Q&A: Regarding the Fourth Notebook
Regarding the Fourth Notebook
Question
I can’t quite get to the bottom of this and understand it fully. Why do I rely on what my eyes see? Because billions of people see what I see, despite the supposedly accidental formation of the eyes, and because they have almost never misled me, and I keep seeing the same things again and again through those same accidental eyes. How can one doubt something that has never aroused any doubt in me?
Answer
I didn’t understand the question. Are you in doubt or not? Are you wondering why people are in doubt?
Discussion on Answer
The fact that everyone sees the same thing is because the arbitrary mechanism that created our eyes created all of them in the same way (evolution-genetics). That is not evidence that vision is reliable. On the contrary, it’s likely not.
This topic has been discussed at length in several threads recently.
I presented the question that was asked there—why do I rely on what my eyes see if they were formed by chance? And I’m wondering about the question itself, because how could I not rely on what my eyes see when around me there are billions of people who, time after time, see the same things I do and interpret them exactly as I do? Even if the eyes were formed by chance, reality forces us to assume that they see well and forces us to rely on them. Thank you.