Darwinists (while they still exist) are my inspiration for writing
My primary reason for writing this blog?
T.S. Eliot wrote, "Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm, but the harm does not interest them … or they do not see it, or they justify it … because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves."
Perhaps you remember your grade school years and the transition to junior and then senior high school? As little kids we all tended to just band together and play games and very few outcasts were identified. But as time went on and the first surges of adolescent urges began pressing upon our emotions friendships became more important, girls (or boys depending on who you are) went from being interesting or boring to fascinating, frustrating and confounding beings. We as children were becoming young adults and, along the way, began to behave less like people and more like nations involved in diplomatic relationships, wars and treaties.
High school; belonging to a particular clique or group became important to most of us and most of us had overlapping circles of influence that tended to label us as cool, geek, jock, stoner, straight, loser and etc. The labels change over time and we have goths and straight-edge and, well, we will always have jocks but you get the idea. During junior and senior high school many kids are more concerned about the "peer grades" they are receiving than the academic ones. Many adults walk around today still carrying the "label" that they were given in high school and find that it has an impact on everything they do or fail to do.
"We can't tear out a single page from our life, but we can throw the whole book into the fire." - George Sand
The healthiest teens are the ones who decide to be themselves and do what they think they should do and not worry about following a crowd. Kids like that often find that they have become leaders and have had a crowd find them! In our youth group we do have several teenagers like that, kids who others just want to be around, kids who set goals and set out to achieve them, kids who grow up to be responsible adults. One of the great benefits of teaching teens is seeing them grow up and become missionaries, get married and start families, join the military, become school teachers and ministers, start businesses. Rarely do teenagers who become Christians and base their lives on Christ wind up in the gutter down the road. I began teaching kids back in 1979 and it is amazing how the relationship between kids and Christ tends to mirror the relationship between their adult lives and joyful living. Whether couples and individuals, the young people I have taught and observed growing up over the years have proven to me how important the anchor is to the ship, the foundation is to the house, the soil is to the seed.
We are all born with different gifts. Having a bright personality, being physically attractive and being athletic are all easy cards to play in your youth to be accepted. To a lesser extent being highly intelligent is often an asset but, played wrong, can cause one to be among the outcasts. The world sells to children and teenagers to a great extent, so advertising presents teenagers who are in the 99th percentile of looks and physicality and then uses makeup and editing to make them look even better. Brands are associated with popularity and "cool" and so teens whose clothes come from Wal-Mart or Target (tar-shzay) are sometimes laughed at and yet, the teens who are confident and do not concern themselves with the crowd's opinions sail through these seas flags flying while others become hurt and wounded and feel as if school is a form of torment to be dreaded each and every day.
I know when I was a freshman, one of my fellow frosh was a girl named Linda who was identified as a "slut" and since she had a last name that could easily be associated with sex, the label was firmly stamped upon her almost from the start. She was a rather average looking girl, blonde, slender but certainly not by anybody's definition model material. It turned out that she was a Christian. Had she actually been promiscuous, then become a Christian and changed her ways or had she been slandered from the start? To this day I am not sure, since her circle of friends and mine did not intersect. I was an athlete but also considered a nerdy bookbrain and also an avid musician so my friends were football players, readers and guys who could play guitar or drums or just got into grabbing the newest Cream album and listening to it LOUD. She seemed to not be part of any groups at all. But over the years more and more people discovered that she was smart and friendly and kind to people and it turned out that girls who needed to talk about anything felt safe confiding in Linda. In her senior year she was the homecoming queen and nobody associated her with anything negative at all. As a non-Christian the whole thing seemed like a fluke but now it makes sense.
Christians have absolutes. We know where we came from, we know why we are here, we know generally what we are doing with our lives and we know where we are going. If a teenager can grasp this concept he or she may not become rich or famous and in fact may face a life of hardships but that young person will have meaning in life and will know and appreciate peace and joy.
