"What are these few things you know? You've not enumerated any specifically that I can tell except maybe that you exist." As to what I "know" with 100.0% certainty: I exist, other things exist and therefore some kind of universe/omniverse exists which contains me and things-not-me. As to a more practical definition of what I "know" - as in, the likelihood of what I "know" not being true is vanishingly small (the old teapot in orbit around Mars type of possibility... though being that we've actually launched objects into orbit around Mars, this should probably be modified to Tau Ceti 4 or something)... well, I know that the universe is rational... and based on that, a whole slew of things I know: the age of the universe, the distance to stars, the origin of the solar system, common ancestry of life on Earth, that what comes up must (unless under escape velocity) come down, etc., etc. And I know that to place the possibility of the teapot in front of me suddenly transporting itself to Pluto as being equal to the possibility of it not is absurd and definitively not true. The entire logic and evidence of the universe is in conflict with such a proposition. How do I know that the universe is rational? Well, for one, I seriously doubt it could exist if it wasn't - and I'd love to confirm this with a theoretical physicist... but, more directly, all evidence points to it. Again I mean "know" as in I'm assuming that I'm not completely insane and have dreamed my entire life and that the entire universe and all the phenomena we've observed aren't some vast trick by the devil or some completely unlikely (1 over a google type of probability) string of coincidences that have no underpinning of rationality and cause and effect - despite the fact that they always "appear" to be rational.

Yes, one can always be wrong about something. So what. What meaning would being wrong have in a universe that is irrational? Meaning itself would not exist... being right and wrong would not exist... How could existence itself exist in such a place? The only way I could picture such a universe is if it was the plaything of a capricious child-God... but *even that* would have some underlying rationality to it (the psychology of the child-God).

You propose that it is possible that something impossible can exist. By definition it can't.

Explain what you mean. They have no necessary relationship, is what I mean. And what I mean by that is:

a fox is what we call those reddish animals with the busy tails that are carnivores.

but we might have called them eagles. the only relationship to reality is that people who speak english who hear the word associate the word with a real thing.

This is why the original tautology: "female foxes are vixens" is not something you know or don't know because it's not about the outside world - it's a priori.

They're only vixens because that's what's been decided. They might have been eagles, or vixen might have been a word for clouds. So all you "know" in terms of knowing about the outside world when you learn a definition is that this is what speakers of the english language say to mean a certain thing.

I'm honestly not sure what your hang-up is on this one man

^ was to Mr. Tautology not dexter

I don't care if you do that personally, that's the consequence of skepticism as a whole. If everything is equally plausible or implausible, then it becomes perfectly rational to believe in all sorts of sorcery and mystical nonsense. "Truth, fact, knowledge" becomes nothing but a matter of personal taste. Maybe believing in magic makes some people 'feel good', so they'll assert that to the be truth and we can't do anything about it, we have no means to claim it's not less true than anything else.

As for your multiple choice game, my main contention is that claims have differing levels of certainty. Claims are not equally plausible. Many claims are almost certainly true. But the idea of 'certainty' has been equated with infallibility. We should approach certainty as being a continuum (like democracy for example), with negative & positive infinity at both end points. So while nothing can ever reach "infinity", we can be so nearly certain of a thing that the fact that it's not infallibly certain is irrelevant.

So in essence I choose B, with the qualifier that certainty is a continuous not dichotomous variable.

dexter, point by point. and thanks for actually responding btw :)

how do you know things besides you exist?
how do you know from the rational universe premise all that other stuff about science? could there not be a rational universe where you are actually wrong about all that?

about rational universes: your idea is that the universe must be rational, because in your experience, that's all a universe that exists can be, right?

If your answer to that is yes, on what basis can you construe that your experience is correctly informing you? More experience? What if it's always wrong?

But I'll give you the "rational universe" for argument's sake. So what? I have already said that we can do nothing but think rationally - it is true. But even inside these boundaries I can think of ways in which every little thing could be false. The omnipotent deceiver covers it most fully. This omnipotent deceiver might have deceived me even about the rules of logic, and of cause and effect. If I have to give those up I have to give up knowing I exist, right? Because the way I knew that was, well, logic, right? This is all, remember, in a rational universe still.

Let me give you even one further, somewhat less profound way everything you think you know might be wrong. I like this one less than what I've been saying but it seems equally possible:

Every logical conclusion you make occurs in time, no? So in order to finish a thought you rely on your short term memory. But the memory can't be trusted - it could be a false fabrication fed you by Him, or yourself, or whatever. So then how can you actually make any statements and be confident of them? Even the one I just made, can you be confident of it? No.

And lastly you I think (correct me if wrong) at least implicitly made the claim that you can know how likely some things are vs. other things.

