Name:Kevin Country:United States State:Pennsylvania Metro:Pittsburgh Birthday:5/7/1985 Gender:Male
Interests:Science, Epistemology, Ontology, Evolution, Biology, Ecology, Chemistry, Physics, Psychology, Anthropology, Sociology, Philosophy, Religion, Skepticism, Agnosticism, Atheism, Nontheism, Gnosticism, Sufism, Theism, Existentialism, Polytheism, Pantheism, Deism, Stoicism, Nihilism, Mythology, Mysticism, Solipsism, Empiricism, Rationalism, Logic, Logos, Ethics, Ethos, Mythos, Humor, Art, Pathos, Politics, Social Politics, Libertarianism, Economics, Photography, Music, Adobe Photoshop, Russia, Scandanavia, Singing, Piano, Computers, Foreign Languages, Foreign Cultures Expertise:Arguing and debating intelligently. Being smart. Being arrogant. Being really kind. Being a complete ass. Ranting. Communicating. Boring my readers by making them read the very crap they're looking at right now. Again, I don't feel that this section says much about me, despite that its purpose usually does seem to serve to characterize people with some degree of thoroughness. Occupation:Student Industry:Research
Marquis d'Sade - Dialogue between a Priest and a Dying Man (1782)
PRIEST - Come to this the fatal hour when at last from the eyes of
deluded man the scales must fall away, and be shown the cruel picture
of his errors and his vices - say, my son, do you not repent the host
of sins unto which you were led by weakness and human frailty?
DYING MAN - Yes, my friend, I do repent.
PRIEST - Rejoice then in these pangs of remorse, during the brief
space remaining to you profit therefrom to obtain Heaven’s general
absolution for your sins, and be mindful of it, only through the
mediation of the Most Holy Sacrament of penance will you be granted it
by the Eternal.
DYING MAN - I do not understand you, any more than you have understood me.
PRIEST - What's that?
DYING MAN - I told you that I repented.
PRIEST - I heard you say it.
DYING MAN - Yes, but without understanding it.
PRIEST - My interpretation -
DYING MAN - Hold. I shall give you mine. By Nature created, created
with very keen tastes, with very strong passions; placed on this earth
for the sole purpose of yielding to them and satisfying them, and these
effects of my creation being naught but necessities directly relating
to Nature’s fundamental designs or, if you prefer, naught but essential
derivatives proceeding from her intentions in my regard, all in
accordance with her laws, I repent not having acknowledged her
omnipotence as fully as I might have done, I am only sorry for the
modest use I made of the faculties (criminal in your view, perfectly
ordinary in mine) she gave me to serve her; I did sometimes resist her,
I repent it. Misled by your absurd doctrines, with them for arms I
mindlessly challenged the desires instilled in me by a much diviner
inspiration, and thereof do I repent: I only plucked an occasional
flower when I might have gathered an ample harvest of fruit - such are
the just grounds for the regrets I have, do me the honor of considering
me incapable of harboring any others.
PRIEST - Lo! where your fallacies take you, to what pass are you
brought by your sophistries! To created being you ascribe all the
Creator’s power, and those unlucky penchants which have led you astray,
ah! do you not see they are merely the products of corrupted nature, to
which you attribute omnipotence?
DYING MAN - Friend - it looks to me as though your dialectic were as
false as your thinking. Pray straighten your arguing or else leave me
to die in peace. What do you mean by Creator, and what do you mean by
corrupted nature?
PRIEST - The Creator is the master of the universe, ‘tis He who has
wrought everything, everything created, and who maintains it all
through the mere fact of His omnipotence.
DYING MAN - An impressive figure indeed. Tell me now why this so
very formidable fellow did nevertheless, as you would have it, create a
corrupted nature?
PRIEST - What glory would men ever have, had not God left them free
will; and in the enjoyment thereof, what merit could come to them, were
there not on earth the possibility of doing good and that of avoiding
evil?
DYING MAN - And so your god bungled his work deliberately, in order
to tempt or test his creature - did he then not know, did he then not
doubt what the result would be?
PRIEST - He knew it undoubtedly but, once again, he wished to leave man the merit of choice.
DYING MAN - And to what purpose, since from the outset he knew the
course affairs would take and since, all-mighty as you tell me he is,
he had but to make his creature choose as suited him?
PRIEST - Who is there can penetrate God’s vast and infinite designs
regarding man, and who can grasp all that makes up the universal scheme?
DYING MAN - Anyone who simplifies matters, my friend, anyone, above
all, who refrains from multiplying causes in order to confuse effects
all the more. What need have you of a second difficulty when you are
unable to resolve the first, and once it is possible that Nature may
have all alone done what you attribute to your god, why must you go
looking for someone to be her overlord? The cause and explanation of
what you do not understand may perhaps be the simplest thing in the
world. Perfect your physics and you will understand Nature better,
refine your reason, banish your prejudices and you’ll have no further
need of your god.
PRIEST - Wretched man! I took you for no worse than a Socinian -
arms I had to combat you. But ‘tis clear you are an atheist, and seeing
that your heart is shut to the authentic and innumerable proofs we
receive every day of our lives of the Creator’s existence - I have no
more to say to you. There is no restoring the blind to the light.
DYING MAN - Softly, my friend, own that between the two, he who
blindfolds himself must surely see less of the light than he who
snatches the blindfold away from his eyes. You compose, you construct,
you dream, you magnify and complicate; I sift, I simplify. You
accumulate errors, pile one atop the other; I combat them all. Which
one of us is blind?
PRIEST - Then you do not believe in God at all?
