It’s all in the head.

What does the Rabbi mean by certainty that there will never be anything but probability?
Does he mean that I cannot be sure that a certain thing is the truth, but in relation to another thing I have certainty that it is true and the other is false?
Or is there also a doubt here that even though this is more probable, perhaps the other is still correct?

I didn't understand the question. I'm not sure about anything, neither comparative nor other questions.

In other words, is there always a possibility that the method I identify as flawed compared to another method will still be correct?

What is the difference between this and total skepticism? You will never be able to find any real justification for holding to a particular method.

Indeed, when I say that X is uncertain, I mean that it is possible that ”not X” will be found to be true.
But possible is interpreted on many levels? 10%, 35%, or maybe 90%? When I say that I think X is true, I mean that I think it is highly probable. So the chance that I will be wrong is small, but of course it exists.
The mistake of our postmodern cousins is that they identify uncertainty with doubt. And it is not. Uncertainty indicates that it is not 100%, but there is still room for probabilities at various levels. I have written books about this, and you can read more in Two Carts and Truth and Unstable.

I think the rabbi intends to take a practical approach. Either you try and achieve results as far as reality allows you, or you decide to be skeptical and stay with improbability in hand. The rabbi uses the law of the merciful, the one who rapes a fungus. There is no way to solve the problem of certainty. But at least we will solve part of it, namely the probability part. Which is also something. But if you did not try, then you do not reduce the percentages of error. Did you try? You did. It is more likely that you hold the correct opinion. With absolute skepticism, I do not think there is anyone who is comfortable with probability. The one who holds the approach of absolute skepticism seeks absolute certainty. But since this is absolutely absent, therefore the situation that is created is skepticism that will always remain and therefore it is absolute. But those who do not seek absolute certainty but are content with probability for whatever reasons they may have. What seems to me to the rabbi is that otherwise chaos will reign in the world of reason and we will never be able to argue because I present a doubt and you present a doubt and the argument will not be decided and is pointless. In short, I think it is a question of attitude towards what goal you are striving for. For certain theoretical knowledge or probabilistic practical knowledge.
Honorable Rabbi Michi, what are you saying? Did I understand you this time?

Oh my god, the Rabbi already answered. It didn't update the page for me when I responded.

I think you definitely understood.

Thanks anyway 🙂

*Small appendix-certainty*: Why is the working assumption of most discussions here that it is impossible to reach 100% certainty? Because human thought has matured. A person who sees a tree with green leaves and a brown trunk may think that this is how the tree looks - but this is not the case, because if a dog (which does not see the color red) or a bee (which can perceive colors that the human eye cannot) comes along, they will see the tree in other colors.
This is true for everything that a person relates to (meaning that a person acts in relation to it).
We will now introduce two new concepts - 1. Object - the thing itself (in the example, this would be the tree as it really looks).
2. Description - description of the thing - how I see it (in the example, a person, a dog, and a bee would have a different description/description of the tree).
Everything in reality has an object (which is not exactly something of the thing but the thing itself) and a description (meaning revelation - reference to things external to it).
A person can (and perhaps is obliged to?) question everything, since he does not encounter the essence of the thing, but only the adjective.
Let's expand a little on the adjective:
A. There is pizza.
B. There is a person.
The person eats pizza.
C. There is delicious.
Is delicious found in the pizza itself? After all, another person will come along who will find the pizza disgusting? Is delicious found in a person? After all, if there is no pizza (or other food), will it not be delicious for a person?
That is, delicious is a property that is created by the encounter of the pizza (object A.) with the person (object B.). Delicious is an adjective.
Now we can understand that everything that a person experiences is an adjective and never a noun.
All of this is true in relation to everything that a person refers to with the help of his tool for perceiving reality.
And now we will formulate a law (or maybe this law is two laws?).
Everything that a person relates to is with the tools that a person has to relate to (senses, emotion, mind, etc.) and therefore what a person has is only an attitude towards things but a person never has the things themselves. (Since the thing is perceived with a certain tool, the tool will change, the perception will change - that is, if we relate to a child with the help of vision, we will say that he is beautiful and if we relate to him with emotion, we will say that he is loved).
Therefore, there is doubt. Just as there is a room with 6 windows, one red, one purple, one green, etc. and someone inside the room sees 6 rays of sunlight in different colors - it is clear that what he sees is not the reality outside the room, but he only sees the reality perceived through the windows.
However, there is another thing. The person who looks at the tree (from the first example) sees the tree as brown and is not sure whether the tree is really brown or not? What is he sure of? He is sure that he sees the tree as brown. 100% that at this moment when he looks at the tree, he sees it as brown. (It is possible that if they replace his eye he will see differently and if they change the wiring in his brain he will see differently but it cannot be that at the moment he does not see the tree as brown) He has 100% absolute certainty that the way he sees the tree (which is the description of the object in relation to it) is as brown.
In the same way, a person is 100% certain that he exists. Just as (and this is not proof or logical necessity) I experience the tree as brown, so too is there an “I” who experiences it. It is not the chameleon that sees it as brown but I see it as brown and this is 100% certain without a doubt.
After all, a person can come and say I am not certain that I exist! But because I have raised doubts about whether I exist, this proves that I think which proves that there is a me (Descartes' proof).
How can this be? But a common mistake is the mistake of the skeptic. The arbitrary decision that if it has not been proven then it is impossible to be certain of something is the basic premise (axiom) of such a course of thought. However, we have just shown that there is no need for that incorrect premise (in certain cases it is incorrect but as we said at the beginning in everything external to a person (which is almost everything) it is correct).
Conclusion: I am writing these things because all these questions existed for me and I struggled with them. I did not arrive at these answers alone but received help from the rabbis of the preparatory school where I study (therefore I recommend to all readers here who can go to preparatory schools and yeshivahs and ask). Of course, I wrote a kind of summary of the summary of the things which is obviously not sufficient and is not a real answer. The goal here is to open an opening to a new direction of thinking that affirms (both in terms of confirmation and confirmation and in terms of happiness and joy) life for a person. It is impossible to really grasp the general idea from this post and therefore I will ask you not to try. What is true is that the purpose of writing here (and that is why I would also ask for this) is that you do not despair, go study and examine and think and ask questions - the most important thing is to ask and not keep it in your stomach. I highly recommend the Ateret Yerushalayim yeshiva or mechin for these questions, but any mechin/yeshiva is good.
Good luck.

