Quote:
Originally Posted by Bnonn  It could be the case that your senses are completely inaccurate; or even that the association you make between the mental event of "seeing" and the physical event of light entering your eyes is a false one. Perhaps you only appear to have eyes. Perhaps you are not physical at all. |
It's also possible you are not thinking clearly. It's possible that you've misinterpreted the Bible. It's also possible that your dialogs with God are nothing more than delusions of grandeur. Or it's possible that the author of the Bible was really just some guy who was a loony (or even ... an evil demon).
The basic assumptions you are taking for granted are the same things a scientist takes for granted. For example, through all of this, you are assuming you are not loony. Can you justify this assumption?
On knowledge:
Many people hold the common misconception (like Descartes) that there must be a solid foundation to knowledge ... and that one's epistemology must be structured much like a building ... with a solid concrete slab at the bottom. Although this is not the correct model at all.
It reminds me of early cosmology, where the world is asserted to sit on the back of an elephant ... which stands on the back of a tortoise ... who's legs are infinitely long. The only thing that made sense to these people was something sitting on top of something else that was solid.
But the problem with any foundationalist approach to knowledge -- including your own -- is that we may always ask: what is the foundation of the foundation?
A better model of knowledge is to first reject absolute certainty as self-delusion, and then see the picture more like a *web* of beliefs, which are connected at varying tensions. The fundamental question really boils down to *which* assumptions one starts with. These can then be refined repeatedly, or even rejected altogether in favor of others (like a dynamically changing web-like structure). Generally, the starting points are the instincts one is born with (which can't be completely bad, otherwise we'd be dead by now).
I also question why extreme skepticism is assumed to be the correct starting point of any epistemology. Since, if we start there, we can't conclude anything. The research program is still-born. This starting point is rejected by lack of fruit. Or, we may add it as a footnote to more interesting starting points.