Atheists are selfish. This is no surprise, the natural tendency for all humanity is to be selfish. Selfishness is the default setting for mankind and this puts us at odds with God, who says that we are to love God and each other and this love is measured by actions not feelings. You tell a woman you love her and she will probably be glad to hear it but she will know it is love when you think of her feelings and comfort ahead of your own. You say that you want to be with her but it means little without that ring in that little box coming out to be placed on her finger. Actions do speak louder than words.
What is amusing about atheism in general is that they do not understand that they are religious. Check out Where atheists get their moral code and also I think perhaps A moral guide for atheists.
Funny how Atheists have a belief system, just as a Buddhist has one and a Christian has one and a Mormon has one, yet atheists think they are not religious!!! It is also amusing to see them try to explain how one comes up with a "right" and a "wrong." It involves whether or not you can get away with it but also can you live with yourself if you do it and what will people think of you because of what you do but you ought to do what makes you happy and...no solution is ever identified. Yes, Ayn Rand believed in selfishness and she railed against the tyranny of the State against the rights of the individual but by what right did she argue these things? The United States of American was formed by men who believed and wrote:
"The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness..."
I highlighted that last part of the text because it is critical to understanding the formation of the United States and the burst of scientific discoveries and the spread of freedom across Western Civilization that brought remarkable prosperity and happiness to many generations of people. Martin Luther's repudiation of that tyranny of mind that typified the unholy alliance of church and state and the invention of the printing press were the two most important events of the Western World as we know it. Kings and Queens and Popes and Bishops who thought their own whims were to be obeyed without question by the unschooled masses would discover that, as the Bible was passed around and the serfs and artisans learned to read and to think, their days would be numbered.
The dumbed-down versions of history usually taught in schools does not recognize the mindset of the European nobility, an intermarriage of various houses so that cousins and uncles and mothers would wind up going to war against each other and often from the certainty that GOD had appointed them to rule and reign over all else and would lead them to victory. Rulers would arrange marriages across family lines to try to create political alliances and yet these men and women, sure of their divine appointments to rule, would continually make ungodly decisions and send hundreds of thousands of serfs to their death because of family squabbling. Within these kingdoms men of learning began to yearn for their intellectual and religious and actual freedom from tyranny. The mortar of a man-made Church and the pestle of the man-proclaimed Royalty produced those Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Rock and began a new life, produced the George Washingtons and Paul Reveres who with much anguish chose what was right over the right to be an Englishman.
These Founding Fathers would be aghast at the concept of the official "separation of church and state" which is nowhere to be found in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. They instead sought to form a nation that would not have a state religion. They would look at the America of today and point us to the continuation of the words I quoted earlier...
"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security..."
In this last election, the people have sought to throw off the new socialism by means of the ballot box. The ballot box will be our option in 2012 as well, but in the meantime we must fight in the courts against a godless socialistic mindset in the White House who controls agencies such as the EPA and uses them to make war against our businesses and therefore our families. I have no doubt that the men who, in 1773, tossed boxes of tea overboard to symbolize their grievances against an unjust government would be involved in the new Tea Party movement now.
Why is our nation struggling so? It is because we have abandoned the absolutes upon which we were built. Little by little Atheistic Humanism has become the State religion and its tenets are taught in public schools. This is why I posted Ian Juby's article concerning the idiotic and unjust court decisions of recent years, for the government has established Atheistic Humanism and imposed it upon our students by the forced teaching of Darwinism and the barring of any competing ideas from the classroom. Benjamin Franklin would be appalled and writing opinion pieces and probably have a program on Fox News. Thomas Jefferson would be working on lawsuits against these Statist concepts from the context of the 10th Amendment. George Washington would be forming Tea Party alliances like-minded groups. James Madison and John Adams would seek to drive abortionists out of their State before they even got started.
My duty to the children of my area is to make sure they get to hear something other than the propaganda passed out at the government schools. I am a Thomas Paine and an Ayn Rand of Christian conservatism, a crusader using words to fight against the tyranny of the ruling paradigm. In my little corner of the world, I do my utmost to give teens and adults the information they need to think critically about origins and to give consideration to the scientific evidence that supports a Creator God who did, indeed, create all things purposefully.
