Anaxarchus was a Greek skeptic at the same time Pyrrho lived, and in fact traveled with Alexander the Great the same time Pyrrho did. However Pyrrho became such an influence on Skepticism that it became known as Pyrrhonism for a period and Anaxarchus seems to be only mentioned in passing. For this reason, not much is known about Anaxarchus, but from what is known he adds an interesting contrast from the skeptics who followed Pyrrho.
Following the traditions of Democritus, Anaxarchus is thought to merge Atomism with Skepticism. Atomists believed that everything in the world is made up of little pieces they called atoms. Their definition wasn’t identical with the modern scientific definition of atoms; however atomists originated the term. A justification for skepticism from atomism goes as: if we only observe the sum impressions of atoms, and not directly atoms themselves, then we cannot truly know the nature of reality. The classical saying is trusting impressions from reality is like believing the paintings of a mad man. It should be noted that their actual justification for skepticism isn’t entirely known and modern skeptics do not use this reasoning, but historians generally accept they had heavy skeptical tendencies.
The conclusion of Skepticism is the same conclusion Pyrrho ended with; however there are more similarities among Anaxarchus and Pyrrho. Both philosophers were famous for being happy under any circumstance. Pyrrho’s tale involves Pyrrho undergoing surgery without frowning. Anaxarchus’ tale goes far beyond this as he was said to be indifferent while pounded to death in a mortar for insulting a ruler. They both reached this state by being indifferent to things around them. As skeptics they did not see the inherit good and bad in things, which is thought to allow them to endure pain.
Their indifference in the value of things around them led to two drastically different ways of acting. Pyrrho, without any dogma to tell him how to act, decided to go with the norms of his surrounding society but to detach from wordly affairs, such as politics and wealth (as he observed no value in them). Anaxarchus did the opposite. He was indifferent to the norms of society and flouted them if needed. Deciding not to follow the norms of society, he did what he enjoyed the most, which ended up living lavishly and insulting tyrants if it seemed pleasing. It should be noted, that Anaxarchus was not known for flouting the law or actively deceiving people. Instead Anaxarchus was known for speaking his mind and having the most fun out of life as he could.
The contrasts between Pyrrho and Anaxarchus could have led to their different standings in history. Anaxarchus did not fit the typical profile of a philosopher and did not win over the favor of society. As Pyrrho was subdued and fit the mold of a good citizen, others were more ready to praise him and continue his work (which is what happened with Timon, Aenesidemus, and Sextus Empiricus). The support of Pyrrho could have been out of a societal convenience and avoiding conflict.
Being a modern skeptic, I see no particular justification supporting Pyrrho over Anaxarchus. I think one of the advantages of Skepticism is its ability to allow for contrasting lifestyles. As modern philosophy seems unable to determine the optimal way of living, it is advantageous to have the freedom to choose your own way, which many ways of thinking (including many religions) do not allow. This is why philosophers of many different attitudes, can exist in Skepticism. Ancient skeptics may have chosen one philosopher out of convenience, but I do not think it needs to be that way in modern Skepticism.
Previously I have written about jury duty and conflicts with skeptical uncertainties and doubt. However the United States legal system is attempting to adapt to the possibility of ever-present doubt; or so it seems. One of the examples I mentioned before is that judges instruct jurors not to base their judgment beyond a doubt, however to base judgment beyond a “reasonable” doubt. I discussed how there may not be a beyond a “reasonable” doubt, however here I will talk about two different kinds of pleas that appear in the legal system. In the most black and white, someone accused of an act (the defendant) will either declare themselves guilty or innocent; this is a type of plea. However there are other kinds of pleas that appear in the American legal system, such as “No Contest” and the “Alford Plea.” These pleas may be a legal acceptance that proving innocence or guilt is impossible while allowing the system to function and give punishment as if guilt was actually determined.