DYING MAN - No. And for one very sound reason: it is perfectly
impossible to believe in what one does not understand. Between
understanding and faith immediate connections must subsist;
understanding is the very lifeblood of faith; where understanding has
ceased, faith is dead; and when they who are in such a case proclaim
they have faith, they deceive. You yourself, preacher, I defy you to
believe in the god you predicate to me - you must fail because you
cannot demonstrate him to me, because it is not in you to define him to
me, because consequently you do not understand him - because as of the
moment you do not understand him, you can no longer furnish me any
reasonable argument concerning him, and because, in sum, anything
beyond the limits and grasp of the human mind is either illusion or
futility; and because your god having to be one or the other of the
two, in the first instance I should be mad to believe in him, in the
second a fool. My friend, prove to me that matter is inert and I will
grant you a creator, prove to me that Nature does not suffice to
herself and I’ll let you imagine her ruled by a higher force; until
then, expect nothing from me, I bow to evidence only, and evidence I
perceive only through my senses: my belief goes no farther than they,
beyond that point my faith collapses. I believe in the sun because I
see it, I conceive it as the focal center of all the inflammable matter
in Nature, its periodic movement pleases but does not amaze me. ‘Tis a mechanical operation, perhaps as simple as the workings of electricity,
but which we are unable to understand. Need I bother more about it?
when you have roofed everything over with your god, will I be any the
better off? and shall I still not have to make an effort at least as
great to understand the artisan as to define his handiwork? By edifying
your chimera it is thus no service you have rendered me, you have made
me uneasy in my mind but you have not enlightened it, and instead of
gratitude I owe you resentment. Your god is a machine you fabricated in
your passions’ behalf, you manipulated it to their liking; but the day
it interfered with mine, I kicked it out of my way, deem it fitting
that I did so; and now, at this moment when I sink and my soul stands
in need of calm and philosophy, belabor it not with your riddles and
your cant, which alarm but will not convince it, which will irritate
without improving it; good friends and on the best terms have we ever
been, this soul and I, so Nature wished it to be; as it is, so she
expressly modeled it, for my soul is the result of the dispositions she
formed in me pursuant to her own ends and needs; and as she has an
equal need of vices and virtues, whenever she was pleased to move me to
evil, she did so, whenever she wanted a good deed from me, she roused
in me the desire to perform one, and even so I did as I was bid. Look
nowhere but to her workings for the unique cause of our fickle human
behavior, and in her laws hope to find no other springs than her will
and her requirements.
PRIEST - And so whatever is in this world, is necessary.
DYING MAN - Exactly.
PRIEST - But is everything is necessary - then the whole is regulated.
DYING MAN - I am not the one to deny it.
PRIEST - And what can regulate the whole save it be an all-powerful and all-knowing hand?
DYING MAN - Say, is it not necessary that gunpowder ignite when you set a spark to it?
PRIEST - Yes.
DYING MAN - And do you find any presence of wisdom in that?
PRIEST - None.
DYING MAN - It is then possible that things necessarily come about
without being determined by a superior intelligence, and possible hence
that everything derive logically from a primary cause, without there
being either reason or wisdom in that primary cause.
PRIEST - What are you aiming at?
DYING MAN - At proving to you that the world and all therein may be
what it is and as you see it to be, without any wise and reasoning
cause directing it, and that natural effects must have natural causes:
natural causes sufficing, there is no need to invent any such unnatural
ones as your god who himself, as I have told you already, would require
to be explained and who would at the same time be the explanation of
nothing; and that once ‘tis plain your god is superfluous, he is
perfectly useless; that what is useless would greatly appear to be
imaginary only, null and therefore non-existent; thus, to conclude that
your god is a fiction I need no other argument than that which
furnishes me the certitude of his inutility.
PRIEST - At that rate there is no great need for me to talk to you about religion.
DYING MAN - True, but why not anyhow? Nothing so much amuses me as
this sign of the extent to which human beings have been carried away by
fanaticism and stupidity; although the prodigious spectacle of folly we
are facing here may be horrible, it is always interesting. Answer me
honestly, and endeavor to set personal considerations aside: were I
weak enough to fall victim to your silly theories concerning the
fabulous existence of the being who renders religion necessary, under
what form would you advise me to worship him? Would you have me adopt
the daydreams of Confucius rather than the absurdities of Brahma,
should I kneel before the great snake to which the blacks pray, invoke
the Peruvian’s sun or Moses’ Lord of Hosts, to which Mohammedan sect
should I rally, or which Christian heresy would be preferable in your
view? Be careful how you reply.
PRIEST - Can it be doubtful?
DYING MAN - Then ‘tis egotistical.
PRIEST - No, my son, ‘tis as much out of love for thee as for myself I urge thee to embrace my creed.
DYING MAN - And I wonder how the one or the other of us can have
much love for himself, to deign to listen to such degrading nonsense.
PRIEST - But who can be mistaken about the miracles wrought by our Divine Redeemer?
DYING MAN - He who sees in him anything else than the most vulgar of all tricksters and the most arrent of all imposters.
PRIEST - O God, you hear him and your wrath thunders not forth!
DYING MAN - No my friend, all is peace and quiet around us, because
your god, be it from impotence or from reason or from whatever you
please, is a being whose existence I shall momentarily concede out of
condescension for you or, if you prefer, in order to accommodate myself
to your sorry little perspective; because this god, I say, were he to
exist, as you are mad enough to believe, could not have selected as
means to persuade us, anything more ridiculous than those your Jesus
incarnates.
PRIEST - What! the prophecies, the miracles, the martyrs - are they not so many proofs?