The Atheist who has a moral code that is borrowed from God is very possibly a good citizen and a pleasant neighbor. He could very well be quite happy. I do not resent his happiness nor his existence. My belief is that God gives all men free will to do what they will with this life given to them. The men and women who choose Atheism or Buddhism or Islam as their religion are quite possibly going to be successful in this life, for God does not play favorites. The laws of science and the laws of God are established and they work for everyone. A driven, smart, energetic Atheist can accomplish much and receive fame and fortune in this life. It is also true that clever and evil men can be successful by crooked and unseemly deeds and with the power of unholy alliances. You cannot tell the moral fiber of a man by his bank account.
"Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion—a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality. Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today. … Evolution therefore came into being as a kind of secular ideology, an explicit substitute for Christianity."—atheistic philosopher Michael Ruse [ How evolution became a religion: creationists correct? National Post, pp. B1,B3,B7 May 13, 2000]
But I know that only peace and joy come from God. I know that only God can give mankind a reason and a purpose for being here on this planet. I know that the absolutes found in the Bible are a firm foundation that young people can believe in and depend upon and that the foundation becomes stronger and firmer to us as we grow older and hopefully wiser. I know I can give teenagers an anchor to throw out when their ship of life needs to come to port. I know I can give them a foundation upon which to build their life and a marriage and an entire family tree that branches out from them.
I was an unbeliever and remained so into young adulthood and my marriage was about to go under and frankly I was going to be the one to sink it when Jesus Christ was revealed to me and I knew God was God and I wanted truth above even my own pride, and so humbled I came to God and He saved me and made me a son. Now from me and my wife has branched out six children and so far three grandchildren and all who are old enough to understand have become Christians. My little sister also became a Christian and along with her husband also my two nieces. Our family is now a family tree of believers sharing life and light and love to those around us.
My light must be harsher and more intrusive on the internet to try to snap sheeple out of their hypnotized unthinking propagandized worldview. My intent and desire in writing this blog is to unshackle the enslaved and indoctrinated minds of those who have unthinkingly taken in all the pablum fed to them by indoctrinated teachers and indoctrinating media outlets and break through the censorship of the NCSE crowd. I suspect a few of my commenters are professional censors and high priests of Darwinism themselves and many of the rest just typical selfish angry atheists who hate thinking about or being reminded of God.
THINK! High schools and colleges have become propaganda machines. There is an undercurrent of rebellion against the old, established cultural mores that is promoted at institutions of higher learning that tends to nicely coincide with the young person's need to establish himself apart from his home nest and identify himself as an individual rather than the son of/brother of/cousin of/grandson of the home of his youth. Young people easily get sucked into the liberal progressive blarney, which has become the 21st Century's version of being "with it." Each generation has the Abbie Hoffmans and Carlos Castanedas and Robert Pirsigs and Jack Kerouacs that call for the rebellious nature of the young person to break away from parental bonds in moral and philosophical ways. Each generation has their Ayn Rands and, unfortunately each generation has their Richard Dawkins. Within so-called Christian circles, there are always hucksters like the Bakkers and the Tiltons and the Hinns who speak of new revelations and promise great prosperity and wisdom to those who send money to the Bakkers and Tiltons and Hinns. There are always the Jack Hyles types who make Christianity a matter of outward appearances and tradition. There are always modern-day Pharisees to be found.
The hucksterism of Darwinism is a societal evil against which I am bound to fight. It often wears liberal/progressive clothes, carries college degrees and memberships in self-congratulatory organizations like Mensa (is it smart to pay someone money to tell you that you are smart?) and modern-day inquisition movements like the ACLU and the NCSE. But I do have some good news...a friend pointed out a site to me that is of great interest in that it discusses the concept of atheism in detail. The site is called the Atheism Analyzed blog. I was quite impressed with the content and so I will yield the tail end of this post to him with a recent post:
What do Atheists know?
