'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. '

oh now you've done it, now you're pretending to know that OTHER people exist as well, seriously, it may be a fair belief to hold given that you already trust your senses and memory, but without KNOWING those things first how can you infer anything?

"What does "know" mean, what does "trust" mean. It's just a bunch of gibberish pretending to be clever."

i'm not trying to be clever, i'm just trying to convey the idea to you which you seems to be unable to grasp. I mean perhaps communication is not occurring between us. Does it become mere semantics if i replace the word 'know' with the word 'trust' or is there a fundamental philosophical position being taken here?

Yes, obviously there's a different philosophical position. I ask again, what does know mean and why are you so obsessed with the word? Does this have any meaningful implication or is this is just glorified navel gazing?

i am not obsessed with the word.

i'm here supporting thucy's position merely because it seems valid. But i do not consider myself a skeptic and don't see how you can not appreciate the arguement.

I'm trying to explain it and it is fair to say that i haven't defined 'knowing' or 'trust' but if you don't understand those words and what i mean by them in the context i've been using them (that is me and not thucy) then i don't know that i can explain it any better.

So, have we reached a consensus on the Gettier problem yet?

By the way; where are my 200 bucks?

They are defined as being sure a statement is true beyond doubt.

At least orathaic knows what I'm trying to get across. I had thought Putin et al were merely refusing to accept my points but it now seems they actually didn't understand me. Sorry to have failed in that respect.

I will try another time to sum it up - Putin believes he can trust his senses and memory. From this believe he construes "knowledge." That is - if his senses and memory were trustworthy, he could be said to know several things, one of the most important being that it is likely that his senses are usually correct.

But all of that is founded on the idea that the senses and memory are usually trustworthy, which is a position you actually *don't* have any evidence for, it is just something you choose to believe on faith. Which is fine, I have the same believe. The difference between us is I acknowledge that it's a belief whereas you maintain knowledge.

The difference between knowledge and belief, one more time, is that belief is a viewpoint you realize could be false but you choose to hold the view anyway and live your life accordingly. Knowledge is instead something that there is no possibility could be false. Essentially, you have no choice whether or not to believe it, because it is just true. And once again I am saying that there is nothing like that. There are no things that just automatically true - *any* statement of fact (which is a claim about the real world) could potentially be incorrect.

To try to address your specific obsession with communication:

It seems you think that because we appear to be successfully communicating (dunno about that :P) that you can know that we are both real people using English and so on.

But as orathaic brought up - could I not just be an imaginary friend of yours? You could be having a delusion wherein this user named Thucydides who in fact does not exist at all is saying all these things. It could be that all the real posts in this thread are just you rebutting points no one made, and the rest of the community saying "putin who the hell are you talking to?" But you wouldn't know that because your eyes and memory are fooling you.

If you first of all believe that this situation is impossible, well then I guess where the issue is. But I think you would have to acknowledge that this type of thing is possible. I think what you have been saying is that it is possible but very unlikely.

However, again (whew), when you say "it is unlikely that my memory is wrong all the time," you have one piece of evidence for that - and one only - your memory itself.

I, personally, have 20 years of memories of me living in this world which has up till now appeared remarkably coherent and real. But, to use an example I've heard elsewhere, it is actually possible that God created me three seconds ago and gave me all these memories. So then I would actually be wrong that my memory is trustworthy.

Saying that the above situation is unlikely is only correct in that any situation of reality you can dream up is unlikely because it is so specific. The central requirement though is to also acknowledge that, just as unlikely, is the "real" world, and the normal explanation for everything. This worldview has no monopoly on truth or even likelihood.

You also use the following argument more than once:

But if my senses or memory were fooling me, I would very quickly realize it when I (eg) walk into a crowded street that I thought was empty, or, when I try to communicate with what I thought were your words but actually were not. You're basically saying - hey, if I was wrong about the real world, the real world would get through to me and say "hey, you've been wrong up to now!"

How exactly do you know that would happen? If your *entire* life has been a hallucination, why do you assume you would get into trouble in the next moment? Doesn't it make more sense that whatever has been making things seem coherent up till now will continue to do so? It is at least possible, and because of this, it is also possible that you are wrong about everything.

Seeing this, a skeptic says nothing is known where something that is known is defined as something that cannot be doubted. Once nothing is known, all facts that inform our decisions are actually beliefs (which require no evidence and are just personal decisions).

Orathaic, i think about two pages ago I had about 4 posts in a row, the first two being quite long. The one with headings on it is where I quote my own writing about the usefulness of skepticism.

