this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2024
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There is, we just can't directly experience or understand it.
If it's unknowable, then statements about whether it secretly exists are pointless. It might as well not.
It's unknowable, but I think it's rational to conclude that there is something. We can't directly experience it, but we can experience something which means there's something out there.
I don't buy the "we live in the matrix" or "deceitful god" arguments.
Ah, so your argument is there cannot be an effect without a cause. We have perceptions, so they must have causes, and you believe those causes must be a real world.
However, this is a bit of a strange thing to think. Because if there exists a world, then there exists a big bang, and we are right back at the problem of effects without causes. The argument against effects without causes does not favour realism any more than soulism.
I agree with the first paragraph, but not the second. Why should there be a big bang? That's based on the assumption that you can trust your perceptions, which I'm essentially rejecting.
In other words, is there something giving me perceptions? I think so. Why is it there? Who knows. Why is there anything? Same answer.
Okay, but that doesn't solve the causeless effect problem. The world is as much a causeless effect as perceptions without a world. So your proposed resolution to the problem is "there's probably a world out there I'll never know and I don't have to reckon with its causeless effects, I just have to push the causeless effect out of my direct knowledge"?
No, I can't solve that problem, but I don't think that means there's no objective reality out there. The alternatives are more ridiculous.
I don't think we should pick our worldviews based on what's "ridiculous". For one thing, the very idea of determining truth as the opposite of silliness is absurd, and therefore the idea is inherently hypocritical. It instantly self-defeats and forces you to pick something else.
I believe in picking worldviews based on what's useful. I'm always going to change reality if it helps people.