Skeptisism - What do you think?

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

What are the truths we can know to be true? Are there any? Are there any real conclusions? How do you know if the truths you believe to be true are just conclusions derived from untrue hypothesis? Is there a sphere of reason or is it just a masked idea of faith?

There questions have been haunting me for the past year. Everytime I try to bring up an argument of the validity of something, my good friend Vinod stalemates the argument with skeptisism.

What do you think? Humans are falliblie creatures. Are there any truths? If there are, why? How do you know? How can you know?

2

Q. Why did the skeptic leave town?

A. Someone burned a question mark in his front yard!

I think we can be fairly certain of Cogito Ergo Sum.

3

That’s it? I think therefore I am? So nothing else is within the realm of things we know? I’m not ready to live the life of a solopist.

On the contrary, what premise led you to believe that you think? Not that I’d ever really stand against the thought that I cannot think but it’s worth a thought. :smiley:

4

There is nothing else we can know for certain, no.

Well…unless you consider yourself separate from reason. Then you’d have reason and yourself living in a dualistic, yet lonely, world.

Solipsism is a problem I keep finding myself come back to.

5

Hombre wins. The rest of you die.

6

Then what the hell is the point of philosophy or the study of anything? Am I to think that my years in college have been completely wasted? What good can man do without understanding the fundamental building blocks of knowledge?

7

A question I keep asking myself.

It does seem rather self-defeating, doesn’t it?

Well, the question you asked is if we can know anything with certainty. What it breaks down to is that there’s only two things you can know with certainty…you exist, reason is valid.

However, that’ 100% certainty. You know with 99.999% certainty that I exist. I know with the same certainty that you exist. You know that science is valid up to a certain precision, yes? That’s because science is not absolute…in fact, to call psychology a pseudo science and physics true science is really a misnomer. They’re both really pseudo. Neither one is absolute, which is what’s implied by the word science…but it’s not true.

All of your knowledge is based around probabilty. This is not something I like to do, because to me, it is faith. But apparently people argue otherwise (Hume)… I just have issues with think train of thought. I think anything that exists and is consistent has a proof for existence. However, just because I cannot prove your existence doesn’t mean that you don’t exist. It also doesn’t mean that the proof itself doesn’t exist (hence philosophy).

Take this information as you will. You can either A) Live insanity B) Life normally or C) Die…or D) any grey between the three.

8

Some people can be so great that they can give without costing their own resources. Overflowing with strength…so that a few extra bags wouldn’t slow him down. He doesn’t make an effort to think clearly, to hold the right convictions, to get upset when he’s wrong…like those serious spirits. So he doesn’t do philosophy to chase his own tail, or to fill up a void. He does it because it comes easily.

There are two kinds of people.

People who find the terror and lack the passion and humor to carry it. They stop at meaninglessness and take everything for themselves. Real strength and overabundance is the ability to share energy without losing your own. We are, essentially, all in this together.

The militant philosophies and the will to power came about after the collapse of God. Yet no one stopped to ask what it was indeed that they no longer believed in. Excited, slightly irritated and anxious, they created their own moralities. The existential abyss opened up. The strongest survive, yada yada yada.

Biological strength and progression is a series of mistakes and errors. The worm of evolution crawls about and fumbles, the product of it, the man, arises and takes great pride in these mistakes. Little does he know that the slighest change in an amino acid compound is enough to throw the whole project into a mess. It is his head that supports his right for his freedom, strength, and self respect. Not his muscles.

Still, man, stands up, counts his errors, and is proud of them. “Look at me, I have an opposing thumb. Watch me construct this building. Listen to my voice…I can make sounds of different pitches and tones.”

It is one thing to believe that evolution is simply occuring, and another to believe that it is going anywhere.

So be weary of those souls who have no tolerance for truth. They make it up as they go because they panic and sweat.

9

Hero,

Change your attitude and your avatar or be removed. thanks

  • ben
10

I like his avatar.

I don’t agree with it, but it sure is ballsy.

11

It was a religious symbol, I think. Before Hitler gained power, the “president” of Germany was fascinated with Japanese tradition, especially the samuri code. I’m not sure that the symbol is Japanese, in fact I think it was a symbol adopted from Zoroastorism(sp?)

Anyway, behind many of the Nazi ideals we find the very shit they despised. Himmler thought that aliens were planning to contact him when the time was right: after the holocaust. Okay, buddy.

The hardest part about this issue is that aside from the problems created by the Nazi’s, there are still very legitimate ideas regarding politics and philosophy. It was their personal agends, their violence, their mistakes, and unwarranted prejudices that ruined them.

12

Rafajafar,

Definately right in saying skeptisism is for looneys. So is solipsism. I don’t wanna be crazy… :unamused:

Anyway, you made that claim that besides knowing that “I” exist, you can be certain that reason is valid. How is it that you back that claim?

Why 99? Why at all?

Desprately searching for answers. Thanks.

13

Actually you don’t know with any certainty that anyone else exists. I’d put the odds closer to 50%, since there is no real proof for either side. However, 50% assumes only two possible cases, that another person exists and that he/she doesn’t. There could be an infinity of other cases that we just haven’t thought of.

14

Cogito Ergo Sum has its problems.

It seems to unessarly include identiy where none need be. Just because there are doubtfull thoughts, what is to say they have any sort of relation which makes them a coherent indivisual?

Anyway, and more importatnly. All skeptial arguements, like all arguments, have their presuppositions, and can be attacked on the basis of thouse presupositions.

For example, the “Matrix” arguement:

You don’t know you are sitting there reading a web page, because you might be in the Matrix (and therefore laying down simply recive sense datum from a computer.)

This assumes, something Matrix-like can exist. Obviously, it has yet to be proven that a computer can simulate our senses so accurately to fool us 100% of the time. It also assumes that all our knowledge comes from sense data, that for instance we couldn’t get a feeling that we are in the matrix or somehow rationaly figure out that we are in a created simulation of the world. (Everything tatse like chicken.)

Or in Descartes arguments, although he doubts everything (includeing simple mathematical ideas) he still uses language and logic. There is an assumtion here that these things are beyond doubt.

In short, skeptical arguments are lock solid, so to end one’s investigations convinced of one of these arguments is a mistake. One has, unfortuneatly, not found the truth- restart and try agian.

15

Psquared

Well yes and no.

Logically, ‘Another person exist or another person does not exist’ is exuastive of the set of all possibilites. So while there is likely an indefinate number of how people could exist or not (frex, only one other person exist- only people under the age of 12 exist), there are only two possiblites pertaining to the statement ‘another person exist’ - namely true, and false.

Well, unless we are getting into fuzzy logic. :stuck_out_tongue:

16

Hombre,

Because if reason isn’t valid, then what would I use to prove to you that you exist or that anything else exists.

If you wanted me to disprove reason, what would I use? Reason? LOL

Reason’s validity is self evident.

Why 99? I pulled it out of my ass. You can choose a different number and live by that instead if you want. I’d much rather pick a high level of certainty, though…wouldn’t you?

17

it would be most accurate to doubt whatever we think we know, cuz there’s nothing we can be sure of, not even what i just wrote…

lol, just don’t let it get 2 ya :wink:

willem

18

Rafa,
99 is comforting.