DYING MAN - How, so long as I abide by the rules of logic, how
would you have me accept as proof anything which itself is lacking
proof? Before a prophecy could constitute proof I should first have to
be completely certain it was ever pronounced; the prophecies history
tells us of belong to history and for me they can only have the force
of other historical facts, whereof three out of four are exceedingly
dubious; if to this I add the strong probability that they have been
transmitted to us by not very objective historians, who recorded what
they preferred to have us read, I shall be quite within my rights if I
am Skeptical. And furthermore, who is there to assure me that this
prophecy was not made after the fact, that it was not a stratagem of
everyday political scheming, like that which predicts a happy reign
under a just king, or frost in wintertime? As for your miracles, I am
not any readier to be taken in by such rubbish. All rascals have
performed them, all fools have believed in them; before I’d be
persuaded of the truth of a miracle I would have to be very sure the
event so called by you was absolutely contrary to the laws of Nature,
for only what is outside of Nature can pass for miraculous; and who is
so deeply learned in Nature that he can affirm the precise point where
it is infringed upon? Only two things are needed to accredit an alleged
miracle, a mountebank and a few simpletons; tush, there’s the whole
origin of your prodigies; all new adherents to a religious sect have
wrought some; and more extraordinary still, all have found imbeciles
around to believe them. Your Jesus’ feats do not surpass those of
Apollonius of Tyana, yet nobody thinks to take the latter for a god;
and when we come to your martyrs, assuredly, these are the feeblest of
all your arguments. To produce martyrs you need but to have enthusiasm
on the one hand, resistance on the other; and so long as an opposed
cause offers me as many of them as does yours, I shall never be
sufficiently authorized to believe one better than the other, but
rather very much inclined to consider all of them pitiable. Ah my
friend! were it true that the god you preach did exist, would he need
miracle, martyr, or prophecy to secure recognition? and if, as you
declare, the human heart were of his making, would he not have chosen
it for the repository of his law? Then would this law, impartial for
all mankind because emanating from a just god, then would it be found
graved deep and writ clear in all men alike, and from one end of the
world to the other, all men, having this delicate and sensitive organ
in common, would also resemble each other through the homage they would
render the god whence they had got it; all would adore and serve him in
one identical manner, and they would be as incapable of disregarding
this god as of resisting the inward impulse to worship him. Instead of
that, what do I behold throughout this world? As many gods as there are
countries; as many different cults as there are different minds or
different imaginations; and this swarm of opinions among which it
physically impossible for me to choose, say now, is this a just god’s
doing? Fie upon you, preacher, you outrage your god when you present
him to me thus; rather let me deny him completely, for if he exists
then I outrage him far less by my incredulity than do you through your
blasphemies. Return to your senses, preacher, your Jesus is no better
than Mohammed, Mohammed no better than Moses, and the three of them
combined no better than Confucius, who did after all have some wise
things to say while the others did naught but rave; in general, though,
such people are all mere frauds: philosophers laughed at them, the mob
believed them, and justice ought to have hanged them.
PRIEST - Alas, justice dealt only too harshly with one of the four.
DYING MAN - If he alone got what he deserved it was he who deserved
it most richly; seditious, turbulent, calumniating, dishonest,
libertine, a clumsy buffoon, and very mischievous; he had the art of
overawing common folk and stirring up the rabble; and hence came in line
for punishment in a kingdom where the state of affairs was what it was
in Jerusalem then. They were very wise indeed to get rid of him, and
this perhaps is one case in which my extremely lenient and also
extremely tolerant maxims are able to allow the severity of Themis; I
excuse any misbehavior save that which may endanger the government one
lives under, kings and their majesties are the only thing I respect;
and whoever does not love his country and his king were better dead
than alive.
PRIEST - But you do surely believe something awaits us after this
life, you must at some time or another have sought to pierce the dark
shadows enshrouding our mortal fate, and what other theory could have
satisfied your anxious spirit, than that of the numberless woes that
betide him who has lived wickedly, and an eternity of rewards for him
whose life has been good?
DYING MAN - What other, my friend? that of nothingness, it has
never held terrors for me, in it I see naught but what is consoling and
unpretentious; all other theories are of pride’s composition, this one
alone is of reason’s. Moreover, ‘tis neither dreadful nor absolute,
this nothingness. Before my eyes have I not the example of Nature’s
perpetual generations and regenerations? Nothing perishes in the world,
my friend, nothing is lost; man today, worm tomorrow, the day after
tomorrow a fly; is it not to keep steadily on existing? And what
entitles me to be rewarded for virtues which are in me through no fault
of my own, or again punished for crimes wherefore the ultimate
responsibility is not mine? how are you to put your alleged god’s
goodness into tune with this system, and can he have wished to create
me in order to reap pleasure from punishing me, and that solely on
account of a choice he does not leave me free will to determine?
PRIEST - You are free.
DYING MAN - Yes, in terms of your prejudices; but reason puts them
to rout, and the theory of human freedom was never devised except to
fabricate that of grace, which was to acquire such importance in your
reveries. What man on earth, seeing the scaffold a step beyond the
crime, would commit it were he free not to commit it? We are the pawns
of an irresistible force, and never for an instant is it within our
power to do anything but make the best of our lot and forge ahead along
the path that has been traced for us. There is not a single virtue
which is not necessary to Nature and conversely not a single crime
which she does not need and it is in the perfect balance she maintains
between the one and the other that her immense science consists; but
can we be guilty for adding our weight to this side or that when it is
she who tosses us onto the scales? no more so than the hornet who
thrusts his dart into your skin.
PRIEST - Then we should not shrink from the worst of all crimes.
DYING MAN - I say nothing of the kind. Let the evil deed be
proscribed by law, let justice smite the criminal, that will be
deterrent enough; but if by misfortune we do commit it even so, let’s
not cry over spilled milk; remorse is inefficacious, since it does not
stay us from crime, futile since it does not repair it, therefore it is
absurd to beat one’s breast, more absurd still to dread being punished
in another world if we have been lucky to escape it in this. God forbid
that this be construed as encouragement to crime, no, we should avoid
it as much as we can, but one must learn to shun it through reason and
not through false fears which lead to naught and whose effects are so
quickly overcome in any moderately steadfast soul. Reason, sir - yes,
our reason alone should warn us that harm done our fellows can never
bring happiness to us; and our heart, that contributing to their
felicity is the greatest joy Nature has accorded us on earth; the
entirety of human morals is contained in this one phrase: Render others as happy as one desires oneself to be,
and never inflict more pain upon them than one would like to receive at
their hands. There you are, my friend, those are the only principles we
should observe, and you need neither god nor religion to appreciate and
subscribe to them, you need only have a good heart. But I feel my
strength ebbing away; preacher, put away your prejudices, unbend, be a
man, be human, without fear and without hope forget your gods and your
religions too: they are none of them good for anything but to set man
at odds with man, and the mere name of these horrors has caused greater
loss of life on earth than all other wars and all other plagues
combined. Renounce the idea of another world; there is none, but do not
renounce the pleasure of being happy and of making for happiness in
this. Nature offers you no other way of doubling your existence, of
extending it. - My friend, lewd pleasures were ever dearer to me than
anything else, I have idolized them all my life and my wish has been to
end it in their bosom; my end draws near, six women lovelier than the
light of day are waiting in the chamber adjoining, I have reserved them
for this moment, partake of the feast with me, following my example
embrace them instead of the vain sophistries of superstition, under
their caresses strive for a little while to forget your hypocritical
beliefs.