It's on page 3.

"They are defined as being sure a statement is true beyond doubt. "

So this is like the god debate, in which the theist defines god in such a way as to always win the argument, or at least not lose. Knowledge is being equated to infallible truth here, which is an absurd definition that is false by definition because nothing can be infallibly true. That's what I figured the definition was which is why this discussion is a pointless exercise. The skeptic stacked the deck so that he could win.

You're right... the theist cannot lose in that a God is always possible. What they don't often realize is that this stems from the fact that nothing can be known, including the existence of a God.

I didn't stack the deck, it's the reality of things that's stacked against knowledge. I apologize for pointing out what appears to be the truth.

It's like you're questions my motives or something. I really do actually believe this, you know.

Heraclitus[ ... ]:
A foolish man is put in a flutter by every word
- [Fragment found in] Plutarch ON LISTENING TO LECTURES
Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker [H. Diehls & Kranz. Berlin, 1952. 10th edition] B 87

" ... [A]bsolute certainty ..."
reject absolutes. "Absolutism," as a quality as in "absolute authority" - u want Clement of Alexandria, or Socrates' jurymen to tell you what to think and say?

taylor i dont know if im the only once but i cant understand your posts.

can you rephrase it maybe without as much punctuation?

I think taylor4's posts are written in some kind of code. I am have been trying to decipher them but no luck yet :P

"But all of that is founded on the idea that the senses and memory are usually trustworthy, which is a position you actually *don't* have any evidence for, it is just something you choose to believe on faith. Which is fine..."

Actually, if these is a single coherent Universe then investigation would prove that our memories don't make sense where they differed.

All evidence gathered so far by science has built a picture of an incredibly coherent detailed, complex Universe which is beyond that understanding of the human brain, and thus also beyond the imagining of such a brain.

That is to say IF the real world exists you would require that it be consistent, and so far this is what we've found. Of course we can't be CERTAIN, but we are yet to find something which contradicts our beliefs, and thus there is evidence for them.

Not something which makes them certain, merely something which has thus far failed to refute them.

@thucy, i'll go back and look that up shortly.

wasnt going to mention it but you know induction is a fallacy right?

tell me about it... no really.

i'm aware that it is possible that inductive reasoning does not apply to the Universe:

"All inductive reasoning depends on the similarity of the sample and the population."

So it is assumed that today the Universe will behave in a similar manner to yesterday.

Or that the behaviour of the Universe as studied (sample of past studies) will carry on to help us understand the behaviour of the rest of the Universe (all possible studies)

This is a useful assumption to make because with it we can make predictions, and without it our we can't even say that tomorrow the sun will rise.

Useful by scientific standards because without it Science has no basis to conclude anything. That is if you do not concede to taking this assumption you can't do any further study (and i consider science to be focused on problem solving, which requires studying of any given problem - it's success if measured by the solutions to given problems....)

Again, it is entirely possible that 50% of gravity is caused by blue gnomes pushing things down, and 50% by green gnomes, and that in 2012 the blue gnomes will all die or emigrate and all gravitational attractions will be cut precisely in half...

but until that happens we have no way to predict that it will, and so we choose the simplest prediction which is that gravitons mediate the gravitational force and mass is conserved... and that tomorrow will follow by the same rules we observed today.

Ok, so much for the 'usefulness' of assumptions without which we are paralyzed in our pursuit of knowledge - scientific knowledge that is, not True Knowledge which the skeptic tells us is unobtainable and the Theists tells us is transmitted by God to their Prophets.

Now to the benefits of Skepticism, Thucy makes the case for two things: quietude and moderation. Though i would argue that are one and the same thing.

The quietude leads from a lack of fear of the unknown, how can one fear the unknown when all is unknown? Well i suppose skepticism could be combined with mental breakdown and not quietude, having these fear overwhelm you, and i fear i know at least one person who suffered greatly for similar philosophical questions. The moderation, on the other hand, is easier to see - you become moderate because you don't consider any single position to be absolutely true.

I would assume that this moderation applies equally to fears. That internally a person is not too afraid or worried about one given possibility and thus this leads (or can lead) also to quietude.

Now the only question to be answered is whether this is a good/useful thing.

is moderation good? Was it moderation which lead Neville Chamberlain to declare 'peace in our time' after the Munich agreement was signed in 1938 with Nazi Germany? On the other hand i think that some moderation during the treaty of Versailles could have lead to a different germany which never voted the Nazi's into power...

