Certainty and Personal Confidence, Descartes and Hume.

[kbfc]

This post is inspired by people (mostly religious, although I'm not arguing that this is anything more than correlation) who claim 100% certainty in their beliefs, and David Sklansky's repeated 'appeals' to experts (I'm referring to the "why is it that so many super-smart people aren't convinced by the christian argument?" sorta thing).

In an absolute sense, it is ridiculous to claim 100% certainty about almost anything. The whole point of Descartes' Meditations was to acknowledge this as a foundation, and then search to discover what things, if any, we could be certain of. (I'm a huge critic of Descartes, but I'm willing to give an undeservedly generous summary here.) He got into the whole cogito ergo sum thing, which is great and all, but what I'm interested in here is a problem he runs into fairly early:

How can we rationally justify a confidence in our own ability to reason correctly?

I can calculate and solve a definite integral and be apparently certain of my answer, but should I be? Mentally I can retrace the steps I took, and make sure there were no errors. The problem with this is that the confirmation process is necessarily composed of a sequence of thoughts, and I haven't yet shown that I can be confident that my previous steps were mistake-free based solely on my recollection of them. It is conceivable that I could fool myself into a false confidence about my reasoning process, and I don't really have anyway to discount this possibility.

Descartes solution was to basically wish his idealized version of God into existence and use that as a foundation for confidence. (I'm not being as generous anymore...) Needless to say, the 'solutions' in his philosophy have been thoroughly rebutted and are basically worthless, but the 'setup' in his work still has a lot of philosophical value.

The failing, so-to-speak, of rationalist philosophy is that it dead-ends pretty abrubtly and you're not left with much more than, "right now I know that I'm thinking and I exist, but I'm not really sure what either of those things entails." In this light, when I see people claim absolute certainty about God, etc, warning bells go off; this person really has his head up his ass. If you're starting to question what reason I have to believe that my reasoning in this post is any more valid, here's the answer: I'm not working on this level of abstraction (in this case, technically zero abstraction); I'm working in Hume-land, and I'm considering granting benefit-of-the-doubt priveledges to you crazies as well.

David Hume notes the impossibility of really getting anywhere absolutely using reason. Rather than ending up at some sort of ultra-nihilist position, though, he posits the idea of 'habit and custom' as driving forces behind human reasoning. When I go to sit down on my chair, I have nothing but the memory of past experiences to support the notion that I won't just fall right through it. Yet I still expect it to stop me. It would be a pretty tough life if you needed absolute rational confidence in every task you undertook. Hume effectively introduces a new layer of abstraction (axioms) in which we can use our logical faculties, place some confidence in empirical observation, etc. He doesn't argue that we necessarily should function at this level for any absolute reason; he is simply saying that we do: that's just the way it is.

It seems like a bitter pill to swallow if you value reason and logic highly (as I, and Sklansky, and many others, including all those PhDs in theoretical physics, do) that you can't really justify them in an absolute sense. It's no opening for apologetic christians, though; absolute certainty is basically a prerequisite there. This is the departure point for christians who like to argue from faith; I'll just point to Hebrews 11:1, laugh a hearty laugh, and give the proverbial "have a nice summer." As I said above, though, I'll give the benefit of the doubt to those trying to have honest arguments.

Sklansky is fond of statements along the lines of, "doesn't it give you pause that people much smarter than you don't agree?" While these statements don't prove anything, they are still interesting because they hint at a more personal problem:

When I feel 100% convinced of something, why should I believe that I have any 'right' to feel this way?

Just because you're 100% convinced that something is so, that doesn't make it so; obviously there's a distinct possibility that you're plain wrong. It might be useful in life if there was some objective method of determining someone's personal confidence about something. This seems like a paradox in that 90% confidence about 100% conviction is really just 90% conviction, but I think there's an important distinction. Psychologically, you can be completely convinced, but still recognize that you might be wrong. Important note: when I say 'you', I mean 'you, not me.' An example of this would be showing one of those crazy optical illusions to someone who had never seen one before. (I said 'not me' before, because as in this example, I take for granted a distinction between experience and reality; I don't think this is particularly common.) This can be extended into all sorts of areas outside simple tricks, like math and science, or philosophy and psychology.