NOTE
The dying man rang, the women entered; and after he had been a
little while in their arms the preacher became one whom Nature had
corrupted, all because he had not succeeded in explaining what a
corrupt nature is.
Universal Skepticism is the idea that we can never really "know" anything for certain, that reality is not necessarily perceived accurately through our sensory organs. While skepticism expresses doubt over a given claim, Universal Skepticism expresses doubt over everything; that man's fallibility makes it impossible to ever acquire knowledge with complete certainty. Consequently, when we make assumptions about the external world through our senses, we are placing "faith" in them. In other words, it is through "faith" that we acquire knowledge about reality. From this notion of Universal Skepticism, the Christian will then move to explain how faith can further be used to know God.
George H. Smith, in his book, "Atheism: The Case Against God," chapter 5, Section V, addresses the folly of this philosophical argument using a dialogue between a (universal) skeptic, and an antiskeptic. At the end of the dialogue, the antiskeptic then addresses faith in perception as employed by Christians.
Skeptic: "You claim that man gains knowledge of reality through his senses, but I submit that our sense are deceptive. Since we cannot rationally defend the reliability of sensory evidence, we must place trust in them as a matter of faith."
Antiskeptic: "Why do you say that?"
Skeptic: "Because our senses give us contradictory testimony, and even you stress that contradictions cannot exist. Look, I'll prove it to you by taking this pencil and placing it in..."
Antiskeptic: "Excuse me for a moment. If I understand correctly, you are going to demonstrate that our senses do not give us accurate knowledge of reality. Is this correct?"
Skeptic: "Yes."
Antiskeptic: "Then you cannot start from the prior assumption that our senses do give us accurate knowledge of reality, because this would entail accepting the truth of the very proposition which you wish to disprove. Do you agree?"
Skeptic: "Of course."
Antiskeptic: "Then you won't mind if, from this point on, I don't grant you this assumption."
Skeptic: "Naturally. Now may I proceed with my demonstration?"
Antiskeptic: (staring in opposite direction - no answer).
Skeptic: "I said, may I proceed?"
Antiskeptic: (startled). "Did I hear something?"
Skeptic: (irritated). "I'm talking to you."
Antiskeptic: "I beg your pardon."
Skeptic: "Are you going to be serious or not? Here I am trying to carry on an intelligent philosophical conversation, and you're acting silly."
Antiskeptic: (squinting his eyes). "It looks and sounds like you are talking to me, but then I can't be certain, since I never trust what I see and hear. In fact, I can't be sure that you are actually sitting there."
Skeptic: "I insist that you behave reasonably!"
Antiskeptic: "If I could only trust what I see and hear, I might be able to reply - assuming of course that I could trust you, if you're really there, to hear what I actually say. But, then, I couldn't be sure that what I hear myself saying is what I've said, because..."
Skeptic: "All right, you've made your point. Have it your way. Assume, for the sake of argument, that we are communicating accurately. I admit that it cannot be proven, but assume it for now."
Antiskeptic: "Why?"
Skeptic: "So I can make my point."
Antiskeptic: "I must assume, in other words, that my senses are not deceptive - at least as they pertain to this conversation - so that you can get your argument off the ground to 'prove' that this entire assumption is unfounded. If your argument is correct, you don't have the means with which to make your point. Through your attempt at communication and argument, you are admitting the validity of sense perception - and, therefore, by arguing that sense perception is deceptive, you cut the ground from under your own feet and become mired in a hopeless absurdity."
Skeptic: "I'll restate my argument somewhat. I don't deny that, for practical purposes, we act on the assumption that our senses enable us to perceive without deception. Language, as you have pointed out, depends on this assumption. What I wish to argue is that our naive trust in our senses is without logical foundations. Although we may have faith in our senses from day to day, they are not as reliable as the average person thinks - and I can demonstrate this by showing you an example where our senses are unreliable, because they give us contradictory information. If this is true, then we have no way of ascertaining when we are being deceived and when we are not."
Antiskeptic: "Your argument hasn't changed any; you have merely elaborated it. Like all skeptics, you seem to think that you can assume as true the very thing you are trying to disprove, and you attempt to skirt this problem by stipulating that you are doing so for practical purposes because we make these assumptions in everyday life. You claim that, as a philosopher, you have discovered reasons to doubt the validity of sense perception. My point is this: regardless of whether you call your use of language 'practical' or whatever, by attempting to communicate you commit yourself to a certain philosophic context, namely, the context that makes communication possible. Once you are working within this context, it is completely irrational to turn around and declare that the foundations of that context are rationally unfounded. If the premise that our senses give us accurate knowledge of reality has no basis in reason, then any argument that occurs within that context has no basis in reason either - which includes your argument."
Skeptic: "I see your point, but I think I can convince you if you will only watch my demonstration."
Antiskeptic: "Any attempted proof will itself depend on the prior validity of sensory evidence, so you are again attempting the absurd."
Skeptic: "But there are such obvious cases of deceptive sensory appearance, it seems absurd to me to deny their existence. As I was about to demonstrate before, if I take this straight pencil and place it in..."
Antiskeptic: "Straight pencil? How did you ascertain that it is straight and that it is a pencil?"
Skeptic: "It's quite obvious."
Antiskeptic: "I agree, but you must presuppose the ability of your senses to give you accurate knowledge of reality."
Skeptic: "I'll rephrase my argument. Here we have what appears to be a straight pencil, although I'll admit that I cannot prove it. Mind you, I'm not saying that it really is a straight pencil, but only that it appears to be so. Now when I place what appears to be a straight pencil in this glass of water..."
