You claim that “there’s less than a one in a trillion-trillion chance that all existence an illusion”. First: how precisely do you arrive at those odds? Second: I never said that all existence is an illusion. I assume the existence of external reality as a matter of faith. What I said was that there is no objective way to determine that what we perceive via our senses corresponds to reality. You continue to fail to address that point.
Descartes put it this way: dreamers believe that what they are experiencing during a dream is really happening. Given that fact, how can one certainly know that what they are experiencing at any given instant is really happening and not a dream?
I never said that existence is a leap of faith. On the contrary: I pointed out that even in the absecnce of any sensory perception at all (e.g. an anesthetized man in a sensory-deprivation tank) one can certainly know at least one thing: that oneself exists. My question to you is how anyone can claim objective knowledge of anything outside of that self-evident fact?
Quit dodging the issue. Either explain how one can certainly know that anything outside oneself exists, or admit that every one of us takes the existence of the universe on faith alone.
Quit dodging the issue. Either explain how one can certainly know that anything outside oneself exists, or admit that every one of us takes the existence of the universe on faith alone."
“Dodging the question”, please… Off the top of my head:
1) Life is long while dreams are brief.
2) Reality in life is consistent while dreams vary.
3) Life is detailed and documented in virtually any direction that we investigate while dreams are superficial.
4) Dreams are consistent with all that we know (which is consistent with itself), while lifelong masterfully composed illusions are not.
5) There is no evidence of such an illusion.
6) The complexity of managing a factious reality (like in the Truman Show) would be many times greater and more spectacular than the managed reality itself.
7) We do however possess a fertile imagination and curiosity that’s inevitably going to consider such a thing, and that explanation is consistent with what we know. Coupled with a little borderline paranoia and inexperience or just a strong desire for it to be plausible, and some people will argue that it’s more than one in a trillion-trillion chance.
Anything is of course possible if we include the infinitesimally unlikely. But since the evidence outlined above indicates that we are able to perceive reality rather than existing in an illusion, dismissing the completely unsupported claim is not accomplished through “faith”.
I think some people who are uncomfortable with the recognition that the evidence supporting their faith promote the most far fetched examples of conclusions drawn without mathematical proof in competing beliefs in an attempt to label them all as “faith based”. I think that they do it in hopes of canceling out what they perceive as a weakness in their own beliefs. Too me it just looks sad and desperate.
I trust that you’re better than that, and that you’re not trying to misrepresent my ideology in order to feel more secure in your own. (If I’m mistaken in that regard, please don’t expect me to read extensive inline commenting challenging each of the above bullets. I consider that kind of silly tedium beneath adult dialogue.)