Do Atheists have evidence for their belief that there is no deity? What could possibly serve as firm, material evidence for a negative proposition such as that? If the evidentiary demands are not for physical evidence, then what sort of non-material (aka super-natural) evidence do they embrace?
As with all things Atheist, there is no common assent to any specific philosophy or even modus operandi. Every Atheist is allowed, and is generally even proud of, his own freedom to create his own philosophy, his own ethic, his own worldview, his own reality and truth. (Well, maybe not truth, some claim that it is true that there is no truth.) In formal debate situations, Atheists will limit their admission of the possibility of real knowledge to be restricted to material, physical knowledge. This knowledge, they will say, is verifiable; no other type of proposed knowledge has this quality.
Is verifiability a guarantee of knowledge of reality? Is it the most fundamental property of truth? If we declare that it is both the fundamental property of truth and a guarantee of knowledge of reality, how do we know that? How is that declaration verified, itself?
The question, “how do we know that” leads to either a circular argument, an infinite regress, the need for basic foundational principles, or the concession that we can know nothing. Circular arguments and infinite regressions are unsatisfactory. Basic foundational principles are arguable, even deniable. That leaves us with the inability to know anything with any certainty at all: radical skepticism.
Radical Skepticism exists based on the rejectability of virtually everything, due to the potential falsity of all input, including sensory (external) input that is our window to the world outside our selves. Radical Skepticism especially rejects internal sources (experiential, intuitive, reflective, abstract) which derive from our own mental activity. Let’s take some examples.
The Problem of Evidence
Did Bertrand Russell exist? How can I know with assurance? What is the evidence, and how is it validated?
Direct Evidence: There is none: The existence of Bertrand Russell has reputedly ceased. But even if he were still (reputedly) alive, and we could touch and hear a person reputed to be him, that sensory input is suspect, as will be shown below.
Indirect Evidence: There are historical accounts regarding Russell: But history is not reliable. And there are Russell’s writings: books, letters and speeches with “Bertrand Russell” attributions; but are these really written by someone called Bertrand Russell? What evidence is there that proves the validity of this evidence? An infinite regress is required here: how do validate the evidence that is used to validate the original evidence?
Photos: Is this man Bertrand Russell? Really? For certain? Says who?
Witness testimony is notably unreliable.
Both sensory perceptions and internal ruminations are rejectable as potentially erroneous and flawed sources for valid information about anything to be known with certainty.
If we can’t know anything for certain, can we Know that we can’t know anything? For certain?
Brain in a Vat: Destruction of sensory knowledge as a valid source.
The idea behind a Brain in a Vat is the speculation that I might exist in a false universe, one that is created and exists only in my mind. Descartes posited a meddling demon controlling our minds, while the more modern idea is that a horde of scientists are feeding my vat-bound, detached brain with all the neurological signals that make me think that I am interacting with a universe that does not actually exist. Even the date and time are false – the scientists and my actual brain exist far in the future, while my neural inputs make me think I am in the 21st century. Everything I experience is false, a fantasy simulation that is maintained by the myriad scientists feeding signals into my brain.
How am I to prove, conclusively, that this is not the case? What evidence can I produce and submit to myself that will be adequate to invalidate this idea with absolute certainty?
G.E. Moore raised a hand; “here is a hand”, he said, then, “here is another hand”. Moore’s point was that some things are undeniable. How is that possible? Moore could have been a brain-in-a-vat, or possibly part of my own brain-in-a-vat simulated but false experiences. What exactly determines deniability?
Traditional concepts of evidence are wholly inadequate to vanquish this problem: there is no way to prove that the brain-in-a-vat is false. Yet we don’t believe that to be the case. I have never met anyone who thought he was a brain-in-a-vat, and that I was merely a simulation for him to experience in his brain.