Antiskeptic: "You mean, when you place what appears to be a straight pencil in what appears to be a glass of water...."
Skeptic: "Have it your way. Anyway, as you can now witness, the pencil appears to be bent."
Antiskeptic: "Does it?"
Skeptic: "Well, you're not at a very good angle. Get down more level with the water line."
Antiskeptic: "Do you mean to say that your monumental disproof of the senses requires a certain angle?"
Skeptic: "Don't be smart, just look. You must admit that it now looks bent."
Antiskeptic: "Yes, although a better description would be 'disjointed.' "
(Long pause.)
Skeptic: "Well?"
Antiskeptic: "Well what?"
Skeptic: "What do you think now?"
Antiskeptic: "I told you what I think - the pencil does look 'bent' in water."
Skeptic: "Yes, go on."
Antiskeptic: "With what?"
Skeptic: "With the conclusion, of course."
Antiskeptic: "But I already gave you my conclusion: the pencil does appear to be bent under water."
Skeptic: "But what about the contradiction?"
Antiskeptic: "A contradiction?"
Skeptic: "Yes. The pencil appeared to be straight, and now it appears to be bent. If I remove it from the water, it once again appears straight."
Antiskeptic: "I agree with you on that point."
Skeptic: "But that's a contradiction!"
Antiskeptic: "It is?"
Skeptic: "Of course! How can the same pencil be straight and bent?"
Antiskeptic: "We didn't say that it is straight and bent; we merely said that it looks straight out of water and looks bent in water. Where is the contradiction?"
Skeptic: "But that must be a contradiction."
Antiskeptic: "The Law of Contradiction - which is one of the basic laws of logic states that an object cannot be A and non-A at the same time and in the same respect. You're showing me a pencil that looks straight at one time and in one respect (out of water), but that looks bent at another time and in another respect (in water). You must remember the context. We are perceiving the pencil through two different mediums, air and water. Since light travels more slowly through water than through air, it takes longer for the light waves to reach our eyes from the submerged portion. What we are perceiving is not a contradiction, but simply a straight pencil that appears bent in a specific context, i.e., in water. No defender of sensory experience would claim that an object must appear the same in every situation, but this has no effect whatsoever on the validity of the senses. For example, if I placed the pencil in a glass of tar, would you then express surprise because part of the pencil had 'disappeared'? Would this show that we cannot trust our senses? On the contrary, it is through our senses that we understand that the pencil is submerged in tar, and it is through our senses that we discover that light will not penetrate tar. In other words, it is through our senses that we gather the information with which to explain why the same object appears differently under different conditions. We solve the alleged instances of 'sensory deception' through a further appeal to sensory evidence - just as you must presuppose the validity of the senses in the very attempt to disprove the validity of the senses."
Skeptic: "Since you claim that I have not presented you with a legitimate instance of a contradiction, I will appeal to another version of this argument which will fulfill your requirements. If we feel the pencil while it is in water, it will feel straight. The pencil looks bent but feels straight at the same time and in the same respect, i.e., while it is in water. That should cinch my argument."
Antiskeptic: "No, because we are dealing with two different sense modalities, which again changes the context. Also, this demonstration, like all others, presupposes the validity of sense perception - which renders your conclusion invalid. For example, in order for your alleged contradiction to be a contradiction, it must be true that we are seeing and feeling the same object. After all, if we were seeing and feeling different objects, you would not even raise the possibility of a contradiction. Now I must ask you how you know that you are seeing and feeling the same object?"
Skeptic: "It's very simple to see that we are dealing with the same pencil."
Antiskeptic: "Of course, but you must establish that you are seeing and feeling the same object without recourse to the senses. And this, I submit, is impossible. Furthermore, in order for you to maintain that we are receiving contradictory evidence, you must assume that two different sense modalities - sight and touch - can furnish us with information concerning the same aspect of the same object. This raises the question: On what basis do you claim that there is a contradiction between 'feeling straight' and 'looking bent'?"
Skeptic: "I must say again that it seems quite obvious."
Antiskeptic: "If it seems obvious, it is only because our past experience has permitted us to make the correlation between what we see and how an object feels. Without this previous sensory evidence, no such correlation would be possible. Thus, your argument is unintelligible without presupposing the validity of sensory evidence."
Skeptic: "I don't understand what you're saying here. Are you claiming that there is no problem whatsoever in the example I have presented?"
Antiskeptic: "It depends on what you mean by a 'problem.' There is a kind of problem here, but it is scientific, not philosophical. Because there is a change in perception when the pencil is submerged in water, it calls for an explanation - but this explanation, as I have pointed out, consists of appealing to more sensory evidence in order to establish why the pencil appears bent in water. A primitive man with no knowledge of light refraction may be genuinely puzzled by our phenomenon, but if he wishes to arrive at a solution, he can do so only through more research. For him to blame his senses, aside from being unjustified, would not solve or explain his dilemma.
"I would like to emphasize a major source of confusion in your argument against sense perception. To speak of our senses 'deceiving' us is, at best, a sloppy metaphor. Philosophically, it is nonsense. Our senses are simply physical organs with no will of their own. To say that they 'deceive' us makes no more sense than to claim that our hearts or our lungs 'deceive' us. Sense organs respond to physical stimuli from the external world; they have no capacity to deceive or misrepresent. They simply transmit sensations according to their physiological characteristics, which our brains then automatically integrate into percepts. We may misinterpret the basic data given to us, but there can be no question about the validity of the data per se. For example, a man may see what he believes to be a lake in the middle of a desert, whereas what he actually sees is only a reflection of light waves off the sand, or, in other words, a mirage. The man is mistaken in his identification of the sensory evidence - he has not properly interpreted the data given to him - but his senses have not somehow 'deceived' him. The light waves that reach his eyes actually do exist, but the man's interpretation as to the causal origin of these waves is mistaken."
Skeptic: "It seems that you have opened the door for an entirely new set of objections against the senses. Even if our senses, properly speaking, do not 'deceive' us, how can we be sure that our interpretation of sensory evidence is correct? To use your example, how could the man in a desert decide if what he perceives is a real lake or merely a mirage?"
