Everyday I wake up and see the world. I see objects. My wife and children (they are ‘objects’ as well) share the same space and time, and objects with me. Those objects are independent of myself, my wife and children. My children fight over them. They do not disappear or suddenly change into something else unrecognizable. There is seemingly an inherent stability in the reality of space-object-time.
While I have no evidence to proof this except that in the nearly half-century of my life (is that time an illusion?) my perception of that reality has been stable, constant. And that the intermediary objects have held constant between myself and other sentient observers.
That alone is good enough evidence for me.
If I cannot rely on the world to be consistent (I do not mean willful consistency) I will not be able to function meaningfully in it.
That last paragraph is the perfect statement of what i call ‘faith’; that is, the suture by which reality maintains its integrity.
Can we ever do away with that suture when I have only access to the thing through the senses and perception?
Pingback: Faith And reality. – Constructive Undoing
‘Faith’ is one way to say it. I’d rather call it ‘strong evidence’ or ‘philosophical induction’. I do not think we can ever have pure ‘deduction’ of things.