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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 (lemmy.ml)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Just looking for other answers to this.

How do you know that you know anything? How do you know you can rely on your senses? (As in: I know the rock exists because I can see the rock. How do you know you can see it?)

If knowledge is reliant upon our senses and reasoning (which it is), and we can't know for sure that our senses are reasoning are valid, then how can we know anything?

So is all knowledge based on faith?

If all knowledge is based on faith, then is science reliable?

If all knowledge is based on faith, then what about ACTUAL faith? Why is it so illogical?

Solipsism vs Nihilism

Solipsism claims that we know our own mind exists, where Nihilism claims we don't know that anything exists.

Your thoughts?

Original from reddit

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 10 months ago

Not all knowledge is based on faith. The flaw in this chain comes early on.

Look, I'm a Stoic, I know that my senses and the inputs they give me are flawed and those flaws are out of my control. I know that my mind is flawed and those flaws are out of my control. I also know that they're the only tools I have to perceive the world and I have to do my best with them.

BUT.

Confidence intervals are a thing. It's not a binary between the poles of "I know for certain" and "I don't know at all". We can say, "I am confident, based on multiple observations by myself and the reported observations of others, that the sun will rise tomorrow, water boils at the same temperature adjusting for altitude, and the traits of the parents and grandparents can predict the traits of the offspring via Punnett squares."

The virtue of the scientific method is that the experiments must be repeatable. We don't have to take it on faith. We can repeat variations of the experiment to raise or lower our confidence to acceptable levels.