So perhaps moderation has it's place. But how does a skeptic choose to involve themselves at all? If you sit on your mountain top considering the nature of reality, and waiting for someone to come ask you to share your famed moderation to help resolve some raging debate/conflict?

Of course, as described above, Thucy also chooses certain assumptions to live life upon. And i would argue that these assumptions actually become more important than the impact of skepticism. The assumptions/beliefs that you live by can dissolve the quietude acquired through skepticism, and leave you as involved and volatile as any ... em... philistine, that's the right phrase yeah?

I disagree.

I see it like this: yes I live a normal life and hold normal beliefs, but the foundation for them is not some kind of presumed knowledge, it is my skeptical "knowledge."

So there are three kinds of people:

The dogmatist - this is most people, religious zealots, many scientists and even philosophers. People who think there is something they know.

The "true" skeptic - these people don't exist... at least I've never heard of one. There was a famed Greek skeptic whose followers are said to have had to drag him out of the way of oncoming chariots but.... who knows if that's true or just a story to make a point.

And there is what I am - a hybrid. Someone who acknowledges the truth in skepticism and embraces its implications and therefrom chooses a belief for personal inscrutable reasons.

My contention:

this hybrid type person - assuming the real world is real (which i do so there's no problem) is a better person if he acknowledges the possibility of his own error.

yes moderation is potentially the wrong thing - but pretty rarely if you ask me.

"Everything in moderation" really isn't so bad a way to live, all told.

The skeptic questions dogmatists while at the same time acknowledging they might be correct.

There is a difference between believing something is true, and knowing that what you believe is true.

The Nazis may have been dead right. But they didn't know they were right. My belief, and yes it is just a belief (everything is), is that if the Nazis were skeptics, they wouldn't have been Nazis.

That's just a hunch, you can cry foul if you want. But I'm not the only one that observed skepticism leads to quietude.

You say we fear the unknown. I couldn't agree more. It's my suspicious that this is one reason skepticism gets such a hard time in mainstream circles. No one wants to have to admit nothing is known - it would strip away everything familiar.

But when you believe nothing is known, you realize... if nothing is known, in a way, everything is known. The only thing to know, as it were, is that nothing is known..

if you catch my drift. It leads to a peace of mind. I'm not sure what you're referring to with your friend... I hope they're alright.

Anyway a good microcosm of this kind of thing is your classic does God exist debate.

There are the theists who no one likes except theists. There the atheists who no one likes except atheists. And there are agnostics, some of whom ally up with atheists because they use agnostic as a cover word for atheist-lite.

But then there are hard-core agnostics who tend to piss off both sides because they essentially tell them to stop arguing about things they can't have any idea about. Neither side wants to hear that - they're dogmatists. They want to be right, and they want to win, because they think they *know*

Of course, being an agnostic I'm probably biased but... it's much kinder to rally under a "?" banner than a zealous one.

Well anyway. I've said my piece and I think you understand me. That's all I can do. I'm not out to evangelize this stuff.

Also upon reflection I'd say the quietude comes from answering the burning questions.

If you believe in skepticism long enough you come to accept the following answer for any question:

there is no answer. You'll never know.

It tends to settle you down. And it comes from a foundation - a conclusion - that nothing is known. I think a skeptic can believe whatever he wants.

But if I have 4 skeptics:

A skeptic who believes A, B, C, and D.

Then you can bet that skeptic A will be a better A than the A's who think they know A for sure, and skeptic be will be a better B than the B's who are dogmatists, etc. Because they are moderate.

An extreme position always leads to trouble.

I disagree.

I see it like this: yes I live a normal life and hold normal beliefs, but the foundation for them is not some kind of presumed knowledge, it is my skeptical "knowledge."

So there are three kinds of people:

The dogmatist - this is most people, religious zealots, many scientists and even philosophers. People who think there is something they know.

The "true" skeptic - these people don't exist... at least I've never heard of one. There was a famed Greek skeptic whose followers are said to have had to drag him out of the way of oncoming chariots but.... who knows if that's true or just a story to make a point.

And there is what I am - a hybrid. Someone who acknowledges the truth in skepticism and embraces its implications and therefrom chooses a belief for personal inscrutable reasons.

My contention:

this hybrid type person - assuming the real world is real (which i do so there's no problem) is a better person if he acknowledges the possibility of his own error.

yes moderation is potentially the wrong thing - but pretty rarely if you ask me.

"Everything in moderation" really isn't so bad a way to live, all told.

The skeptic questions dogmatists while at the same time acknowledging they might be correct.