In the No Contest plea, a defendant does not declare themselves as innocent or guilty. However the defendant agrees to accept the punishment for whatever he or she may be accused of. The judge presiding over the case must approve this plea; regardless of any evidence showing guilt or innocence. Note that the defendant is not actually shown to be guilty or innocent with a trial and this plea cannot be used as evidence against him or her in future legal cases; despite what Judge Judy may think. In this way the legal system allows someone to be punished for a crime without actually determining if that person committed a crime. This may be an instance where the court admits with its current capabilities that it cannot determine the innocence of the person beyond a doubt however will allow the person to suffer the punishment. There may be more to this which I will discuss at the end.
The Alford Plea is slightly different and is a newer type of plea (named after the first person to use this plea). In this plea a defendant declares themselves as innocent but agrees to accept the punishment of a guilty person. However, unlike the No Contest plea, this plea can be used against him or her, as if it was a guilty plea, in future legal cases. Not all states accept this plea and judges are instructed to approve this plea only if there may be evidence of guilt. However the defendant is not actually tried for his or her crime nor definitively determined to be guilty. This is even more extreme, as the person claims he or she is innocent and it seems the court admits that a trial would not be able to make a solid determination of this innocence, so allows the defendant to suffer the punishment (if willing to do so).
I would think this these two types of pleas be a way for the legal system to accept uncertainty and even “reasonable” uncertainty in their terms without actually dismantling the system. However it may actually be the case where the court simply is trying to save time and costs by eliminating trials. As Albert Alschuler wrote “There could hardly be a clearer violation of due process than sending someone to prison who has neither been found guilty nor admitted his guilt” in his 2003 paper in Cornell Law Review. On the other hand we cannot fully say that the original judges and lawyers where these pleas first appeared were not aware that proving guilt beyond doubt may be a philosophical impossibility. Legal researchers Allison Redlich and Asil Ozdogru wrote, “There is no litmus test to definitively determine who is innocent and who is guilty” in their paper “Alford Pleas in the Age of Innocence.” Even if motivated by other reasons, it may be that an acceptance of doubt in the wider legal system was the only way to allow these pleas to exist. Legal purists may want achieve “innocent until proven guilty” however the legal system seems to be accepting that it could be impossible.
The liar’s paradox is most simply given by the statement: “I am a liar.” The paradox arises when trying to decide if the statement is true or false. If I am a liar, then the statement must be false, so that means I speak the truth. But how could I speak the truth if I just lied about lying? Logically this statement is a contradiction. This can be further applied to any statement where its truth value results in a contradiction. The reason I mention this paradox is because some philosophers think Skepticism relies on liar paradoxes to justify itself. Whenever I read a paper that says Skepticism is self-refuting or self-contradiction, unanimously they are referring to liar’s paradoxes. Even papers which show how Skepticism is justified have to specifically make statements that their arguments do not result in liar’s paradoxes.
Before I get into why the liar’s paradoxes may be associated with Skepticism, I need to make a distinction of what arguments are genuinely used for Skepticism. When philosophers want to show skepticism about a certain topic, they want to show knowledge about it is unprovable or irresolvable. For example, one might think the universe is infinitely large, but a philosopher might want to show that we cannot know for sure or make a definitive statement. This is Skepticism about the size of the universe and the essence of unprovability. In contrast to “I am a liar,” we have “I am unprovable.” Instead of making a statement about truth, a statement of not knowing truth or false is being made. You can circle back on this statement as well, where if the person says he or she is unprovable, the statement must also be unprovable. But alas, there is no contradiction, because the statement already said it is unprovable. And this is also why I insist Skeptics do not need to justify themselves with concrete statements about truth or falseness, but instead just be in a state of unknowing.
If the liar’s paradox is fundamentally different from statements in support of Skepticism (whether right or wrong), why is it still incorrectly associated with Skepticism? It could be a genuine misunderstanding, resulting from the Academic Skeptics. Out of all the Skeptics, the Skeptics of Plato’s Academy were the only ones that were said to deny the existence of knowledge. The liar’s paradox type of contradiction would be, if knowledge doesn’t exist, you cannot know that it doesn’t exist. However no real direct writing from them exists today and Skeptics both before and after them did not make this assertion from all accounts. However a misunderstanding from one philosopher could have been enough to spread throughout the field.
