An Analysis of Skepticism...or is it?

I’ve only had a lucid dream once. I dove into the ocean and flew underwater for what seemed like hours. It was only until I realized that I was breathing somehow that I knew I was dreaming for sure. I could even feel myself breathing in my bed as I passed by rocks, fish, and coral. From there, I was able to manipulate my dream (and fly) because I knew that I, as a human being, cannot breath underwater. I know this to be true because I’ve tried it before and I’ve seen images of people drowning in water. In real life, it cannot be done. My proof that my current state was not real was based on an actual experience I had as well as knowing that people drown in water. So I feel as though we should focus less on whether or not our reality is actually real, and more on how we can prove that our dreams are not. The basic understanding that I could drown underwater carried over to my dream. This was how I was able to establish dream from reality.

            Of course, this does not mean to throw all skeptics in water and tell them to breath. I only mean that, if we are able to establish our dreams from reality somehow, does it make sense to believe there is a world outside of this that we are only waiting to wake up from? Are we really just brains in a vat, being controlled by an evil demon? Hilary Putnam doesn’t think so.

            He believes that since we are unable to talk about the ‘real’ world outside of our own reality, then it would be useless to consider such an event. He also states that, “we are all brains in a vat,” is a self-refuting claim. If we were brains in a vat, being deceived by an evil genius, we wouldn’t be able to create the notion that our reality isn’t real by ourselves. In fact, the ‘overseer’ would prevent such thoughts from even entering your mind in the first place. If we were to assume that this vat machine is capable of manipulating every person in the world, simultaneously, then we would also have to assume that it wouldn’t allow us to make such a claim. Putnam defends this claim with what he calls the Turing test. If a man can tell the difference between a conversation with a real man and a machine, then it must be impossible for machines to be conscious. I would argue that a machine (or an evil genius responsible for the Earth’s population) could not possibly control me in creating an original work of art. Nor could he/it puppeteer the works of every artist who ever lived. Perhaps our own brains contain that creative element, but it would seem unlikely that a machine would be able to control my every brushstroke. We would be better off believing that God controls all humans.

            One of my favorite views on skepticism would be G.E. Moore’s “hand” argument. Essentially, he claims that his ability to control his right and left hands are proof of an external world. A normal skeptic would argue, “Well how do you know that you have hands at all?” Moore would only have to slap them in the face and ask them if it hurt to prove his argument. Because he is able to cause physical harm to someone else by means of controlling his own appendages, the hand argument could potentially stand on its own. However, Rene Descartes wants to argue that Moore could be dreaming he has hands and is slapping a projection of another person. Moore doesn’t seem to have a solid enough answer to this; however, he finally claims that the very fact one is able to poke holes in an argument such as this, is proof enough of an external world.

            Surprisingly, I can deduce the existence of an external world from the Archimedes’ Principle. If I were to lower myself into a tub of water, I know the level of the water will rise significantly, proving that my body has mass and takes up space. I cannot accurately state if this principle holds up in my dreams, however, I know that it happens every time I get into a tub of water when I believe myself to be awake. Furthermore, I know that my fingers will shrivel up with prolonged exposure to water. This is not a belief I was born with, but rather a belief I’ve come to after seeing it happen for the first time when I was three.

            So it seems as though our knowledge of the external world is confined to our ability to make inferential beliefs as well as maintain the memory of those beliefs day to day. An inferential belief is established by first proving there is a cause for every effect. If my fingers stay wet for a long time, then they will become wrinkled. If I take a knife and drive it through my leg, it is more probable that I will feel immense pain and bleed profusely than nothing at all. I can infer this without actually performing the experiment because I have cut myself in the past and I know the consequences of that happening. I know that my body’s reaction to pain is an indication of there being something wrong in my external environment. However, Descartes would argue that I could also feel this same sensation of pain in my dreams.

            Descartes’ dreaming argument is a tough one to crack, but this is due to the fact that we are very bad at knowing if we are dreaming or not. However, the very fact that I tend not to ask myself that I am dreaming in a dream is enough for me to confirm my own reality. In other words, if I am able to ask myself, “Am I dreaming,” when I am awake, then it couldn’t possibly be a dream. If I have any suspicion that it is a dream, however, then I will try to willingly manipulate the world around me. If I am unable to do so, like I am able to in a dream, then I must be awake. The only problem is having such a suspicion like I did with my ocean dream.

            It’s only after we wake up and consider the reality of what happened in our dream do we realize that it wasn’t real. Similarly I never tend to fall asleep and consider the absurdity of my reality. I always just seem to be in my dreams, never questioning anything that occurs around me. It’s only when the beliefs that I’ve constructed in the real world carry over to my dream world am I able to become lucid.

We discover dinosaur fossils buried in the ground all the time. We are able to draw connections between the laws of physics and math. We are able to learn an ancient language from the Rosetta Stone. We can prove that evolution is a scientific fact by observing the world around us. The very fact that I am able to learn something new, that I didn’t know the day before, could be proof of an external world. Only a few months ago, I learned that we’ve discovered a planet in our universe that could support human life. I had no idea this was even possible until someone told me about it. I’ve never seen this planet in my life. I can only infer that it exists because someone has told me about it. I could verify this easily by looking it up in Google, but for the sake of argument, let’s assume I have not done this. Until I can actually witness this planet, and experience its environment will I know for sure that it exists and can support human life. This example appears similar to that of Putnam’s tree example. Without experiencing what it’s like to actually live on such a planet, I can only make a mental image of what it would be like. Of course, the only thing that I could possibly compare it to would be living on Earth because it is the only place I have lived in my lifetime. I wouldn’t be able to explain to someone, “Oh, it’s just like living on Mars,” because I’ve never been to Mars. Similarly, the alien people may be able to obtain a mental image of a tree, but they will have no idea as to what it actually is or what its function is. They can only see the collection of lines and shades that make up the tree.

Eventually, Putnam comes to the conclusion that if the objects we perceive around us didn’t exist then the ‘overseer’ would not be able to conceive of such things. He doesn’t necessarily refute the claim that we are not brains in a vat here. He merely suggests that these things must exist in some realm for us to be able to perceive them in our reality.

            Skeptics will always claim that we can’t ever know what we think we know. My question is what are we to believe in, then? It only takes one contrary example to destroy an argument. However, if one person can be deceived by the color green, how do we come to a conclusion whether or not the external world really exists? If we develop our justified true beliefs by means of our sense perceptions, then I suppose it is possible we don’t know what we think we know. Putnam wants to say that because we can come to doubt our own existence, then we must exist. If we didn’t exist, how is it that we could come to even question our existence?

            Perhaps that is the beauty of it all, though. Could it be possible this evil genius is MUCH smarter than we give him credit for? If he is capable of constructing a large enough device to facilitate for the entire world, wouldn’t it only make sense that he could account for our ability reason? In other words, to keep such an illusion alive (that our world is truly real), he would allow us to question our own existence keeping in mind that we would always come to the self-refuting conclusion. After all, what would be the danger in not allowing us to question the external world? Would we incite a revolution against him somehow? Would we all kill ourselves, rendering his little project a failure? Would we wake up in a post-apocalyptic world run entirely by machines? Would we figure it out at all? Or just continue believing our reality is truly real? I can never absolutely be certain. None of us can.