Further, there is no evidence to actually support the concept that I am, in fact, a brain-in-a-vat. It seems obvious that I am able to direct much of my experience myself. I am able to go, at will, to incredibly detailed places, such as giant stores with myriad products that I can touch and manipulate; I can trek to wilderness areas with incredible panoramas of flora, fauna, and geology; there are billions of people that I can interact with in complex modes. There seems to be a limitless unboundedness to this simulation. Plus, I have a strong sense that if my free agency does not exist, then I do not exist. I am not an automaton, performing previously established tasks. Yet I cannot prove this belief.
Can Knowledge Exist?
If nothing can disprove the idea that existence as I know it is really a simulation and not real at all, then how can I know anything? What is certainty, anyway? What is the nature of knowledge and how is it validated sufficiently to be allowed as an acceptable belief?
Original Empiricism, Common Sense, and Worldview Assembly.
Perhaps I am, in fact, living in a simulation. What can I know about it – what are the characteristics of my environment, whether simulated or real? How would the process of knowledge acquisition and validation differ from that required if I lived in actual reality?
It would all start with observation, in either reality or simulated reality. What can I observe about the universe that is useful in helping me to understand and deal with it? Is it consistent? Is it contradictory? What elements within the universe determine my abilities to live, to think, and to cope with my environment? Observation is the original empiricism: basic knowledge is that experience which we encounter frequently enough that we grant its existence as real, or at least real enough to expect its existence and recurrence. Babies differentiate between women in general and Mommy by having experienced a relationship between the specific Mommy person and a full stomach, after having expressed the distress of the hunger experience. Observation of repetitive experiences generates expectations of consistency.
We might come to think that the consistency that we find in our universal environment tends to discount the idea of hordes of scientists feeding us simulation data; there would surely be a rift in the consistency of such a system at some point. Even the ability to test the simulation from within the simulation, destroying pieces of it here, creating new things there, leads to discounting the idea that my universe is not real. What about creating sub-simulations? Or Meta-simulations? At what point is a fantasy disputable enough to discount it altogether, even without the ability to produce physical evidence of its non-existence? Or perhaps, at what point is it necessary to care whether I am living in a simulation or in physical reality? If one is indiscernible from the other, what does it matter, at bottom? And if this is so, then skepticism, especially radical skepticism, has no force.
And very specifically this exercise shows that knowledge is generated by a free agent mind, through observing, cataloging and judging any and all inputs to the mind, regardless of the source. It is the faculty group within the mind, operating on experiences received by the mind, that determines what can be accepted as knowledge and what is to be rejected as fallacy. It is not the input source that makes the determination: it is the mind.
Source of Experiences
Along with the obvious external neural feeds from the environment, are there any other experiences that can generate knowledge? What would the source of such experiences be? For example, working a mathematical solution to proposed mathematical paradoxes: where does this experience come from, if it is not generated as a physical object (or a simulated external object)? Is it the molecular composition of nerves, or the electrochemical discharges that are producing this knowledge? Is there any reason to view molecules or electron/ion flow and declare, this will produce higher mathematics? Or empathy? Or green? Or knowledge in general?
The brain is molecules and electron/ion flow and blood flow. It is the mind that resides on the brain that produces rational categorization of experiences which turns into knowledge.
Locke’s hypothesis of the faculties of the mind still stand, except perhaps amongst the chronic skeptics, many of whom deny even consciousness. Locke proposed that the mind (being a blank slate in terms of original knowledge) had the faculties of apprehension, comparison, differentiation, judgment, and comprehension. These, along with various types of memory, form an operational basis for rational assessment of one’s environment. They form an internal intellectual system for generating and validating experiences as knowledge.
If this is so – and there is no non-chronically-skeptical reason to think it is not so – then knowledge is not determined solely by externally replicated experiences. Knowledge also comes from non-sensory sources, too.
What are the principles used by the faculties of differentiation and judgment, and what are their sources? Do these not require the same consistency and coherence mentioned above?
It seems that consistency and coherence are basic requirements for knowledge, for the ability to know anything and to judge its certainty. In fact, they are known as First Principles.
