07-26-2015, 09:55 PM
(This post was last modified: 07-26-2015, 10:03 PM by TheFifty9Sound.)
Can you really be sure the world is not flat?
I'm a novice when it comes to philosophy, but my basic understanding of Descartes is that he used his evil demon thought experiment in thinking out this problem. He concluded that there was no possible way that he could be sure that there was not an evil demon between his mind and his senses, manufacturing his entire experience of the outside world. Descartes said there was no way of proving the existence or non-existence of the demon because by default, all evidence of the world would have to come via his senses, which the demon would be manipulating. This is what led him to state that even if he was doubting his experience, the very act of doubting was at least thinking, which meant the only thing he could really be sure of was the famous "I think, therefore I am."
In this same line of thought, can we really be sure our perception of the earth is correct?
Or, another way of looking at it is that science presupposes that things will always react in the same way. We expect the sun to rise tomorrow, because it has done so every day of existence. When I drop a ball, I expect it to fall, because gravity has always pulled objects towards the earth. But does that prove that either of these will be the case tomorrow? Not at all. It just suggests there is a high probability, based on passed experience, that it will happen the same way tomorrow.
In a strange way, this means science is just a sophisticated form of superstition. "Every time I wear my Eden Hazard shirt, Chelsea win. Therefore Chelsea will always win when I wear my Eden Hazard shirt".
There is a story about a chicken who was fed by a farmer every day of his life since birth. Each day the chicken would see the farmer approaching, and inevitability he gave the chicken seed. One day the chicken saw the farmer coming and thought, "brilliant, more food", and the farmer snapped his neck.
So even if we point to scientific evidence, can we ever truly be sure of absolute truth?
I'm a novice when it comes to philosophy, but my basic understanding of Descartes is that he used his evil demon thought experiment in thinking out this problem. He concluded that there was no possible way that he could be sure that there was not an evil demon between his mind and his senses, manufacturing his entire experience of the outside world. Descartes said there was no way of proving the existence or non-existence of the demon because by default, all evidence of the world would have to come via his senses, which the demon would be manipulating. This is what led him to state that even if he was doubting his experience, the very act of doubting was at least thinking, which meant the only thing he could really be sure of was the famous "I think, therefore I am."
In this same line of thought, can we really be sure our perception of the earth is correct?
Or, another way of looking at it is that science presupposes that things will always react in the same way. We expect the sun to rise tomorrow, because it has done so every day of existence. When I drop a ball, I expect it to fall, because gravity has always pulled objects towards the earth. But does that prove that either of these will be the case tomorrow? Not at all. It just suggests there is a high probability, based on passed experience, that it will happen the same way tomorrow.
In a strange way, this means science is just a sophisticated form of superstition. "Every time I wear my Eden Hazard shirt, Chelsea win. Therefore Chelsea will always win when I wear my Eden Hazard shirt".
There is a story about a chicken who was fed by a farmer every day of his life since birth. Each day the chicken would see the farmer approaching, and inevitability he gave the chicken seed. One day the chicken saw the farmer coming and thought, "brilliant, more food", and the farmer snapped his neck.
So even if we point to scientific evidence, can we ever truly be sure of absolute truth?
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