Fellow atheists: How do you know your senses and reasoning are reliable and valid? How do you know that you know anything? Solipsism vs Nihilism

pelletbucket , 10 days ago

I don’t. we could be living in a simulation, but acting as if we were isn’t going to help me any

nycki , 5 months ago

I have no absolute knowledge, but I have lots of probabalistic knowledge. I update my priors in response to new evidence, therefore I probably am.

intensely_human , 5 months ago

I know my senses are reliable because the information coming from them follows stable patterns.

I know my senses are valid because the information they provide is successfully processed by the conceptual models in my mind.

zbyte64 , 5 months ago

Not sure how Solipsism contradicts atheism or anything else for that matter… I see it more as punting the question. If my mind is the only way for me to know what exists, and my experience is such that atheism is true, then that’s the end of the discussion. Not sure why I am arguing with myself on this one. /S

HipsterTenZero , 5 months ago

i mostly dont care to check

watson387 , 5 months ago

I don’t claim to know what exists after you die because I don’t know and nobody else does either. Until any religion can prove anything or kick tapes I will disregard them all.

some_guy , 5 months ago

I don’t need to validate my disbelief in a made-up being. Science works. Math works. Good enough.

D61 , 5 months ago

Things that I’ve had to come to grips with when I figure out that it was okay to be an atheist.

Human beings are not logical or rational. We can do logic and rationalizations but we are not fundamentally logical or rational creatures.

Its okay to think things and not have some ironclad sentential logically correct argument as to why you think a thing. When a kid is asked by somebody “Why did you do that?” and the kid answers “I don’t know” and the person keeps pushing for the kid to have some cause/effect conforming answer, its the person who’s wrong not the kid.

I mean, my eyes are shit and getting worse by the year. My brain has had issues remembering certain things and processing human speech into meaning for as long as I’ve been an adult. I’ve been in enough situations where I suddenly realize that I have no actual active memory of how I got here and yet the world still functioned. It just became something that I no longer felt any pressure or need to justify. Things can just be (maybe I’m wrong, maybe I’m right, maybe I’m in some inbetween state) and I still exist.

FanonFan , 5 months ago

I mean, a person’s senses aren’t supposed to be infallible, but I see no utility in elevating baseless conjecture above them. The “brain in a vat” problem is fun and all but it’s based on zero positive evidence, just a lack of negative evidence. On the other hand the senses are giving us continuous and reproducible and interactible information about the world around us, which despite its inherent subjectivity can be communicated with other people’s perspectives to approach and approximate an objective understanding of things.

Now when you start shifting from abstract to concrete epistemology, things like symbols and language games and power structures and ideology become important facets to examine. What filters and tensions are influencing a person’s perspective? What mechanisms might be elevating or silencing their perspective socially?

We can and should be skeptical of our senses, but in a productive or dialectical manner, testing them against reality and other perspectives in efforts to approach a more concrete understanding.

muddi , 5 months ago

I once tripped hard and believed I died. When I came out from the trip, I still had no evidence I hadn’t finished tripping, and am actually still dying as my mind fires its dying circuits in my deathbed.

But that doubt interferes with my ability to live a normal live which I am used to and strive for, so I ignore the doubt, mostly. I check myself with little tests now and then.

Same with other existential doubts in general. If you want some official names of philosophies, Nagel’s absurdism, Buddhism, Vedanta, and maybe pragmatism would be applicable. Basically: don’t kill yourself with doubt, keep on living with some sensibility in your senses, though keep a curious mind to keep yourself in check now and then.

bunkyprewster , 5 months ago

I’ve been thinking about this also lately. It occurred to me that our sense organs and nervous system are shaped by external reality (both through evolution and individual development). Thus the ways we perceive are determined in some ways by the things we are perceiving.

andyburke , 5 months ago

Solipsism is not disprovable.

It also isn't a framework under which you can do any interesting and widely relevant philosophical thinking, so even if it is the case, proceeding like it's not seems the best strategy unless you just want to sit in a dreamworld alone until it ceases.

Ephera , 5 months ago

I do not think, we can guarantee our senses to sense reality. But what distinguishes science from faith to me, is ultimately a principle known as Occam’s Razor.
Essentially, it says: When trying to find an explanation for something, prefer the explanation that requires fewer assumptions.

So, in regards to our senses sensing things, there’s two possible explanations:

1. What they sense is real.
2. Or what they sense is some imagination, simulation etc…

And with 2), you have to make the assumption that your entire perception is somehow being imagined/simulated and you presumably have some other form of existence, too. Because well, if you wouldn’t exist, why would you be imagining things?

So, on the basis of that, 1) just seems less far-fetched. You’re just perceiving what’s real.
If we ever find evidence that this isn’t actually the case, then of course, we should change our minds, but until then, there’s no point in seriously considering 2).

It can be argued that Occam’s Razor isn’t inherently guaranteed either. My preference for it certainly comes from what I have perceived.
But well, if there’s a religion that assumes everything exists in all places all the time, and that every time I lift my finger when typing, there’s an invisible coffee table there with Santa, the tooth fairy, Big Foot and a pink space unicorn, I would be down for that religion.

hexthismess , 5 months ago

I think that my senses can be backed up by empirical and reproducible evidence.

If i dont want to burn my hand, I can measure the objects temperature. Even if I don’t trust my reasoning and senses, a hot object will still burn me. I could have no senses to perceive the outside world, and I would still be burned by that object.

The reason I know I will get burned is not based on an absolute knowledge of how hot that object is, but that I and others have been burned before. The evidence is reproducible and most everyone agrees that a hot object will burn them.

arthur , 5 months ago

Although I agree that knowledge is based on faith, not all faith are equal. That’s why testing/defying our current knowledge is the basis of science.