Back to the point about determining confidence. There's probably something to David's suggestion that we at least consider what experts have to say on a subject and compare it to our own position. I think there should probably also be some weight given to your 'resume'. I aced the SAT and SAT II Math, as well as a college level symbolic logic class, so I think it's fair to assume a fairly high level of confidence when a problem arises that is fundamentally one of formal logic and/or basic math. On the other hand, that was a relatively long time and many beers and bowls ago, so maybe that hurts my confidence a bit......who knows? There are plenty of subjects where I might feel convinced of something, yet recognize that I really have no right to (Jazz, for example...). When a christian states that he is 100% convinced that God exists, I can say (I hope I'm not getting myself into trouble here, but it's the truth, at least presently) that I am 100% convinced he is full of [censored]. We can't both be right. Who deserves to be more confident? How do we construct a metric that will tell us?

That's enough for now. Anyone? Bueller?

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How can we rationally justify a confidence in our own ability to reason correctly?

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We can't. We can only minimise the chances of incorrect reasoning by critical thought and peer review. And by measuring and testing every aspect of our belief against reality. And by having reality suggest things in the first place. That last sentence is vitally important.

[kbfc]

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We can't. We can only minimise the chances of incorrect reasoning by critical thought and peer review. And by measuring and testing every aspect of our belief against reality.

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Since you're replying to part of my discussion of absolute rationalism, I'll say that I disagree here (not with the "we can't" part, but your further suggestions). These methods you suggest are completely unconvincing.

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And by having reality suggest things in the first place. That last sentence is vitally important.

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I think I know what you're getting at. It's something I've seen before as an argument for reality outside your mind: "I couldn't have possibly came up with all this stuff on my own, therefore there must be some external reality providing it." I must say, I find this also completely unconvincing. Perhaps that wasn't what you were getting at, though.

Anyway, this whole section of my rambling-ass post was only meant as background. The part I was interested in discussing was at the end.

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The part I was interested in discussing was at the end.
...
We can't both be right. Who deserves to be more confident? How do we construct a metric that will tell us?


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I think it depends largely on what your'e debating. The trouble with the God example is that 'God' is not defined in any meaningful way. When someone says 'God exists' they're not communicating any concept, unless they refer to specifc attributes which are discussed individually.

I think confidence in a belief or worldview comes down to how that worldview was formed. Beliefs and certainties don't come out of nowhere. They are partly learnt and partly developed through internal thinking and observation. Certain methods of learning and developing beliefs are highly error prone, others are not. Some sources are authoritative and more likely to be correct, others are more likely to be inconsistent or not properly tested. Some people are well trained in spotting fallacies and flaws, and thus their beliefs are more likely to be correct. So you can base at least some of your confidence on this.

A secondary consideration is the historical effectiveness of different philosophies. Disagreements are often a result of differing philosophies. Many philosophies have been around a long time, and some have been proven to be more successful than others. For example, naturalism, the idea that the universe is a purposeless machine indifferent to human desires or beliefs, is the most successful philosophy ever. The idea that things are designed or have a God given purpose has been thoroughly disproven in many specific instances, which weakens the power of such ideas. They have poor predictive power, which lessens their credibility in terms of describing reality. Beliefs based on certain philosophies, therefore, are less likely to be correct.

A third consideration is the internal logic of a person's many beliefs. Those who have contradicting beliefs automatically have less credibility. An example is someone who believes the OT is the word of God yet also believes it's ok to eat pork. I think most of debating focuses on finding inconsistencies in a person's beliefs.

I'm not sure if this is what you're looking to discuss, but there are some smart people on here who may have better ideas. I'd like to hear Sklansky's take on this.

[chezlaw]

Its fairly obvious to most that certainty is impossible about nearly everything.