Antiskeptic: "By appealing to more sensory evidence. In this case, he may not be able to decide with certainty until he approaches the area where the lake is supposed to be and sees that there isn't one."
Skeptic: "But isn't it possible for me to doubt my interpretation of sensory evidence in every instance? How can I ever be certain that what I identify as the object of my perception is in fact the actual object and not merely a mirage, illusion, or hallucination? Is it not possible to doubt that you are really sitting there, even though I am presented with the perception of a man? After all, you may be a mirage as well."
Antiskeptic: "This throws us into the problem of universal skepticism, which was refuted in the preceding section*. Can you doubt every instance of sense perception? On a practical level, this is impossible - but even if you were an exceptional person with the psychological capacity to doubt everything, your universal doubt would be blatantly irrational and self-contradictory. To doubt every interpretation of sensory evidence is logically absurd.
"You must realize that to talk of deception, whether in the form of a mirage, illusion or hallucination, makes sense only in contrast to a wider context of non-deception. In order to say that one's interpretation of sensory evidence is incorrect, one must be able to distinguish incorrect from correct interpretations. Otherwise, what would it mean to speak of mistaken identification? Mistaken as opposed to what? What would it mean, for example, to speak of counterfeit coins, unless in contradistinction to genuine coins?
Skeptic: "I understand your objection and I think I can respond to it. I won't deny that in order for us to identify incorrect interpretations of sensory evidence, we must be able to recognize, in principle, a case of genuine interpretation. But my point is this: how, in any specific instance, can we be sure that we are correct? The man in the desert, after all, may have felt absolutely certain that he was perceiving a lake, but he was wrong anyway. I may feel absolutely certain that I am perceiving you right now, but isn't it possible that I too am mistaken? It is perfectly conceivable that you are a figment of my imagination. Can you demonstrate to me that you are real and not merely a hallucination, or must I accept my interpretations on faith?"
Antiskeptic: "Your demand that I somehow prove to you that I am not an hallucination is totally inappropriate and unjustified. First of all, since you admit that you must be able to identify correct interpretations in order to distinguish incorrect interpretations, simply apply your criteria to this specific instance. Here I am sitting next to you in plain view. You can see me, hear me, and even touch me if you wish. If these conditions do not qualify this as a case of genuine perception, I fail to see what conditions could possibly satisfy you.
"Doubt is not justified merely on the grounds that you can somehow 'imagine' that you are mistaken. If in the face of such overwhelming evidence you wish to doubt the correctness of your judgment, then you must provide reasons for your doubt. If your skepticism is to be more than empty rambling, you must justify your doubt. This must consist of specifying why, in our particular circumstance, there is reason to suppose that our perceptual judgment is in error. Doubt cannot be applied indiscriminately; it arises contextually in specific circumstances when there is reason to suppose that we may be mistaken.
"To illustrate the contextual nature of doubt, consider the case of the mirage. If we are in the middle of a desert on a very hot day, and if we see what appears to be a lake in the distance, I may say, 'There is a lake,' and you may reply, 'Perhaps not; you may be mistaken. It may be a mirage.' If I ask why you doubt that it is a lake, you may reply: 'Because light waves often reflect off of the desert sand and give the appearance of water. We are in a situation where this occurs quite frequently, so I have reason to doubt.' Or perhaps you are very familiar with the area and know for a fact that there is no lake, in which case you would not simply doubt my assertion, but would claim that I am positively mistaken. In either case, there is something about our specific situation that causes you to doubt the veracity of my perceptual identification.
"Now suppose that we are in the middle of a forest and we stumble across a lake. We decide to take a swim and after an hour of splashing around, you suddenly declare, 'I doubt if this is a real lake.' Your doubt in this context would be utter nonsense. If I ask you why you doubt, and you reply, 'It's conceivable that I am having a hallucination,' I will press you further by asking, 'But what reasons do you have for supposing that you are hallucinating at this particular moment?' If you fail to offer reasons and merely assert that a hallucination is con conceivable, I will reply (without going into a detailed criticism of your use of 'conceivable' here) that you are uttering an unsupported, arbitrary proposition - and you do not deserve serious consideration until such time as you are prepared to offer arguments in support of your claim.
"You see, then, that doubt is appropriate in some circumstances and inappropriate in others. It should be quite clear that your doubt of my existence is unfounded, and it must therefore be discarded as irrational. Our context is such that there is no reason to doubt our interpretations of sensory material. If you wish to cling to your doubt, you must offer reasons - reasons that pertain to this specific context - to why doubt is necessary. If you fail to do so, then there is no reason why anyone should listen to you."
Skeptic: "You've covered this ground thoroughly, so I want to move to another (and in my opinion) more serious objection. You mentioned earlier that our senses operate according to a physiological process. Is this correct?"
Antiskeptic: "Yes, perception involves a causal chain of physiological events."
Skeptic: "Precisely. But all that we are immediately aware of is the end link of that causal chain. We are aware of percepts, but only as they present themselves to our consciousness, i.e., only as they interact with our sense organs. There is, for example, no such thing as sound existing independently of consciousness; it is simply the product of waves interacting with our ears. All of external reality is filtered through our senses before it reaches us, and this prevents us from ever perceiving reality accurately."
Antiskeptic: "There are two major flaws in your argument. First, it involves the original stolen concept of depending on communication which would be impossible if not for the assumption that we do perceive reality correctly. Second, I would like to ask you how we came to know of the causal chain involved in perception. After all, it is not self-evident."
Skeptic: "It was a scientific discovery."
Antiskeptic: "You mean to say, then, that it is an accurate, true discovery that describes the actual nature of sense perception?"
Skeptic: "Yes, of course."
Antiskeptic: "Then your use of the causal chain in perception commits you to the position that we perceive reality accurately, since you are claiming that this causal chain is objective fact and not merely an idea in your mind."
Skeptic: "But don't you agree that all we ever have direct awareness of is immediate sense data?"
Antiskeptic: "No. What we have direct awareness of is reality, and we are given this awareness through perception. Perception is our means of awareness, not the object of awareness. Every perception is perception of something.