The incorrect association of the liar’s paradox with Skepticism by one philosopher may not be enough to spread throughout the field unless there was a pre-existing desire to do away with Skepticism. This would make it so philosophers could justify their own pre-existing philosophies while conveniently avoiding difficult questions from Skepticism. Once, I was taking a philosophy course in ethics, and one of the teachers said he did not understand why it was taught because we have pre-existing ethics from youth already and therefore nothing could be gained. So the motives could have been less than innocent, to metaphorically sweep the problem of Skepticism under a rug, where the rug is the liar’s paradox.
Luckily, philosophers with some understanding of Skepticism do realize the association of the liar’s paradox is generally absurd and this is helping to change the views on Skepticism. However there is still a long way to go as they still do have to defend against the liar’s paradox. And this can be a problem as philosophical journals sometimes have word limits, so unnecessary defenses can eat into the statements they want to make.
I often read religious and traditional texts to see what subtle philosophies they promote. It is often hard to separate the mythology from the philosophy so the interpretation can be confusing. But every now and then a clearer statement is made which has philosophical implications. Here I will talk about a few cases of how judgment is viewed in religion and tradition and how it compares to Skepticism.
In Christianity, as written in the World English Bible, there is the statement: “Don't judge, and you won't be judged. Don't condemn, and you won't be condemned. Set free, and you will be set free.” This is a clear statement that people should not judge others. The second sentence elaborates even if one feels they have done nothing wrong, they still should not condemn others else they will suffer the same fate. On the traditional side of things, I found the Native American proverb: “Don’t judge a man until you’ve walked two moons in his moccasins.” As the Christian statement, the Native American proverb also comes to the conclusion one should not judge. Although it doesn’t specifically forbid anyone to judge, it challenges those who do to at least experience the life of the person they are judging. Now whether it is possible to experience life truly as another person is debatable, and has the potential to make this traditional statement all encompassing.
In philosophy, Skepticism has promoted a similar concept since around 300 BC (as developed by the philosopher Pyrrho). As a beginning step, Skeptics admit that they do not know what is true. Because of this admission Skeptics do not have a basis to judge the correctness of concepts, ideas, as well as other people. Skeptics call this the suspension of judgment. It is a key concept in Skepticism, and philosophies which attempt to attack Skepticism often aim to uproot this concept. The difference with Skepticism and other uses of suspension of judgment is the Skepticism version applied more widely. But it is interesting that various cultures whether from tradition, philosophy, or religion arrive at a similar concept in specific instances.
If the suspension of judgment is repeated in so many facets, we can suspect something beneficial from this idea. The Christian statement hints at a possible benefit with the words “Set free, and you will be set free.” To understand the context, we must consider spirituality. The benefit of spirituality is that it frees the imagination beyond simple senses. I have talked about the possible benefits of imagination in my manuscript and previous blog entries, which can ease the mind and body of pain that the world might deliver. But what many spiritual believers do is take a step beyond this and use it as a basis to judge others. In this case, spirituality is no longer used to spark imagination but is set as rigid principles, and thus all possible benefits of imagination are lost. So if you set your mind free of judgment, you will be free yourself in terms of imagination.
Aside from spirituality, judging others can have consequences in the community which the Native Americans may have realized. It is possible that when one person judges another in the community, whether right or wrong, it can rouse the suspicions of others against those being judged. The danger in these suspicions is the community may have an increased chance of persecuting and harming those who may have been falsely judged. At worst, the judged person may have been acting in the best interest of the community, however others in the community lacked the ability to understand the judged person’s actions. So to combat these dangers, religions and traditions may have instilled specific statements to combat this, in the form of the suspension of judgment.