("As to a more practical definition of what I "know" - as in, the likelihood of what I "know" not being true is vanishingly small")

So how do you know that? Or do you deny that this is actually in the same category as other factual claims?

To all:

Thanks for putting up with this. I know it's annoying at first, it annoyed me too. And you're not compelled to keep talking with me. And if I come off as an ass or whatever, apologies. I tend to do that but basically never mean to. I just want to say this at a human level - I'm not out to alienate anyone, I only engage in this because I genuinely believe it and believe in truth (and since I think this is the truth I promulgate it) and really believe it would make the world better, so I advance the ideas in debates like these. I also have fun talking about it, it let's me fine tune my ideas :)

So because the word 'chair' *may* have developed to instead be 'curtain', it holds no meaning? That does not follow. These are the linguistic games necessary to justify your position.

"How do I know that the universe is rational? Well, for one, I seriously doubt it could exist if it wasn't - and I'd love to confirm this with a theoretical physicist."

A physicist could have nothing of interest to say, dexter. All of physics already assumes a rational universe (physical law). What rational law would tell an irrational universe that it couldn't exist?

Oh putin (and everyone else)... for the last time I hope:

Do you or do you not understand (or do you just disagree) that this statement:

"I know "X" with a high degree of certainty"

is itself a factual claim, subject to review, that you claim to know?

If you say it is, how do you know it? That is the central thing happening here that I have been saying since the start.



And Putin - do you then disagree with the principle of freedom of belief? Or are there times when people should be made to believe certain things that are "known" to be true? I agree that people can believe things that I find ugly. My own family does. But as with free speech, I'd defend to the death their right to believe it.

I think if I wasn't a skeptic though, I'd be much less enthusiastic about that. That is one of the practical implications of skepticism that I find positive but you find negative. I guess that's just opinion then.

Syanalon you're kind of frustrating. Can you be a little more detailed about what you're trying to say? I'm not even sure what your criticism is.

"If you say it is, how do you know it? That is the central thing happening here that I have been saying since the start."

The scientific method. Making predictions and testing the results to observe if they confirm the predictions.
Other certainties can be obtained through mathematical proofs.
Other certainties can be obtained through laws of logic (which is mostly a subset of mathematics anyway). The law of non-contradiction, for example. You cannot be both Thucy and not-Thucy.

I'm no logician or philosopher or mathematician but I think most people agree with this.

" do you then disagree with the principle of freedom of belief? Or are there times when people should be made to believe certain things that are "known" to be true? I agree that people can believe things that I find ugly. My own family does. But as with free speech, I'd defend to the death their right to believe it. "

I don't see any intrinsic virtue in an absolute 'freedom of belief' or 'freedom of speech'. In fact both of these things are myths that never really exist. If your 'belief' results in unnecessary and gratuitous suffering, then there's no moral reason to allow it to flourish. Ditto speech, which no society ever intended to mean the freedom to engage in *any* kind of speech without consequences. Speech freedom only pertained to the absence of prior restraints on *political* speech. So, for example, no special licensing requirements in order to speak. But people can sue you for seditious libel after you engage in the speech.

The Blackstone Commentaries are informative on this issue. This forms the cornerstone of our (English/American) system of law.

the evidence gathered by the scientific method could be faulty though, no? if it could be faulty then you can not say you know how certain X is to be true. you cannot even say you know how certain you are that you can be certain about how certain X is... and so on...

about freedom of belief - i guess i disagree with you on it.

i also separate out belief and action. there is a difference. even if my belief is that i must absolutely kill 100 people this month, that doesn't mean i will necessarily. there isn't anything wrong with believing it though in my opinion. and it is just my opinion, let me be clear, you can't win an argument about whether freedom of belief has intrinsic value

(another thing skepticism teaches you - there is no such thing as winning an philosophical argument because it all in fact stems from opinion on how one chooses to view the world.)

That's why the scientific method typically calls for replication. After repeated tests, you can calculate the likelihood of false positives. From there you can conclude as to the reliability of the test and declare that you are X% certain X is true.

putin are you just not thinking about this very hard or just dismissing me out of hand? lol. i'm fine, again with science and believing in the material (science's findings), but

forget about the scientific method, how do you know your own memory is ever correct?

Well that's the difference between you and I (among many differences). You claim that it is more moral to allow people with psychopathic feelings to roam the streets so long as they do not act upon them. I claim that societies should be able to prevent mass murders with common sense preventive measures before they occur.

It reminds me of an episode of Criminal Minds, in which a young boy comes to the department and confesses that he has constant urges to kill women and relishes in the fantasy of their bloody deaths. The FBI wants him hospitalized, but his mother insists that he shouldn't be locked up because he hasn't hurt anybody.

