[The One and Only...]

Originally Posted by ArtificialBrandon

Christ, radical doubt and radical rationalism piss me off.

Christ cares.

No, we can't know for sure whether or not this reality is all an illusion forged by a "Master Deceiver." But so fucking what? We seem to be bound to the illusion anyway, and we're not going to find out whether we've been conned or not in this lifetime. Also, if you're so radical in your doubting, why do you still accept the primacy of logic? That wacko Descartes even believed that logic could be another ploy of the deceiver, making someone believe that 2+2=4 when it really equals 5.

Logic is simply the study of how to make valid arguments can be made through reason, and reason is "the faculty by means of which or the process through which human beings perform thought." Without thought, no conclusions can be brought forth - to be more precise, we know of no other way to draw conclusions. So while I cannot truly accept the primacy of thought because I do not know that it is necessary to think in order to draw conclusions, I must do so because I do not know of any other way.

Mathematics is based on axioms, or more appropriately, incredibly well-established inductive truths. Because of this, it cannot provide absolute knowledge.

Also, is the mind really as reliable as you make it out to be? Consider distorted memories, disorders like schizophrenia, and denial. If the mind were an infallible source of truth, surely the idea that you could forget something or even reconstruct an event in a different way would be impossible.

I never said that the mind was a reliable source of truth. I simply say that all knowledge must come from reason; I did not say that we actually could know anything.

Remember, there is a difference between practical truths from which we operate, and real truth.