In an interesting note, the religious and traditional examples I have mentioned here do not attempt at a detailed justification to do without judgment, instead they are content to make the statement as is. Ultimately this could be a tactic in avoiding the full philosophy of Skepticism which may undermine other concepts in traditions and religions. This may be due to the possibility of justifying suspension of judgment in one instance, could also end up justifying it in other instances. For example, I may say people should not be judged because they may not have been exposed to the same ideas I have, thus are not aware of better options. Then for the same reason, I may also choose not to judge people’s ways of life as well. And their ways of life may cover a lot of things which may be controversial (such as behavior that is against the law). If it becomes acceptable not to obey laws in traditions and religions then those laws are no longer really laws, as laws are meant to be obeyed. In effect, the corresponding religions and traditions may lose their importance within the society as their roles in supply laws are no longer necessary. Also if justifications for suspension of judgment have the ability to expand to other concepts, it becomes more like Skepticism. In this way, religions and traditions may have forgone their justifications in not judging others as an attempt to prevent the full development of Skepticism which would undermine their own dogma.
For this post I am taking a diversion from my normal discussion of Skepticism. I will be talking about a concept in physics which in theory limits our knowledge of the universe. Don’t run away yet! For many people, the mere mention of physics brings thoughts of mind-boggling equations. But I assure you, I will not be using those in this discussion. Instead, I will explain this concept through everyday examples and come to some surprising conclusions.
The particular concept in physics I will talk about is entropy. A very rough definition of entropy is how much disorder there is. Let us imagine we had a jar of green paint. If we stirred the jar with a stick, the paint will remain green. This means that the color state of the jar is very ordered as it always stays green, which is defined as low entropy. Now if we added red paint in the jar, and stirred it, we would get swirls of red and green in many different patterns. Since we have many different patterns (or many different states that can be called “swirl”), our disorder is high, and thus entropy is high! This means swirled paint, when mixing red and green colors, is more likely to happen than having red and green separated, because swirl has more options.
Why is entropy useful and what does it mean in terms of knowledge? Let us go back to the paint example. If you mix red and green paint for a long time, such that the individual red and green particles mix, you will get brown paint. Now the red and green particles can be in many different arrangements, yet on average it will look brown. We can’t tell the difference if one green particle is on the top or bottom, it still looks brown. Because brown paint has many arrangements of particles, it has high entropy. We found out that things with more entropy, such as this brown color in paints, are more likely to happen. This is called the law of maximum entropy. And this means you can bet on seeing brown appearing the most if a kid was randomly mixing paint. Making predictions like this is what science is about, but this also has implications of what we know about our system. Since we can’t tell the difference between the different particle arrangements of the brown color with our eyes, it means we don’t know which exact state the brown color is in and thus we know the least about it. This is why many people define entropy as how much we don’t know about the system. It also means the least known about state is also the most likely to happen! Weird huh? Hundreds of years ago, no one suspected that physics will fundamentally predict that more often than not we will have less knowledge about our system rather than more.
However there is more to this than my explanation. A hard-lined Skeptic would be very suspicious on the definition of the brown color, and why we call it brown. Why can’t we have different types of brown for different particle arrangements? The only reason why we don’t do this is because we average the system into one color. In our case, our eyes average the individual particle colors for us (painters take advantage of this when they use the pointillism technique) to make one color. If we could tell the difference between each arrangement of particles, one brown would not be more likely than the other. But with our eyes we cannot tell the difference, so consciously or unconsciously we are throwing away information about the system. Therefore to make any useful predictions of our system we have to throw away information (or ignore it)! This just gets weirder huh?
As you can imagine the implications of this in terms of Skepticism in science is currently murky. Many scientists have predicted a “heat death” of the universe, where the universe will eventually become so disordered (as the maximum entropy state is most likely) that order required for life could no longer exist. This also means our knowledge of the universe will go to a minimum, which would please the ancient Academic Skeptics. But the problem with that is to have any maximum entropy state you have to throw away information about the universe first (such as averaging it with your eyes). This is the difference between an Academic Skeptic’s I cannot know, so the information is not there, from a Pyrrhonic Skeptic’s I do not know, so without any other choice I cannot use the information. In that case the law of maximum entropy only restates what you assumed in the first place, that is if you initially throw away information you won’t later recover it. This is not a statement about the universe, just a statement on the limits of knowledge which is assumed in the first place. So according to this interpretation the universe seems to be safe from entropy, with the possible exception of black holes and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, but that is a discussion for another time. What I find interesting is how the law of maximum entropy can make a prediction that the least known state will occur the most, but we often forget it requires us to neglect information first for this theory to offer predictions.
