One of the reasons I read the book was solipsism.
If I make a decision about where I stand—namely, that there really is a criterion for probability—then in other words I am actually making a decision with no basis at all… If so, I don’t understand what your words helped. They only moved the equation one step back, to the definition of probability. And here too it cannot stand up against the skeptical idea.

I claim that there is no need at all to deal with the skeptical idea except for someone who is troubled by skepticism. And someone who is troubled by it will never be able to deal with it (because you can always go on doubting any justification). Such a search is a priori unnecessary, and it’s a shame to waste time reading books for it. My book is meant to tell the reader that, contrary to the initial feeling, skepticism is not a difficulty, because truth is not identical with certainty. Someone who does not find agreement with this within himself (and is not a fundamentalist) will remain a skeptic in any case.

So how does the Rabbi think one can mature and emerge from skepticism, and settle for probability? (After all, one can also cast doubt on the measure of probability, and likewise on recognition of the senses, understanding, and so on.)
What “understanding” does the Rabbi think I should know how to apply in order to leave adolescence and enter maturity?

I do not know of any recipe or systematic way to get out of a skeptical position. Skepticism is a black hole. At most, you can discover that you are not a skeptic (you simply did not understand yourself correctly, and you identified truth with certainty). If you cast doubt on everything that can be doubted, clearly there is no way to get you out of it. I simply think that in order to cast doubt, there needs to be a reason (not every lack of knowledge is a state of doubt. See Ein Ayah on Berakhot 1b), and therefore the self-evident assumption that everything that can be doubted should be doubted is incorrect.

To cast doubt on doubting itself is an interesting thought. But who guaranteed that this is indeed the correct and rational way?

Michael, from the control tower: are you with us?

We’ve lost contact with the ground, hoping for new signals from the control tower (how can one regard something as probable). Over.

Indeed, we have.

Maybe the control tower can give instructions for returning and reaching the ground safely!?

The control tower did, but you’re not with it. You keep repeating the same question that was answered. Read again.

Michael (the questioner), why do you care about remaining a skeptic?
(It seems to me that thinking about this could help you.)

I read it again,
so in practice the control tower is recommending that I implement a three-stage plan, as follows—
I. The understanding that not everything should be doubted, even if it can be doubted.
And in order to cast doubt, there has to be a reason.?
II. To accept the reports of our cognition, whether physical cognition, the five senses, or intellectual cognition, and not cast doubt on them. (It’s still not so clear to me why one should assume they are indeed correct even if I accept section I; I’d be happy if the Rabbi would sharpen this point.)
III. ? Set out on a new path in the world “like a bird,” free and happy. ? This point, for a change, is actually very clear to me.

What does the Rabbi think about this:
I simply think that I have no other systematic “tool” except to rely on our basic assumptions—intuitions. And they also sound much more probable than the other possibilities. Moreover, it also really doesn’t seem likely to assume that our heads created the whole world outside, for example that other people know things that I don’t know. So this whole understanding is really very foreign to my spirit, and my soul literally “vomits out” this skeptical understanding.

Israel,
if it turns out to be improbable that life is real and only a dream, I see no reason to live. And there are many ways to do so even in a dream. Don’t you think that’s the right approach?

II. The first point says that if you have some intuition, you need a reason to cast doubt on it. If you have an intuition that your sensory and cognitive faculties are reliable, then you need a good reason to cast doubt on them. In my opinion there is no such reason, and the conclusion is to rely on them. In the fourth notebook I explained that in the background there lies faith in God, but that is level B.

I don’t really understand the next paragraph. That’s what I wrote, isn’t it? So if you are not a skeptic, then you have no reason to cast doubt, and therefore go on your way calmly (your section III).

Michael, I waited for you to finish your argument with Michi. I don’t know what your conclusion is, but if you are still troubled by the question, I’ll continue a bit in the direction I started above.

I asked you why you care about being a skeptic (arguing that thinking about this could help you), and you answered me that if life is not real there is no reason to live (the second sentence of what you wrote, I did not understand).
Now I will add that for someone who is truly ready to commit suicide if it becomes clear to him that there is no escape from doubt, I have no answer. But I assume that very many skeptics—and really, all those who have not committed suicide—are not prepared to give up life. That is, about one thing they have no doubt: they want to live. If doubt undermines their belief in various things, it does not manage to undermine the desire to live (even with the doubts).

Now, I suggest relying on this unshakable desire (and as such it is “certain”) as the basis for all your certainty. After all, this is what we learned from the foundation of Descartes: the concept of “certainty” is based on the inner experience of our existence (he formulated this in his famous sentence, “I think, therefore I am,” and from this point of departure he analyzed the various experiences of this self and developed them into certain beliefs and opinions).
In other words, the skeptic forgets that the criterion by which “truth” and “falsehood” are to be judged is the inner experience of “existence.” Every intellectual calculation and proof is only a means that brings the thinking person to experience the existence of the thing.

For example: the simple inference that leads me from a melody heard by my ears to the existence of a musician does not leave me with a verbal-intellectual-cold conclusion: “there must be a musician”; rather, it brings me to grasp in a “sensory”/“experiential” way the existence of a person who is playing [unconsciously I will relate not only to his “dry” existence, but for example I will begin to think about the reasons motivating him to play, or to locate his exact place, and more. All these instinctive accompanying interests testify that the inference led me to an experiential grasp of the cold logical concept “the cause of the melody being heard”].
If we reflect on this inference, we will notice that it relied first on “experiential” certainty: I hear a melody. From there, the experience (which does not accept anything without a reason—it “feels” intuitively that everything has a source, even if philosophers have struggled greatly with the question of whether it is “right” about this or not; in any case, the reality is that this is its nature) automatically passed to a sense of the existence of the source/cause of the melody, and here the intellect entered into action and “defined” in logical wording this “cause” as “a person playing.”

What emerges from this is that “probability” and “belief” (also called “intuition”) are based on an experiential feeling of our existence and of what happens to us (even if we do not know how to justify that feeling). Every “adoption” or “acceptance” of an opinion is based on a feeling/experience of the existence (or absence) of the thing the adopted opinion is claiming.

For example, in the question whether there is a Creator of the world: the beginning of thought will be in the natural feeling: I feel and experience the existence of the world (if not, there is no room for the question). And from there: does that feeling accept/feel that there is or is not a Creator? Only afterward will the intellect analyze the feelings and define them in logical language.

Alternatively, reading and studying the various proofs proposed by others will likewise be done on the basis of experience: do the logical claims being proposed awaken in me the feeling and experience of the existence of the thing they are trying to prove? If not, they will remain before you as a dead letter, and if so, then you have been convinced by them. That means the thing has become “certain” for you, with the same certainty that you are alive. And there is no reason to ask for greater certainty than this, just as you “want” life that is not certain except at this level of experience.