How Much Can We Know for Sure?
So, we will accept only what inputs exactly tell us. We won't accept anything doubtful from now on.
. . . I wonder whether you understand.
Understand what?
There are almost nothing that are doubtless, if there are any. If we don't accept anything doubtful, there will be almost nothing we can accept.
Is that so? Hmm . . .
What is doubtless, then?
Well, for example, I'm not bald . . . at least yet. (touching the head) I feel the hair touching the head, like this.
You may be delusional from wishing you weren't bald.
Is this hair a delusion? It's dark, wavy, and disheveled.
You can't say it isn't a delusion because it's dark, wavy, or disheveled.
But why should I have to imagine it so disheveled? I would imagine it more stylish, and I would rather like it blond.
You don't always have rosy dreams.
It feels quite real. It doesn't feel like a delusion . . .
You may be feeling it so real, delusionally. Delusions are like that; delusions are delusions because they don't feel like delusions.
Ah-ha, . . . I can't refute that. . . . Considering possibilities of delusions, this desk I'm touching may be a delusion.
That's right.
Considering possibilities of dreams, although I think I sit on this chair, I may be dreaming of sitting on this chair.
That's right.
I thought I was fat, but maybe, I'm not fat . . .
In that respect, you are doubtlessly fat.
Why is only that doubtless? . . . Well, how about this? . . . An Earthian, named René Descartes, seems to have said, "Cogito, ergo sum".
Hmm, I don't understand it very well. Am I who think, really I as I think? Aren't I who think, just a character in a manga? I admit that I exist in some sense or another, but do I really exist as understood when I say that I exist but Darth Vader doesn't exist?
Come to think of it, we may not exist in the usual sense: we may be a character in a blog by an eccentric.
That's possible. . . . Anyway, if we adopt only what are completely doubtless, we will be able to have almost no ideas.
Ah-ha, to have a set of doubtless statements and make deductions from them is an ideal, but won't happen in reality.
Only by admitting what are impossible as impossible, we can begin to think of practical maneuvers.