Since you copied your message here too, I will also copy my response:

It is nice to see a student who enjoys and makes the most of the teachings of his masters and appreciates them. Still, it is difficult to avoid commenting on a few inaccuracies in the words:
1. If every statement we make is only about our perception of reality and not about reality itself, then when I hear your statement, as far as I am concerned it means nothing. It only says that you see reality this way and that way, but not that reality itself is this and that way. Why is that interesting? When you make a claim against me, you do not intend to describe your feelings to me but to make claims about reality. Therefore, there is no basis for certainty here, except for certainty about your feelings, which is irrelevant to me. On this subject, I highly recommend the beginning of C.S. Lewis's (the one from Narnia), “The Desolation of Man”.
2. When you say that there is a God or that the Israelites left Egypt or that the Torah was given, are you not actually making a claim about the world but only about your feelings? If so, I would not include you in the minyan. You are an atheist with religious experiences.
3. When you see a red object, the color does indeed exist only in your consciousness. But this does not mean that the color of the object may be different. This simply follows from the fact that the object itself does not have a color (or at least there is no reason to assume that it does). Color is a cognitive phenomenon. The world itself has electromagnetic waves. When a tree falls in the forest and there is no ear, no sound is heard.
4. Is your distinction between the thing in itself and the thing as it appears to our eyes (in our consciousness), which is of course the Kantian distinction between the phenomenon and the noumena, itself just your feeling or is it a claim about reality?
5. To sum up all the points, you are wrong on your most fundamental point: the fact that our claims are mediated by our cognition is of course true, but anyone who is not a skeptic understands that after the mediation, there is a claim here about reality itself. Note that you, in light of your description here, are a complete skeptic. So it is a bit strange that you perceive your post as an argument against skepticism, or as providing a response to skepticism. You yourself explain that all your claims are only about your own feelings and say nothing about reality. This is the dictionary description of skepticism.

All the best and much success,

Maybe I'll be a little more precise (numbered according to your numbering in response to the claims):
1. Indeed, I'm not trying (and it's impossible) to prove something with absolute certainty since all proof is built on certain axioms (such as that our thinking does indeed correspond to reality) and therefore there is no certainty in proofs (the mind is uncertain). The skeptic assumes that in order for something to be certain, it must be proven, which is not true. In order for me to force you to think that something is certain, I must prove it, but in order for me to be certain of something, I don't need proof (such as my existence, and Descartes was also certain that it was doubtful).
2. When I experience the color red, I don't claim that the thing that appears to be red is red, but that I experience it as red is an absolute truth, it is “objective” that is, 100%. I intentionally did not write about faith in the G-d in the Torah or in the people because the subject is still not clear enough to me, and therefore I do not pretend to talk about it. My intention was to show that there are not only chances (i.e. doubts graded by percentage) but also 100% certainty that it cannot be otherwise. What does this certainty mean (for now we have only said that it exists on the existential level, meaning I am certain of its existence without proof).
3. Is there no red in reality? Not sure. We do not have reality itself. What you said that there are electromagnetic waves, etc. is still not reality, but only how reality is perceived in our consciousness through sophisticated instruments. Like in quantum theory, if you look at a certain instrument, you will see a wave, and if you look at another instrument, you will see a particle, meaning that the instrument has changed, the picture of reality that we see has changed. (Tools like microscopes, etc. are like additional senses or refinements of existing senses but still do not show reality in itself).
4. It may be that reality is indeed perceived by our senses, but the point is that we only have what is perceived by our senses (what is more, experience shows that with sophisticated tools, the perceived reality changes as in section 3).
5. I do not understand why the claim is about reality itself? From what I understood (it may be that I simply did not understand) you only said that it is so but did not explain or show that it is so?
In addition, I am not skeptical because when I say that I exist and that it is true, then it is a claim about reality itself (although I am realistic, but I really exist).

I can't operate at such intervals.

Thank you very much, Rabbi. I really think there is something to deepen (and what you call mysticism in many places or the private perception of the great Jewish figures such as Rabbi Kook, the Maharal, the Rihal, etc. are not as you present them and indeed there is a lot of sense and logic in what is called "Israelite thought") but I cannot answer quickly and therefore we probably will not be able to continue the discussion.