Dealing with physical pain can lead to more long-term damage to the psyche rather than to the body. Even with medicinal pain killers, studies reveal, one’s own thoughts can undo the pain relief of the medicine, such as the belief that the medicine would not work (more can be read here). This gives way to the idea of psychological pain management as opposed medicinal pain management. Researchers have discovered that children can use their imagination to lessen the effects of pain (which can be read here). But it is not only the youth that can take advantage of this. Elderly people with painful arthritis in their hands found relief when they placed their hands in a box and a video screen showed their hands being stretched within the box (you can read more here). This pain relief originally surprised researchers, and despite the arthritis sufferer knowing it was simply an optical illusion, the idea of their own hand moving without pain was enough to relieve their own.
However the ideas of imagining away pain may be much older than the modern discoverers have realized. Pyrrho was an ancient Greek philosopher who founded Pyrrhonic Skepticism around 300 BC. Aside from his skeptical philosophy, he was renowned for his feats of endurance. On the nuisance end of the spectrum, he was said to be perfectly merry while washing farm pigs. While on the horrific pain end of the spectrum, he was said to have endured ancient surgery, lacking anesthetic, without frowning or grimacing once. This is a feat that not even firewalkers dare repeat. Was it an aspect of his skeptical philosophy that allowed him to perform this feat?
It is of my opinion that Pyrrho, being the founder of Pyrrhonic Skepticism, used his imagination to lessen the effects of pain to a tolerable level. As I have outlined in my Stages of Skepticism manuscript, one of the stages of skepticism is “freedom of thought.” Although not immediately apparent to the ancient skeptics, this stage becomes accessible when skeptics suspend their judgment on what is true or not and remove any biasness they may have towards what reality may be. This stage may not be fully attainable, but the removal of biasness allows imagination to thrive as there are no longer forbidden thoughts that my conflict another idea that was previously held true. If imagination is thriving, it allows for more options in pain management. This may be imagining that pain is not bad and should not be frowned upon as Pyrrho may have done. Or this may be imagining that the pain is really not there and something else is entirely different is happening as the youths and the elderly have done in recent scientific studies.
One thing researchers noted was that children were particularly adept at this technique of reducing pain because “they have such fertile imaginations”. As for the elderly, I surmise that being in a society that greatly values the possession of truths and facts for so long they are unable to imagine arthritis without pain, as it is basically an accepted fact that arthritis means pain. So for them it is simply not enough to think about reducing their own pain, they require an optical illusion to stir their imagination. And this hypothesis fits with the study where pain reliever users believed that their medicine would not work, thus ruining any imagination on the subject, and ultimately their pain continued. All in all, these studies ultimately reveal that an active imagination unhindered by rigid truths, or as commonly said “to be young at heart” is a non-medicinal, and sometimes the only, way for pain management.
I was reading a New York Times article (which can be found here), about how on average lyrics have changed in the recent decades. Researchers claim that music is more narcissistic (self centered) by more usage of “I” and “me” as opposed to “we” and “us”. Also they cite songs where the singer has songs solely to make claims of self-greatness. Whether it is true that singers are more narcissistic and this represents a generation which is more narcissistic or not is not my focus. But I want to focus on why there are narcissists and how Skepticism takes a different approach.
Narcissism feeds on self-judgment. To become narcissistic a person must decide how they are better than other people and render a verdict that it is true. People with low-self esteem can follow a similar process, but instead of deciding they are better than others, they decide they are worse. In essence it requires faith of one’s own standing in the universe, otherwise its mere speculation. And one of the traits of a narcissist is not that they speculate, but they have faith in everything they do. Moreover, by definition faith is unyielding, thus narcissism must be as well. I think many people can testify to the unyielding nature of narcissists.