And in any case, even if we set aside the extreme example of a confessed psychopath who has urges to kill people, *inaction* is still an action. If your belief causes you not to act in a way that would help others in a case of dire need, that's immoral.

I wish Americans weren't so in love with John Stuart Mill and read a bit more Michael Sandel.

"how do you know your own memory is ever correct?"

Because we're able to communicate right now because I remembered what particular words mean and how they're spelled (for the most part).

" i'm fine, again with science and believing in the material (science's findings), but"

Then why are you even asking this question?

ah but your memory could be wrong in that respect too. this text could actually read: "the unicorns are extra white this year," but you wouldn't know because you have a memory of these words, not that. that doesn't mean that's not what was said, it just means that's what you remember.

further these words could actually *mean* the unicorns are extra white and your brain just fucks up and reads them to mean what you think they mean this time.

and you could see them improperly with hallucinating/malfunctioning eyes, etc. etc.

Thucy but would you have reason to think "your memory could be wrong"? If *nothing* speaks for a proposition why grant it the same status as a proposition which is consistent with other facts (which in turn are consistent with other facts and so on to infinitum)?

I am not talking about belief here I am talking about knowledge. If my memory *could* be wrong, and I think you'll agree it could, then I don't *know* if it is or not. Whether I believe it is wrong, that's my own business.

@Thucydides, so you're argument is simply that you cannot know 100% that you are not completely out of touch with reality? That's pretty weak stuff. Reality has a way of reasserting itself - people who believe they can walk through walls tend to be disabused of that illusion pretty quickly and dramatically. And say for a moment that such delusions were commonplace... well, natural selection would quickly ensure that such a malfunction of the brain would be rare - either by selecting it out of a population or by completely eliminating the species were the malfunction an endemic and near universal one. Now this in no way ensures that a particular individual is in touch with reality at any given moment - but it does ensure that the population tends toward a decently accurate view of reality (as natural selection works on populations but guarantees nothing about individuals) and makes it very very likely (here's that probability thing) that you and I are mostly in touch with reality (because minor deviations might be tolerated but significant ones would have ensured that we walked in front of a train unknowingly or some similar disaster due to being completely out of touch). I'm confident you'll come back with exceptions and what-ifs for each of my points (as you dependably have with everyone else's)... so what. You simply refuse to accept other's views as reasonable no matter how well supported (and how weakly supported yours are)... That is not exactly a humble position.

@Thucydides, I'll give you this: Given your pedantic definition, I don't "know" much of anything. On the other hand, I certainly know quite a few things in the looser sense of "know". On occasion I've been shown to be incorrect in something I thought I knew (usually just a minor correction)... but it happens rarely enough that I haven't decided anything sweeping about me being crazy or completely out of touch... my view of reality has proven to be pretty darn dependable, actually. ...but, yes, I do realize that it is open to modification... as new data comes in, you might say. Is this all you're saying? It doesn't mean that I wasn't living in reality or that reality wasn't rational or something that sweeping - but more like I simply didn't have the whole picture - still don't - but I have enough to operate on and my view improves over time. Happy?

What an ambiguous useless phrase "common sense preventive measures." Can you imagine what Hitler or Stalin would do with the right to make "common sense preventive measures?" It's a license for the state to do whatever it wants.

Dexter... you're citing *natural selection* against my idea? Have you not listened to me at all?

There is no framework, there is nothing to lean on, there is no evidence for anything.

You keep sounding the same notes - my reality works for me just about all the time so it must be real - that's madness. You haven't got a clue what the real world might be like. You could be a sentient mass of silicone in an asteroid in a universe with totally different physical laws who is imagining every bit of this. You absolutely totally could be.

You can't say whether that's a likely thing or not, because you have nothing to back it up with. You can't back it up with your past experiences or perceptions because they could potentially be completely unreflective of true reality. It is even possible that our brain loves patterns so much that it makes us think we have all these little things figured out and coherent when in truth reality is a jumbled mess of events that are always different and follow no laws and this isn't anything but our extrapolation of it all. There are endless possibilities, some with parts of our perceived reality intact, others that totally discard it.

If the loose sense of the word know you refer to is: something that appears to be true to me, then sure, of course you know a lot. So do I. It's what I mean when I say I know Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president. But if, when pressed, I insist that I really do *know* it beyond a shadow of a doubt, then.... well then I'm wrong about that.

I keep saying the same things.... do you not see how the possibility of being wrong about everything means you can't know you're right about anything?

And when it comes to accepted "well-supported" positions - that plays no part in discussions like these. Skepticism requires no evidence - it posits a lack of any evidence for anything. Therefore it rejects the whole idea of having a "well-supported" philosophical construction.