I recently came across a website that, along with being Atheist, rejects Boolean logic and the First Principles. This apparently is predicated on unknowability principles that are now emplaced in mathematics, those theorems of Godel, and the intuitionist logic of Brouwer, which displaces much of standard mathematics with philosophy based on unknowability presuppositions. But these arguments cannot defeat the standard objection: if one can’t know anything for certain, then one can’t know with certainty that he can’t know anything for certain. This paradox is a logical defeater, but under the radical skepticism principles, paradoxes don’t prove anything either, since logic is unknowable or at least unprovable. So logic doesn’t exist in the world of such skeptics.
The skeptic’s position of unknowability does not match up with observable knowledge. It is observable that the universe, whether real or simulated, is consistent in its behaviors according to physical laws; that the laws are coherent; and that we can know that, within the limits of induction. We can also know that there are limits to inductive certainty, and that with a huge number of observations of consistency, the certainty, while still not complete, is higher than the certainty of unknowability. Observations trump philosophy, when the philosophy is not congruent with observations.
It has been observed that skeptics do not behave in a manner consistent with their philosophy. Skeptics do know that the bus is coming and they do not step in front of it in the belief that their senses are faulty. They do not step off of balconies or the edges of cliffs. They do eat food, drive cars in abeyance of the hazard of other vehicles on the road, some even have sex and raise families just as if they actually exist. This failure to behave within the belief system is pointed to as philosophical hypocrisy by dissenting philosophers of the “reality” bent.
Yet in order for a materialist to salvage a system of beliefs which cannot be proven valid, such as Atheism, one must assert unknowability for at least some of the experiences and philosophies encountered (not his own of course).
And there it stands, they mired in illogic while being forced to assert that there is no logic, it being unknowable. The rest of us have to proceed without them, in the knowledge that knowledge is possible, rationality is possible, it being based on fundamental principles that are observable in the universe, and which are useful in developing rational worldviews, rather than basking in non-coherence while rejecting coherence as a valid principle. It is one thing to declare oneself and ones position as being rational; it is another to define rationality, to accept its existence, and actually use rationality in creating ones position.
Note: Some of this is based on ideas in Michael Huemer's book, "Skepticism and the Veil of Perception": highly recommended.
As with all things Atheist, there is no common assent to any specific philosophy or even modus operandi. Every Atheist is allowed, and is generally even proud of, his own freedom to create his own philosophy, his own ethic, his own worldview, his own reality and truth. (Well, maybe not truth, some claim that it is true that there is no truth.) In formal debate situations, Atheists will limit their admission of the possibility of real knowledge to be restricted to material, physical knowledge. This knowledge, they will say, is verifiable; no other type of proposed knowledge has this quality.
Is verifiability a guarantee of knowledge of reality? Is it the most fundamental property of truth? If we declare that it is both the fundamental property of truth and a guarantee of knowledge of reality, how do we know that? How is that declaration verified, itself?
The question, “how do we know that” leads to either a circular argument, an infinite regress, the need for basic foundational principles, or the concession that we can know nothing. Circular arguments and infinite regressions are unsatisfactory. Basic foundational principles are arguable, even deniable. That leaves us with the inability to know anything with any certainty at all: radical skepticism.
Radical Skepticism exists based on the rejectability of virtually everything, due to the potential falsity of all input, including sensory (external) input that is our window to the world outside our selves. Radical Skepticism especially rejects internal sources (experiential, intuitive, reflective, abstract) which derive from our own mental activity. Let’s take some examples.
The Problem of Evidence
Did Bertrand Russell exist? How can I know with assurance? What is the evidence, and how is it validated?
Direct Evidence: There is none: The existence of Bertrand Russell has reputedly ceased. But even if he were still (reputedly) alive, and we could touch and hear a person reputed to be him, that sensory input is suspect, as will be shown below.
Indirect Evidence: There are historical accounts regarding Russell: But history is not reliable. And there are Russell’s writings: books, letters and speeches with “Bertrand Russell” attributions; but are these really written by someone called Bertrand Russell? What evidence is there that proves the validity of this evidence? An infinite regress is required here: how do validate the evidence that is used to validate the original evidence?
