If you cannot be certain on what the truth is based on experience, how can you know anything at all?

Question

A question based on a certain Chinese philosopher: "Am i really here or am i, a butterfly dreaming to be human?" This philosophical question is the basis of the Matrix films and was given to us for our Philosophy class in the Graduate School. Please share your opinions thanks!

Answer 1

Your experience IS your reality. Everyone's reality is different, so there isn't really anything you can define as ultimate truth.

Answer 2

Who said that you can't be certain about what truth is, by using experience? How do you know that he is telling you the truth? These are not sarcastic questions.

I suspect it was your professor who told you this. if you ask 10 different professors or 10 different philosophers, you will get 10 different answers. What is the logical conclusion to be drawn from this? You can't trust what ANY professor or what any philosopher says.

One thing I know; that I AM and that there is an ultimate reality. If there was no ultimate reality, then, I would not exist. Whether I am a butterfly or a human, there is still the I, that experiences this. That I, is who I am.

There was an idea that started to become popular in the Middle ages; that all truth could be known by logic and reason. That idea is now in full flower. The idea is absurd. All logic is based on premises that are supposed to be self evident.

The problem is, that what one person thinks is self evident, even if they are a college professor or famous philosopher, may not be self evident to different person.

A person must be a critical reader and listener, as well as a critical thinker, to be able to separate useful ideas from the garbage they tell you while you are in college.

You must be a clear thinker to have asked such a good question.

Answer 3

You can't. Ask a blind man what the truth is; his answer cannot contain the parts of the world that are color, perspective, etc. Human have limited senses and limited brain abilities to process that information. Imagine telling a computer to analyze the world, but all it has is a 2mpxl black and white camera and a 5-year-old processor. It's also not simply lack of ability- the MANNER in which our senses and brains are constructed make it impossible to see things as they really are. For example, the world reaches a computer as 1's and 0's. These 1's and 0's are nothing at all like things in themselves. The way the computer processes it will NOT allow it to come to any accurate conclusions. Likewise, the things we see and conclusions we form about them are completely inaccurate, and we are incapable of sensing or understanding things in themselves.

In short, you can't know anything at all. Anyone who tells you otherwise is just trying to give comfort to inferior humans who will never have any hope of answering the questions they ask. Analyze their explanations and you will find only wishful thinking supported by hope and faith. And if you're willing to let that be your reality- well, don't expect to be able to put it to the philosophical test.

I think this is actually a very difficult thing for philosophers to accept, because deep down what most philosophers want is to think their way to discovering the Truth. It's hard to keep going when you know firmly that this will never happen.

Answer 4

I am an existentialist.I believe that a human being creates his/her own truth, based on his/her individual genetic make up and experience which influence the choices and views one develops as well as the "truths" this individual comes to believe in. Exsitence comes before everything else. Universal Meaning cannot possibly exist in any objective verifiable way outside of a human being, with the exception of some scientific laws, but even the laws are perhaps only true because our sensory organs are all the same and perceive a phenomena in the same way.
So I would argue that we cannot know anything for certain, and that one must live his/her life struggling to create a meaning for himsef/herself, enough of a meaning to help him get out of the bed in the morning.

Answer 5

There is no certainty, only infinite possibility. You can never know all of reality but your own perception of it influences everything you do. You don't know anything at all ... you just think you do, and that's what keeps us going.

Life is just a 99 year adventure , thank you God for that, and I love life. But, it takes more than 99 years for light to reach Alpha Centauri, our nearest neighbor star, our whole lifetimes are just a blink of an eye in cosmological terms.

That doesn't mean that life is meaningless ... it is the repository of meaning. Get it?

We and God are the creators of whatever meaning there is. Remember there is a whole universe around us ... and a whole universe inside us. Wow, how beautiful that is.

Yeah, I'm really here but not for long ... wish it was longer.

Good thoughtful question thanks;
Jonnie, the butterfly.

Answer 6

What some are missing is that knowing something does not necessarily mean you truly know the truth about the thing or experience. I may very well know I have five fingers, but that may very well not be true. So I can still know without that thing of experience being validated. So how can you know anything at all? Easily: you experience it. But your experience doesn't conclude that that thing or experience is true.

Answer 7

Perhaps the Merovingian is right. the only real truth in the universe is cause and effect. Knowledge is just an illusion based on the experience of the observer.

Answer 8

skepticism...

If our experience is systematically wrong, then no words you use will be true -- EVERYTHING YOU SAY IS FALSE, because you never refer to reality. As in a dream: "I ran a marathon last night" is False.

So to speak meaningfully at all, you may not assume the skeptical scenario. Semantics of illusion is a joke.

Answer 9

You know the facts, facts constitutes truths but can anyone
be certain of what is relative.

Answer 10

It is all relative!! Edit:OhOh good one! to the guy up top!