly dodge. If my reality might be illusory, debating whether my choices are “truly free” is as useful as rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. You’ve reduced philosophy to a parlour game while ignoring the core of my inquiry.

On God:
I explicitly rejected any appeal to God as laughable. Yet you trot out the Abrahamic definition (omnipotence, omniscience) as if it’s relevant. This isn’t just missing the point—it’s gaslighting. I’m not asking for a theology lecture; I’m asking why life matters without gods. Your example is a non-sequitur, a deflection masquerading as argument.

On Einstein:
Your claim that Einstein “began with the experienced world” is a half-truth at best. Relativity didn’t emerge from passive observation—it was born from metaphysical rebellion against Newton’s absolutes. Einstein asked, “What if time isn’t universal? What if causality isn’t rigid?”—questions that shattered empiricist dogma. To pretend he was just tallying clock readings is historical illiteracy. You’ve cherry-picked his empiricism to prop up your anti-metaphysical crusade while ignoring the speculative audacity that made his work revolutionary.

Your Fatal Error:
You’ve conflated abuse of metaphysics with metaphysics itself. Yes, charlatans exist. But to dismiss all metaphysical inquiry because some misuse it is like dismissing medicine because snake oil salesmen exist. Descartes’ Cogito wasn’t a thought experiment—it was a survival tactic against nihilism: “I doubt, therefore I am” is the bedrock of meaning in a collapsing world. My question isn’t about definitions—it’s about whether anything can matter. Instead of engaging this, you’ve erected strawmen about religion and free will, then patted yourself on the back for burning them down.

The Irony:
You accuse metaphysics of exploiting anxiety, yet your replies are the real exploitation. I’m asking a straightforward question, and you’ve thrown me an anchor labeled “semantic purity.” If metaphysics is a refuge for charlatans, your replies are a refuge for cowardice—a refusal to engage with the actual issue.

Final Note:
Either address my actual question—“Why bother?”—or stop clogging the thread with pseudo-intellectual posturing. Your examples aren’t just wrong; they’re violently irrelevant. I need an answer, not a lecture on how to drown “correctly.”

I am totally fine with arguing about the teaching or talking about my question, but I am not going to engage with a random assortment of malicious opinions and irrelevant hair-spliting about an Strawman.

1 Like
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Hey, welcome to ILP. I see you’ve met our resident troll already :rofl:

Since I’m currently out of time, I’ll just step in here briefly and say that to doubt something requires having reason(s) for the doubt, just as to believe something requires having reason(s) for the belief. There is no such thing as doubt for its own sake or belief for its own sake, although we humans often act as if these were the case. Psychologically we might act that way but it is mere psychology, not based in logic or truth.

Give an example of any specific doubt and I can show you how it has reasons for being what it is. Those reasons might be rooted in your psychology and emotions, or they might be authentic to the doubt itself and rooted meaningfully-contextually in terms of the logic and reality about that which the doubt is a doubt. Do I doubt there is a flying pink elephant holding up the earth? Yes I doubt that. Why? Because I already know the meaning of all the terms in the proposed conception “flying” “pink” “elephant” “holding up” and “the earth”. Putting these concepts together in the way proposed generates obvious contradictions, hence why it is easy to doubt.

If you claim to doubt something like your own existence, or whatever more fundamental thing, then you likewise better be prepared to show your reasons for WHY precisely you doubt it. Because if you cannot, then your “doubt” is probably a pseudo-doubt existing only at the behest of your own psychology and emotional need/intellectual errors.

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You seem upset.

For a concept to “matter” it must be grounded in the world where it must be applied.
The other definitions, I gave as examples, of metaphysics gone wild, only have a psychological utility.
A way of coping with the world.

A proper application of metaphysics grounded in physics, in the observable world, prevents us from becoming ensnared in wild goose chases, making philosophy itself a game of words.

The examples of free-will is indicative of a concept that begins with a metaphysical definition no physical experience can ever match and then dismisses the entire concept as illusory.

Another is morality.
Often used to dismiss morality altogether.

Metaphysics not grounded in the physical, or the experienced world, is nothing more than psychological manipulation.

For a metaphysics to be useful it must be grounded in the experienced world, and it must offer explanations for what is observable.

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Metaphysics attempts to explain the inexplicable.
It can do so by limiting itself to reality, or it can offer supernatural methods of coping.

Every single phenomenon man encountered that was inexplicable to him, at the time, was given a metaphysical explanation.

If used properly metaphysics can offer insights into what remains unverified.
And this is where the danger lies.

All metaphysics must be graded on a probability scale, based on the experienced world.

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Skepticism is expected because we are trapped in our subjective awareness, of what can never be entirely known.
Skepticism can also be used selectively or to dismiss explanations that exceed our comfort levels…

Like the imbeciles who demand omniscience - metaphysical concept - to accept any explanation they cannot contradict nor defeat with a superior explanation.

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All is energy.
Some ordered, some not…order/chaos.

As such, absolutes are impossible.

Yin-Yang
Ha!!

“breach of etiquette” he says!!!
Wow!!

I sense a mind governed by passions.
It wants certainties to calm it down…
But only charlatans offer certainties.

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If it is ‘fast food’ philosophy you crave… seeped in pleasant salts and sugars, with minimal nutritional value… you’ve come to the right place.
Your demeanor indicates that you will fit in well.

The maître de has already introduced himself
Order the hamburger. He recommends it to all newcomers.