There is a difference between believing something is true, and knowing that what you believe is true.

The Nazis may have been dead right. But they didn't know they were right. My belief, and yes it is just a belief (everything is), is that if the Nazis were skeptics, they wouldn't have been Nazis.

That's just a hunch, you can cry foul if you want. But I'm not the only one that observed skepticism leads to quietude.

You say we fear the unknown. I couldn't agree more. It's my suspicious that this is one reason skepticism gets such a hard time in mainstream circles. No one wants to have to admit nothing is known - it would strip away everything familiar.

But when you believe nothing is known, you realize... if nothing is known, in a way, everything is known. The only thing to know, as it were, is that nothing is known..

if you catch my drift. It leads to a peace of mind. I'm not sure what you're referring to with your friend... I hope they're alright.

Anyway a good microcosm of this kind of thing is your classic does God exist debate.

There are the theists who no one likes except theists. There the atheists who no one likes except atheists. And there are agnostics, some of whom ally up with atheists because they use agnostic as a cover word for atheist-lite.

But then there are hard-core agnostics who tend to piss off both sides because they essentially tell them to stop arguing about things they can't have any idea about. Neither side wants to hear that - they're dogmatists. They want to be right, and they want to win, because they think they *know*

Of course, being an agnostic I'm probably biased but... it's much kinder to rally under a "?" banner than a zealous one.

Well anyway. I've said my piece and I think you understand me. That's all I can do. I'm not out to evangelize this stuff.

"An extreme position always leads to trouble."

That's a rather extreme position.

.@orathiac: ''But how does a skeptic choose to involve themselves at all?''

I would answer this by saying that we must be open to the fact that today's scientific ''truths'' will almost certainly be tomorrow's ''falsehoods.'' Without this acceptance no significant scientific progress is possible. Indeed it is this ''skepticism'' which makes Science a very much human creative process, just as much as, for example art or literature. It is therefore my view that skepticism/doubt is to be embraced, particularly when it comes to one's own work (!)

@Fulhamish, i disagree, in principle science is built on the assumption that all science which has gone before is, at least to some degree valid.

Now perhaps i'm focusing mostly on my own discipline, in some psychology and economic sciences there are still huge reversals of popular theory, and lots of room.

In physics i think conservation of mass/energy, symmetry breaking of CPT and the knowledge that the current theory fails to include a quantum description of general relativity, means they are known holes which we know where to look at, and known successful theories which we default to accepting... perhaps not dogmatically, but fairly consistently, until the we find evidence which is inconsistent.

And i'm not one to fall into the 'physics is already done' trap, there is tonnes of physics to do, it's just all expanding our understanding of other systems without overhauling the current paradigm...

@Thucy, i believe you will find, rallying under a question mark is not something humans are inclined towards. And yes, that 'there is no answer' is the answer to all questions is something with which some people find difficult to deal...

@ orathiac. The danger with what I might describe as your ''incremental approach'' is that it is potentially stiffling of quantum ( a good word in this context?) leaps in understanding. The history of science is littered with examples of these leaps and it might perhaps be considered a trifle arrogant of us to assume that this process has now come to an end. Therefore I am aftraid that I must disagree with you and state that, in my view, skeptism and doubt are an intrinsic and vital part of the scientific method.

The skepticism you're advocating is simply nihilism with another name. A name with less baggage.

That's unfair to nihilism.

@ Manganese. In that case I will line up, at a respectful distance behind, that great ''nihilist'' Max Planck and you must take your position with Philipp von Jolly. :-)

Just to make it clear I do not deny today's knowledge, but I am open to the fact that it might be contradicted tomorrow. This does not match any reasonable definition of nihilism. Indeed to categotise me as a nihilist particularly in the context of my stated views on the creative process and science is yet another fallicious ad homimum attack (so no surprise there then!).

Yes, I said that it was unfair to call it nihilism.

This whole extreme subjectivism meme is exactly what Jacobi had in mind when he coined the term in his criticism of Fichte. I don't know why it's "ad hominem" to point that out. Anyway, it seems skeptics are consumed with this idea that they are "humble". Anyway, it seems the whole purpose of skepticism is entirely inward looking. Indeed, it must be inward looking because reality is but a subjective illusion. Anyway, congratulations for being "humble". That is, after all, what skeptics want, right? To congratulate themselves for not being dogmatists? I see little else going on here.

Meanwhile real suffering continues unabated while they contemplate the impossibilities of true intersubjective understanding.

Holy shit I repeated myself 4 times. Bah.