Q&A: Intuition
Intuition
Question
Hello Rabbi. I read in the trilogy about “The Mind’s Eye,” and I have to ask: why did you feel obligated to explain our confidence in the basic assumptions against a metaphysical background? It seems one could simply explain that the practical or theoretical experience I have accumulated gives me confidence that “all ravens are black” or “all human beings die,” or confidence that my senses do in fact reflect reality. After all, it would only take my eyes disappointing me once or twice with an illusion for me to stop relying on them. One immortal person would be enough for me to abandon the basic assumption that we will all die one day (or one white raven…). Thanks in advance.
Answer
Actually, in “Truth and Stability” and in “Two Carts” I explain this in more detail. The feedback you are talking about also comes from the senses. The question is how one can trust the senses at all. Even if the senses are synchronized with one another, it is possible that this is all because of their structure and not because that is the truth in reality itself. Hume himself already pointed out that learning from experience is not a solution to the problem of induction and causality, since we are asking precisely about the validity of our experience.
As an aside, I would add that one or two failures are not enough. Even if you were to see several times an object standing in midair, you would not give up the law of gravity. You would assume that something happened there that you do not understand. This is the problem of ad hoc explanations regarding Popper’s criterion of falsification in the philosophy of science.
Discussion on Answer
Seemingly, within two minutes of life one already accumulates very significant experience of the match between the eyes and the other senses, and who would even think of elusive problems like these?
Thank you, Rabbi, for the quick and precise reply. I appreciate you very much.
Moreover, our trust in the senses does not seem to be acquired but innate. Even as very small children, before we have any significant experience, we already trust our eyes.