I think I've said about all that can be said for tonight. I suppose those who will understand have understood.

"ah but your memory could be wrong in that respect too. this text could actually read: "the unicorns are extra white this year," but you wouldn't know because you have a memory of these words, not that. that doesn't mean that's not what was said, it just means that's what you remember.

further these words could actually *mean* the unicorns are extra white and your brain just fucks up and reads them to mean what you think they mean this time.

and you could see them improperly with hallucinating/malfunctioning eyes, etc. etc. "

But I don't, and you didn't, so we continue to communicate without problems. Hence I know my memory is correct. Your question was not about infallibility, but about a *high degree of certainty*. Here was your question

Do you or do you not understand (or do you just disagree) that this statement:

"I know "X" with a high degree of certainty"

is itself a factual claim, subject to review, that you claim to know?

If you say it is, how do you know it? That is the central thing happening here that I have been saying since the start. "

I know that my memory is almost certainly correct because we continue to communicate and understand each other. You raising the .000000000000000000001% chance that it could be incorrect doesn't change that in the least.

"What an ambiguous useless phrase "common sense preventive measures." Can you imagine what Hitler or Stalin would do with the right to make "common sense preventive measures?" It's a license for the state to do whatever it wants."

Another anti-social anti-government libertarian raising the specter of tyranny every 3 seconds. Gee, as if we need another one of those.

Thucydides, you stated: "Skepticism requires no evidence - it posits a lack of any evidence for anything." Nonsense. It posits a view... and then fails to support it. The fact that its view is that evidence is impossible doesn't magically make it immune from needing evidence to prove itself... like any other proposition/theory. Neat trick and all - but it is nothing more than denial - it offers nothing on its own. A theory unsupported is not a theory. A theory unsupported is a whim, an imagining... It has little value - to me at least.

"I know that my memory is almost certainly correct because we continue to communicate and understand each other. You raising the .000000000000000000001% chance that it could be incorrect doesn't change that in the least. "

no, your belief is continually reinforced by the continued success of your communication. Thucy's position is that you will never know, but you can believe you know. It is about trust in one's senses and one's memory, and when talking about the scientific method trust in other's senses and experimental method, and perhaps even theory (this is truly a communal experience where multiple human memories and processing collaborate on the development of ideas and trust each is playing the same game in the same universe...)

@Dexter: 'Thucydides stated: "Skepticism requires no evidence - it posits a lack of any evidence for anything." Nonsense. It posits a view... and then fails to support it.'

i actually agree with you, but your alternative view fails to have any evidence of VALUE to the skeptic, because they can always call it into question. Thus no view has any value. The skeptical position is simple, and undeniable. How and ever it is eminently possible to ignore the skeptical view point and get on with your life.

OR indeed to accept the skeptical view point and get on with your life 'as if' this view point wasn't true.

The getting on with your life bit requires some other view points, perhaps a religious one or a materialistic one. A nihilistic one will also do. Retaining the Skeptical point of view inhibit decision making to the point of mental disability and perhaps insanity.

However our neurons are (i trust) designed to react and build memories AS IF the world were that which the materialist describes, one where consistent repeated results build up stronger neural pathways - if you put the same input into a brain over and over it will eventually build a network of neurons which responds the same way each time - this is called 'learning' and thus the human being is NOT by nature a skeptic... It is by nature a scientist. When contrary signals are received (on a neuronal level) these networks diminish.

@Thucy, i'm sorry, i missed the part where you pointed to the usefulness of skepticism, would you mind re-quoting yourself?

" the .000000000000000000001% chance that [your memory] could be incorrect"

The % is based on your experience, you trust that this is the case while not KNOWING anything ever. You can act on this trust, but you can't build a logical arguement without acknowledging that it is entirely predicated on trust in your belief.

Where you believe that your memory is not faulty. That your senses do not lie, usually. And that your understanding of communication and language is such that you know Thucy isn't just trolling you.

"no, your belief is continually reinforced by the continued success of your communication. Thucy's position is that you will never know, but you can believe you know."

How is it only my own trust or belief in my own memory and senses if the other person must be able to understand and communicate as well? If communication is occurring then "trust" or "belief" is no longer required. If memory and senses were failing then communication would be impossible. It has nothing to do with belief or trust.

"(this is truly a communal experience where multiple human memories and processing collaborate on the development of ideas and trust each is playing the same game in the same universe...)"

This ceases to be "trust" in any meaningful sense of the word. Even if you made yourself believe that you weren't in the same universe you'd be confronted with brute fact that you are.

Skepticism, as usual, is just a bunch of word games. What does "know" mean, what does "trust" mean. It's just a bunch of gibberish pretending to be clever.