Photos: Is this man Bertrand Russell? Really? For certain? Says who?
Witness testimony is notably unreliable.
Both sensory perceptions and internal ruminations are rejectable as potentially erroneous and flawed sources for valid information about anything to be known with certainty.
If we can’t know anything for certain, can we Know that we can’t know anything? For certain?
Brain in a Vat: Destruction of sensory knowledge as a valid source.
The idea behind a Brain in a Vat is the speculation that I might exist in a false universe, one that is created and exists only in my mind. Descartes posited a meddling demon controlling our minds, while the more modern idea is that a horde of scientists are feeding my vat-bound, detached brain with all the neurological signals that make me think that I am interacting with a universe that does not actually exist. Even the date and time are false – the scientists and my actual brain exist far in the future, while my neural inputs make me think I am in the 21st century. Everything I experience is false, a fantasy simulation that is maintained by the myriad scientists feeding signals into my brain.
How am I to prove, conclusively, that this is not the case? What evidence can I produce and submit to myself that will be adequate to invalidate this idea with absolute certainty?
G.E. Moore raised a hand; “here is a hand”, he said, then, “here is another hand”. Moore’s point was that some things are undeniable. How is that possible? Moore could have been a brain-in-a-vat, or possibly part of my own brain-in-a-vat simulated but false experiences. What exactly determines deniability?
Traditional concepts of evidence are wholly inadequate to vanquish this problem: there is no way to prove that the brain-in-a-vat is false. Yet we don’t believe that to be the case. I have never met anyone who thought he was a brain-in-a-vat, and that I was merely a simulation for him to experience in his brain.
Further, there is no evidence to actually support the concept that I am, in fact, a brain-in-a-vat. It seems obvious that I am able to direct much of my experience myself. I am able to go, at will, to incredibly detailed places, such as giant stores with myriad products that I can touch and manipulate; I can trek to wilderness areas with incredible panoramas of flora, fauna, and geology; there are billions of people that I can interact with in complex modes. There seems to be a limitless unboundedness to this simulation. Plus, I have a strong sense that if my free agency does not exist, then I do not exist. I am not an automaton, performing previously established tasks. Yet I cannot prove this belief.
Can Knowledge Exist?
If nothing can disprove the idea that existence as I know it is really a simulation and not real at all, then how can I know anything? What is certainty, anyway? What is the nature of knowledge and how is it validated sufficiently to be allowed as an acceptable belief?
Original Empiricism, Common Sense, and Worldview Assembly.
Perhaps I am, in fact, living in a simulation. What can I know about it – what are the characteristics of my environment, whether simulated or real? How would the process of knowledge acquisition and validation differ from that required if I lived in actual reality?
It would all start with observation, in either reality or simulated reality. What can I observe about the universe that is useful in helping me to understand and deal with it? Is it consistent? Is it contradictory? What elements within the universe determine my abilities to live, to think, and to cope with my environment? Observation is the original empiricism: basic knowledge is that experience which we encounter frequently enough that we grant its existence as real, or at least real enough to expect its existence and recurrence. Babies differentiate between women in general and Mommy by having experienced a relationship between the specific Mommy person and a full stomach, after having expressed the distress of the hunger experience. Observation of repetitive experiences generates expectations of consistency.
We might come to think that the consistency that we find in our universal environment tends to discount the idea of hordes of scientists feeding us simulation data; there would surely be a rift in the consistency of such a system at some point. Even the ability to test the simulation from within the simulation, destroying pieces of it here, creating new things there, leads to discounting the idea that my universe is not real. What about creating sub-simulations? Or Meta-simulations? At what point is a fantasy disputable enough to discount it altogether, even without the ability to produce physical evidence of its non-existence? Or perhaps, at what point is it necessary to care whether I am living in a simulation or in physical reality? If one is indiscernible from the other, what does it matter, at bottom? And if this is so, then skepticism, especially radical skepticism, has no force.
