I need help with my skepticism
- Joker2510
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I need help with my skepticism
- Felix
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Re: I need help with my skepticism
Why do you have a need for certainty on that? It seems rather neurotic. Your self worth should not depend on what others think and feel about you. As someone said, "what you think of me is none of my business."Joker2510: I mean, I do feel like they love, but I just don't see how I can be sure.
This is just something one learns by interacting with people: one learns to recognize falsehood. If you are not, it means you need to socialize more (in the real world of course) and/or you are seeking security from others. Security comes from within yourself, by understanding your psyche, feelings and motivations. And you won't find certainty in this world. As they say, the only things certain here are death and taxes. Good luck.This also affects me when it comes to being sure if someone is lying or not.
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Re: I need help with my skepticism
- LuckyR
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Re: I need help with my skepticism
What is the difference between them really loving you and fake loving you so convincingly that you can't tell the difference?Joker2510 wrote: ↑August 19th, 2019, 11:33 am After getting into philosophy, I started questioning almost everything that showed up in my mind. The problem is I started questioning if my family and my friends love me. I mean, I do feel like they love, but I just don't see how I can be sure. I know I love them because I feel the love. But how can I be certain they're not just lying to me and acting really well. The idea of them having lied to me this whole time sounds absurd, but I just don't see how to logically exclude that possibility. I frequently feel sad and unmotivated to do things because of this doubt. This also affects me when it comes to being sure if someone is lying or not. If I hear a clearly contradictory statement, then, yeah, I can tell someone's lying. However, when it comes to their subjective view of things, I just don't know how to be sure they're being honest. I do get the feeling someone is lying or saying the truth, but I just can't say I'm certain. What can I do to change this? Do I just have to assume people are being honest or dishonest? I'd be really grateful for any attempt to help me.
- Alpha1
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Re: I need help with my skepticism
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Re: I need help with my skepticism
You can't be certain that they're not just lying. They could be. They could be actors, as in The Truman Show. Or they might not exist at all; they could be figments of your imagination. Do you worry about that? If not, then why worry that they may only be pretending to love you?Joker2510 wrote:After getting into philosophy, I started questioning almost everything that showed up in my mind. The problem is I started questioning if my family and my friends love me. I mean, I do feel like they love, but I just don't see how I can be sure. I know I love them because I feel the love. But how can I be certain they're not just lying to me and acting really well. The idea of them having lied to me this whole time sounds absurd, but I just don't see how to logically exclude that possibility...
If you worried about everything that could conceivably be true; if you worried about every possibility that you couldn't logically exclude, then you'd have a hell of a lot more to worry about than the love of your family and friends. Don't worry about what could logically be true. Stick with what appears, on the evidence so far, to be true.
If it looks like a duck, and it walks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, don't worry that it might not be a duck. Just feed it some bread.
Relax, and learn from Doctor Flicker:
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Re: I need help with my skepticism
Instead, ask yourself what reasons you have to believe one possibility over another. What evidence do you have? If the only evidence you have for something is that it's possible--nothing else supports it aside from the logical possibility of it being the case, then that's not really a good reason to believe something.
- Calico
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Re: I need help with my skepticism
All trust carries some risk and the risk is one of the things that makes the relationship special. There are lots of reasons that people have trust issues and I don’t know if this is something more than philosophical inquiry. The biggest problem, as I see it is that if you require 100% certainty you will inevitably be disappointed because all of us are imperfect and will screw up eventually. You’ll be left trusting no one. Maybe you could watch “The Truman Show” and see how that affects you.
- Jack D Ripper
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Re: I need help with my skepticism
Let's do a thought experiment. Let us imagine that the following is actually possible. Suppose that these people are just pretending that they love you, but do not really do so, but always act like they do. So they never say anything bad about you behind your back, they are nice to you in your presence, etc.Joker2510 wrote: ↑August 19th, 2019, 11:33 am After getting into philosophy, I started questioning almost everything that showed up in my mind. The problem is I started questioning if my family and my friends love me. I mean, I do feel like they love, but I just don't see how I can be sure. I know I love them because I feel the love. But how can I be certain they're not just lying to me and acting really well. The idea of them having lied to me this whole time sounds absurd, but I just don't see how to logically exclude that possibility. I frequently feel sad and unmotivated to do things because of this doubt. This also affects me when it comes to being sure if someone is lying or not. If I hear a clearly contradictory statement, then, yeah, I can tell someone's lying. However, when it comes to their subjective view of things, I just don't know how to be sure they're being honest. I do get the feeling someone is lying or saying the truth, but I just can't say I'm certain. What can I do to change this? Do I just have to assume people are being honest or dishonest? I'd be really grateful for any attempt to help me.