"You want to argue that we are aware only of ideas or perceptions in the mind rather than external reality. You then claim that we need to infer the existence of the external world using these perceptions as a starting point. I am arguing that no such inference is necessary. We have direct and immediate contact with reality through sense perception.
"All that the causal nature of perception tells us is that perception necessarily entails a means of perception; certain causal conditions must be present before perception is possible, and once these conditions are satisfied, we have perception. Perception of what? There is only one possible answer: of reality. There is no other alternative. If your perceptions are not of reality, just what are they perceptions of?"
Skeptic: "They are perceptions of the interaction between the external world and my senses."
Antiskeptic: "No. The interaction causes the perception; the interaction is not the object of perception, but simply that which makes perception possible. Again, I must ask you, what is it that you are perceiving, if not reality?"
Skeptic: "I don't think I understand this argument."
Antiskeptic: "I'll rephrase it somewhat. You claim that our senses, because of the physiological process involved in per perception, distort reality in some way. Correct?"
Skeptic: "Yes."
Antiskeptic: "Now is this distortion caused by our particular sense organs - I mean, is there something peculiar about the sensory apparatus of man? - or will there be distortion whenever there is perception, regardless of the nature of the organism involved?"
Skeptic: "Since all perception would involve a causal chain, there would doubtless be distortion regardless of the nature of the sense organs involved."
Antiskeptic: "So what you are actually telling me is this: While there may be a reality out there, unfortunately we can never see it because we have eyes, or we can never hear it because we have ears, or we can never smell it because we have noses. In other words, you consider sense organs to be an obstacle to perception, rather than the means of perception.
"You must remember that man is a physical organism who perceives through physical sense organs. These sense organs operate according to specific physiological processes determined by their nature - and this must be true of any sensory apparatus, regardless of the organism involved. Where you have perception, there must be a means of perception. This is what makes perception possible. What you wish to claim, however, is that our means of perception is what invalidates perception - that any act of perceiving, by its very nature, is not really perception but distortion. Aside from the many stolen concepts in this line of thought, it strikes me as a blatantly absurd argument."
Skeptic: "Even if you are correct, there are other arguments against the senses."
Antiskeptic: "Yes, but they differ only in details, not in essentials. No man can escape the fact that his knowledge is gained through sensory experience; all of his concepts, words and arguments depend on and presuppose this fact. Whenever a man opens his mouth to speak - assuming that he intends to communicate intelligibly - he is admitting the validity of sensory experience. All of the so-called arguments against the senses would not be possible without the prior assumption that our senses are reliable. The skeptic cannot avoid self-contradiction."
Skeptic: "Even if I accept what you say, there is yet another problem - and this one is raised quite frequently by Christians. I'll agree, as will many Christians, that we gain knowledge of reality through our senses, and that this knowledge is accurate. This does not prove, however, that our senses are our only method of perception. You want to limit knowledge to that which is gained through sensory experience, but this seems unjustifiably dogmatic. After all, the Christian claims that he gains knowledge of God, not through his senses, but through direct experience with the divine nature. As an atheist, you will not grant credence to his claim. But why? How do you know that we are limited to perception through our senses?"
Antiskeptic: "If the Christian has discovered a new means of perception, I am perfectly willing to listen to his claim, provided that he is willing to argue for his assertion. Perhaps man possesses perceptual powers of which he is presently unaware. I don't see any evidence for this, but I'll grant the possibility for the sake of argument. My argument with the Christian is that he claims to have experienced God, but he refuses to explain the process by which he, a physical organism, experienced this supernatural being. I won't limit him arbitrarily to the traditional five senses, but I will demand that he present evidence for his new perceptual powers. Has he discovered a new sense? Fine, then let him tell us about it so we can test it.
"No Christian has ever succeeded in explaining just how he perceives his mysterious God. He claims to have knowledge edge of a mysterious, unknowable being, having gained this knowledge in some mysterious, unknowable manner. This is totally unacceptable.
"If the Christian wishes to be taken seriously, he must explain, not only what he claims to know, but how he claims to know it. If he did not acquire his knowledge through the senses, by what means did he acquire it? The burden of explanation lies with him. If he upholds his belief in the absence of rational grounds, then he is the dogmatist, not the atheist. The atheist simply wants to know what the theist believes in and how he acquired his knowledge. If explanations are not forthcoming, the atheist will remain an atheist."
* This dialogue does not do justice to the arguments Smith makes earlier in his chapter, but it makes a fair encapsulation.
George H. Smith. Atheism: The Case Against God, pp. 147-162. New York: Prometheus Books, 1979.
I really hate to disappoint everyone, but it turns out that I am indeed still alive.
Yeah, I know. I am so, so sorry.
Anyway, my life... it goes. I work two jobs, and usually don't have time to sit down at my computer for very long. Any free time I have is generally spent hanging out with people I care about (id est, not you). This is ironic, considering I recently spent $1200 upgrading my computer to become an amazing machine of power and sex for to game good things like Battlefield 2142. Alas, I'm home so rarely that I don't even get to use it very much. At least I have it doing something useful in the meantime, folding proteins for medical research, courtesy Rosetta@home. I recommend it for people whose computers are often idle, to contribute toward a good cause.
I finally have a vehicle, so I no longer have to rely on rides from others. No, I am not going to post a picture of it because it's not interesting whatsoever. That, and people who post images of their vehicles bother me for some odd reason. I won't even tell you what kind it is, because you honestly don't care. No... no, you really don't, I know you don't, so stop trying to act curious.
I'm still not taking any college classes, but I'm supposed to at least sign up for a couple of classes at WCCC (local community college for those who don't know). Everyone has been harping on me about going to school because they think I'm too brilliant. This is what they tell me after I start talking about really simple, rudimentary subjects in front of people who don't know the first thing about politics or religion or science or history or anything. Their eyes just kinda glaze over, and they're like, "Wow, Kevin, you're so smart, you need to be in school." No shit. It's not like I'm not already aware of these things, and I don't need you reminding me. You only succeed in irritating me, not encouraging me to help myself.