And very specifically this exercise shows that knowledge is generated by a free agent mind, through observing, cataloging and judging any and all inputs to the mind, regardless of the source. It is the faculty group within the mind, operating on experiences received by the mind, that determines what can be accepted as knowledge and what is to be rejected as fallacy. It is not the input source that makes the determination: it is the mind.
Source of Experiences
Along with the obvious external neural feeds from the environment, are there any other experiences that can generate knowledge? What would the source of such experiences be? For example, working a mathematical solution to proposed mathematical paradoxes: where does this experience come from, if it is not generated as a physical object (or a simulated external object)? Is it the molecular composition of nerves, or the electrochemical discharges that are producing this knowledge? Is there any reason to view molecules or electron/ion flow and declare, this will produce higher mathematics? Or empathy? Or green? Or knowledge in general?
The brain is molecules and electron/ion flow and blood flow. It is the mind that resides on the brain that produces rational categorization of experiences which turns into knowledge.
Locke’s hypothesis of the faculties of the mind still stand, except perhaps amongst the chronic skeptics, many of whom deny even consciousness. Locke proposed that the mind (being a blank slate in terms of original knowledge) had the faculties of apprehension, comparison, differentiation, judgment, and comprehension. These, along with various types of memory, form an operational basis for rational assessment of one’s environment. They form an internal intellectual system for generating and validating experiences as knowledge.
If this is so – and there is no non-chronically-skeptical reason to think it is not so – then knowledge is not determined solely by externally replicated experiences. Knowledge also comes from non-sensory sources, too.
What are the principles used by the faculties of differentiation and judgment, and what are their sources? Do these not require the same consistency and coherence mentioned above?
It seems that consistency and coherence are basic requirements for knowledge, for the ability to know anything and to judge its certainty. In fact, they are known as First Principles.
I recently came across a website that, along with being Atheist, rejects Boolean logic and the First Principles. This apparently is predicated on unknowability principles that are now emplaced in mathematics, those theorems of Godel, and the intuitionist logic of Brouwer, which displaces much of standard mathematics with philosophy based on unknowability presuppositions. But these arguments cannot defeat the standard objection: if one can’t know anything for certain, then one can’t know with certainty that he can’t know anything for certain. This paradox is a logical defeater, but under the radical skepticism principles, paradoxes don’t prove anything either, since logic is unknowable or at least unprovable. So logic doesn’t exist in the world of such skeptics.
The skeptic’s position of unknowability does not match up with observable knowledge. It is observable that the universe, whether real or simulated, is consistent in its behaviors according to physical laws; that the laws are coherent; and that we can know that, within the limits of induction. We can also know that there are limits to inductive certainty, and that with a huge number of observations of consistency, the certainty, while still not complete, is higher than the certainty of unknowability. Observations trump philosophy, when the philosophy is not congruent with observations.
It has been observed that skeptics do not behave in a manner consistent with their philosophy. Skeptics do know that the bus is coming and they do not step in front of it in the belief that their senses are faulty. They do not step off of balconies or the edges of cliffs. They do eat food, drive cars in abeyance of the hazard of other vehicles on the road, some even have sex and raise families just as if they actually exist. This failure to behave within the belief system is pointed to as philosophical hypocrisy by dissenting philosophers of the “reality” bent.
Yet in order for a materialist to salvage a system of beliefs which cannot be proven valid, such as Atheism, one must assert unknowability for at least some of the experiences and philosophies encountered (not his own of course).
And there it stands, they mired in illogic while being forced to assert that there is no logic, it being unknowable. The rest of us have to proceed without them, in the knowledge that knowledge is possible, rationality is possible, it being based on fundamental principles that are observable in the universe, and which are useful in developing rational worldviews, rather than basking in non-coherence while rejecting coherence as a valid principle. It is one thing to declare oneself and ones position as being rational; it is another to define rationality, to accept its existence, and actually use rationality in creating ones position.
Note: Some of this is based on ideas in Michael Huemer's book, "Skepticism and the Veil of Perception": highly recommended.