Let us now imagine a second idea, again, pretending that this is actually possible. Suppose that these people really love you, but they do not act like they do. They talk about you behind your back, saying bad things about you, and when you are present, they are unkind to you and treat you just like they don't love you, etc.
Now, which of the above situations is better for you? I could have started with this, but I will put the trite (but apt) old saying here: Actions speak louder than words. What matters is how they treat you, not what is going on in their heads.
You write as if what they do and what is going on in their heads is not connected in any way. The way you know that someone loves you is that they consistently act like they love you. And the way that you know that they don't love you is that they don't consistently act like they love you.
- Arjen
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Re: I need help with my skepticism
First, skepticism is about postponing your judgement. Not about doubting. Observations and logical reasoning still have to be used. This means that skepticism dies not mean the same as doubting. It just means that you try not to subjectify observation with your own subjective perspective by judging them.
Then, let us discuss what love is. Love is a connection. In this connection, all reality is present. I love the young university graduate diwn the block. I remember how she bent over and seductively moved her ass in those tights as she saw me noticing her, but we both know I am married. We like the sexual tension, we know it will never be acted on due to my deeper love for my wife and son. I can doubt that this weird love exists, but I feel a connection when she smiles at me. There are others that like me and I feel a different connection with. Then there are some that I like and have no connection with. For example Danai Gurira, an actress. There is no connection. It is completely one-sided. Real love is that connection. The strength and type of connection carry the specifics of that kind of relationship.
In the case of love, I don't think the connection is in doubt. The doubt is which connections you or the other allow to flow. When you examine this, you influence it. It is a difficukt thing. This particular topic is best "experienced". That prevents subjectivication and a one-sided feeling. Postpone your judgement, do not doubt. Doubting turns into research, which will subjectify. That will make that connection form freely: in a loving way. I hope that makes sense.
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Re: I need help with my skepticism
I'm not sure there's a clear difference between postponing judgment and doubting. How would you characterize the difference?Arjen wrote: ↑October 3rd, 2020, 3:46 am
First, skepticism is about postponing your judgement. Not about doubting. Observations and logical reasoning still have to be used. This means that skepticism dies not mean the same as doubting. It just means that you try not to subjectify observation with your own subjective perspective by judging them.
I'm doubting that there's a clear difference by postponing my judgment until you explain what the clear difference supposedly is.
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Re: I need help with my skepticism
- I see a UFO.
- I doubt that.
Postponing judgment is different:
- A UFO crashed at Roswell.
- Let's wait with decididing it is extraterrestrial or not until after we examine the debree.
Do you see tbe difference between doubting and postponing?
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Re: I need help with my skepticism
In waiting to decide, you're doubting whether it's extraterrestrial.Arjen wrote: ↑October 3rd, 2020, 12:03 pm Haha. The difference is that doubting is a judgment.
- I see a UFO.
- I doubt that.
Postponing judgment is different:
- A UFO crashed at Roswell.
- Let's wait with decididing it is extraterrestrial or not until after we examine the debree.
Do you see tbe difference between doubting and postponing?
"Doubting" doesn't imply that you've decided that it's not extraterrestrial. It seems like you're thinking it implies that. Doubting means that you're not committed to saying that it's extraterrestrial. "Doubting" that P is simply like saying that you're not certain that P, which is what you're doing when you withhold judgment. Doubting is different than denying.
- Arjen
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Re: I need help with my skepticism
Is it X?
I doubt that, so something else, not X.
Is it X?
I am not sure, let's examine and then decide.
I can't make it clearer than this.
Doubting is saying: not that, something else. And that is a judgement.
I think that you are referring to Descartes: "Dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum"?
~Immanuel Kant
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Re: I need help with my skepticism
I'm not saying it isn't. I said it's not a denial of P. If someone says "A UFO crashed at Roswell" and you consider it and say, "I'm not committing to either 'A UFO crashed at Roswell' or 'A UFO did not crash at Roswell' until we have more information, because either could be the case," then you're making a judgment about "A UFO crashed at Roswell." (Namely that you'd need more info to say either way--you're doubting that it's true.)
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