Of course, what's more irritating is when I see people I haven't seen in a while (mostly church people), and they're like, "Hey Kevin, how's college?" Considering that I haven't been to school in roughly two years, I'm just inclined to reply, "shitty," while keeping a straight face. It's such an empty question from someone who doesn't have any genuine interest in your wellbeing, but a phrase of etiquette. I hate engaging in shallow conversation with people who act like they care while really having no intention on getting to know me. That could be one reason why I have little interest in going to church again (aside from the fact that not only am I an atheist, but I work every Sunday morning). I'd go just for the community, if they community wasn't superfluous.
-ahem-... sorry. Here's an entertaining video.
Yeah, if you haven't ever seen Lagaan, you really should, because Bollywood is amazing, and the music is filled with awesome. I love Indian people.
Also awesome is the book I'm reading (see above), because Richard Dawkins is brilliant. Even more so than Sam Harris, I'd say (although they are colleagues). Read it. And look him up on YouTube, because his lectures are also brilliant.
So most of my time is spent working at ChromaGlass (weekdays seven to three) and Buy n Fly (opening the store on Saturday and Sunday mornings, and working various weeknights immediately after ChromaGlass), hanging out with Chad or Dave and Sarah or Charles or some combination of that, often at IUP or Buy n Fly or King's, and home, usually sleeping. What's sad is that everyone who is on my case about school is right, because right now, other than the fact that I am saving up money, my life isn't going anywhere, and my days of youth aren't really going to last that long. But... and this is not a good thing, I'm actually almost content where I am. I don't mind all the work, even if I do complain about it taking up my life, I like how I get to see the people I care about, I love working at Buy n Fly with the people that I do work with, and I have everything I need and want, short of my own apartment or place.
The reason I left school was initially depression, which I'm mostly over, but I still get hung up on the notion of schoolwork. I know even now that I'm not ready to take classes full time, because I can't do the schoolwork required of me. I know this, because I have enough trouble as it is to even look into classes to register for, or organizing my disaster of a room, or calling Lisa (that's a separate story), or fixing Josh's computer... shit. I can go to classes, sit down, listen, learn, enjoy, but once it comes to out-of-classroom work, I could be in trouble, and that's where I suffer. And surprisingly, many of my friends are in the same dilemma as I am, and they all have told me how oddly similar my plight is to their current situations. My friends are very bright people too, and it's totally ironic how people like us are having trouble in school, while people who aren't anywhere near as intelligent simply possess something as simple as a good work ethic, and thus do very well academically. The irony is terrible.
Lisa. For those of you who don't already know, I've actually managed to find and contact my birth mother. Her name is Lisa, and she lives in Plano, Texas, just outside of Dallas, where I was born. I contacted my adoption agency, registered, and they found her. After a bit of paperwork, we were finally given contact information, and I've emailed and called her a bit. The thing is, this was a year ago, in October. I've only spoken to Lisa two or three times. The last time I talked to her was probably July, and I haven't been in touch with her since. The reason for this is my laziness. And I know that most of you who are reading this and just learning about this opportunity we have are probably like, "this must be so emotional for you, such a big thing!" which isn't really exactly the case at all. Notable, yes. But it's hardly emotional because I'm quite content with the parents I do have, and would have been content never having heard from Lisa ever. I'm just doing this to satisfy a curiosity that never needed to be addressed. And the way things are now, I treat this so lightly that I don't even possess the interest to pick up the phone and give her a call. I'm supposed to schedule a time where I can get a flight down to Texas and meet her, but I never did that. Of course, she has never called me either, and she's probably as busy as I am. She has two kids... a six-year-old son, and an eight-year-old daughter (probably older, since I haven't talked to her in a while). I've seen a picture of the family... the son looks exactly like I did at his age.
Well, it turns out that our laziness is mutual. We both have the same, borderline apathetic attitude towards this except that it sounds fun. And from when I've spoken to her on the phone, she seems like a very cool person that I'd get along with. Same with her husband, who I spoke to briefly on the phone when she was out. I think I'd like these people, and Lisa doesn't even seem to mind the whole part about how I'm not only gay, but an atheist. The two things these days in America that would be absolute deal breakers, she doesn't seem to mind. How much more could I want? Why am I wasting my time? ... I'm just realizing the significance of these two things just now, in fact. I need to call this woman. (sigh...)
There's the update on my life. I figured that having last written in August, I should brush off the dust from my site and put something new on it. For what it's worth, though, I still do read updates of other peoples' blogs. I usually just don't have anything to say about them, so I don't really comment very much, either. Sorry.
So how should I close my entry? You won't mind if I make yet another recommendation, do you? I mean, I recommend shit on here all the time, but I really would be surprised if people heed them. Either way, I entreat people to listen to a singer that I've recently come to appreciate. So, if you will, listen to Azam Ali. Even better, go to her website, and my favorite song of hers starts playing automatically. Just... listen... its enrapturing. That's all... just at least listen to that one song, even. Then I'll shut up. Maybe I'll avoid making media recommendations altogether, because no one listens to the same crap I do anyway. Yeah. Sorry. I'm done.
I have created a tertiary xanga: Kyteron. On it, I plan on posting news articles, videos, and images that I find rather interesting. I wish to put them there so as not to clutter my personal site nearly as much. I think I might direct my most politicized posts there. For those who aren't already aware, Antaeres is my secondary xanga, which I don't use very often. I use that one primarily to combat people who decide to delete my comments, block me from their sites, or otherwise censor me. It's meant to salvage whatever I have to say whenever I'm silenced. Occasionally, I'll also use it to post lengthy rebuttals to things I see elsewhere that I think would clutter this site up.
I don't have any interesting updates for now, although as of this writing, I do have two meaningful posts up on Kyteron. I also plan on posting something on Antaeres if I ever find the time - a rebuttal to an article written by R. Albert Mohler, Jr. about homosexuality and the Bible. The article is, of course, a blatant casuistry, but it is also several pages long, and I haven't found the time or patience to sit down and address it at length.
Perhaps I'll write something more interesting later. For now, I'm exhausted. Take care.
Lifetime