Logic, at least, offers certainty about whether beliefs are consistent although we can always be mistaken in our use of logic.

beliefs about the real world cannot be certain (with maybe a few exceptions). The question that I struggle with is what makes some of these beliefs better than others. The method of assigning probabilities and doing some Baysian stuff is solid but its still equivilent to the logical approach and its conclusions are only as good as its initial premises (probability values).

Induction seems to be the key but rationally its extremely dodgy.

In the end I believe all our beliefs about the nature of the world rest on assumptions which are equivilent to faith in that they are not rational. But I'm not at all certain that this belief is correct.

chez

[RJT]

I would contend that no one has 100% certainty in their beliefs (no atheist and no believer). Not a logical proof but, anecdotally, even Jesus had his moment of doubt. In the Garden of Gethsemane, when he ask his Father (God) to remove this cup (cancel the crucifixion). If you don’t trust the Gospel’s version, then cite Mick Jagger in “Sympathy for the Devil” –

“And I (Jagger’s Devil) was ’round when Jesus Christ
Had his moment of doubt and pain”

"How can we rationally justify a confidence in our own ability to reason correctly?"



(First I'd like to introduce myself. I'm new to posting on this forum but I've been reading here for several days. I look forward to joining these intelligent discussions [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] )


Nietzsche seems to have an answer to this question, and it is drastically different from Descartes. He would deny the very usefulness of your question. What reason do you have to reason correctly? What do you hope to learn from your question (and I mean anyone who asks, not you personally) if you already have a desired solution in mind? Even if the solution isn't already in mind, there is an assumption at the starting point of this proof. It assumes that logic and reason actually lead us to truth.

I know this isn't the answer you were looking for but I think it's important to bring up. Why do we use reason? What makes us think rationalty is superior to irrationality? Asking this might save you from a long and arduous path that leads to nowhere.

[kbfc]

Seems people really got attached to this Descartes business. That question that you all are answering was rhetorical. I was just restating a question that Descartes asks, and subsequently attempts to answer.

All the stuff about Nietzche is irrelevant. I love Nietzche as much as the next >50 IQ guy, but he's tangential to this discussion. The stuff about rationality and irrationality is all covered in Hume. The discussion at the end of my post (where I was actually asking non-rhetorical questions), is all assumed to take place at a 'Humian' level of abstraction.

[kbfc]

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I think it depends largely on what your'e debating. The trouble with the God example is that 'God' is not defined in any meaningful way. When someone says 'God exists' they're not communicating any concept, unless they refer to specifc attributes which are discussed individually.

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Most of the time, they're referring to the christian God, which has some semblance of specificity.

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A secondary consideration is the historical effectiveness of different philosophies. Disagreements are often a result of differing philosophies. Many philosophies have been around a long time, and some have been proven to be more successful than others. For example, naturalism, the idea that the universe is a purposeless machine indifferent to human desires or beliefs, is the most successful philosophy ever. The idea that things are designed or have a God given purpose has been thoroughly disproven in many specific instances, which weakens the power of such ideas. They have poor predictive power, which lessens their credibility in terms of describing reality. Beliefs based on certain philosophies, therefore, are less likely to be correct.

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This sounds like Occam's Razor. I would caution that lack of predictive power doesn't necessarily make a philosophy less likely to be correct. It just makes it less useful.

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A third consideration is the internal logic of a person's many beliefs. Those who have contradicting beliefs automatically have less credibility. An example is someone who believes the OT is the word of God yet also believes it's ok to eat pork. I think most of debating focuses on finding inconsistencies in a person's beliefs.

I'm not sure if this is what you're looking to discuss, but there are some smart people on here who may have better ideas. I'd like to hear Sklansky's take on this.

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Yeah, this is basically what I'm looking for. I've found it fairly difficult to come up with objective criteria, so I asked.....

[kbfc]

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I would contend that no one has 100% certainty in their beliefs (no atheist and no believer).

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I can say with 100% absolute certainty that I exist and that I think, the former being an implication of the latter.

Outside of that, though, when people say they're 100% certain, it generally assumes a foundation of logic and rationality. I'm interested in how much confidence we can have in these claims given those basic axioms.