But why do narcissists exist and what is their reasoning behind their narcissism? A rationale may come down to how one treats problems to preserve self-worth. Over time seemingly unsolvable problems may erode one’s self esteem. So what a narcissist may do is inflate his or her self-worth larger than any problem, so the problems have less of an effect, depending on how much value the narcissist attaches to each problem. This rationale requires faith in one’s self-worth for it to work, which narcissists seem to have plenty of. And this is a way to treat problems, but it also results in social traits many find annoying. So is there another philosophical method to handle life’s problems?
If you have taken a gander at the description of this blog, you probably have guessed that I would say Skepticism is an alternative to narcissism, and you would be right. One way Skepticism differs itself from the narcissistic rationale is that pure faith is not placed anywhere which also applies to one’s self. At first glance this seems to be a risk for low self esteem. But narcissists treat problems differently than Skeptics. A narcissist attaches value to their problems, and for anyone that has experienced Skepticism, they realize Skeptics do not attach these values. For a Skeptic to place a value on a problem is to place faith in that problem, which is not applicable in Skepticism. Because value is not given to problems, these problems never reach a level to become a threat to one’s own self-esteem. And since self-inflated faith is not applicable, neither is narcissism.
When I was reading philosophical arguments against Skepticism, one of the ones I frequently came across was: “one can give up a truth, but only if it is replaced by another.” The people who said this, one being Mary Mills Patrick in her doctoral thesis, simply stated it as a fact and did not bother trying to justify it. I was puzzled by this, as being a Skeptic I could not see why a given up truth had to be replaced by a new truth and what the consequence would be for not doing so. Then recently I watched a film entitled “Man from Earth” which gave me a perspective how non-Skeptics rationalize this idea.
In the film a young professor, John Oldman, retires at an early age and decides to move away. His colleagues from various scientific disciplines show up at his doorstep as he is moving out of town for a surprise party. They inquire about why he is leaving at such a young age, until he explains that he is immortal and has lived on the planet for thousands of years. He further explains that he needs to move on before people realize that he is not aging, which may lead to his own persecution. Practicing Skepticism as the scientific method tells them to, the colleagues do not immediately accept his story as truth. They question Oldman more and the stories he told of how he lived and survived throughout the millennia hold up to scrutiny, but they have no way of proving if he is really immortal or just very well versed on the subject. This is where the colleagues became increasingly upset as they battle with giving up their truth that immortality is impossible. Over time a few began to accept his story as truth and became calm. But for those who refused to accept his truth, yet doubted their own, became increasingly hysterical. To ease their misery, Oldman tells them his story is a lie and he just was testing their knowledge. The colleagues who believed him become angry, but only temporary as they now accept that he lied and that immortality is impossible is still the correct truth. And at the end all of the colleagues were happy as they still had the same amount of truths as they started with (neglecting a twist at the end of the movie).
What this film displayed was the despair of people giving up truth for uncertainty. Those who replaced the old truth with a new one were the ones to become happy, while the uncertain ones remained increasingly unhappy. The situation did not calm until everyone was offered a truth they could accept, and they maintained the same amount of truths as they entered. To answer why conservation of the number of truths is so important to them I had to consider that they were well educated scientists where their whole education consisted of memorizing truths and facts. In the academic environment (outside of minor fields which focus on uncertainties) truth is held sacred, and those who have more truths and accept them, as decided by academia, are promoted to higher levels and given more opportunities (often in the form of university degrees). As being professors, they were on the top of their field in the aspect of accepting and memorizing truths, so they would hold onto the amount they knew and not give it up in fear of falling behind in academia. And this paranoia of loosing truths is upheld in modern scientific writing where it is almost required that the author should write all of his or her results as a fact and having an incorrect idea is worse than having any idea at all. So it makes sense to me now that those in academia would take the idea that truths cannot be given up but only replaced, even if the definition of truth is not well understood on a philosophical level. Not only can academia have this problem, but any field which holds facts as sacred could face similar problems. Immediately for me, politics comes to mind.
Does this “conservation of truth” always need to be the case? As a Skeptic myself, I can easily say no. And there have been arguments where truth is not needed and assumptions are more than necessary which go back to the beginnings of philosophy. I would say it is only the systems obsessed with facts which really hold this mantra. Those who haven’t been repeatedly exposed these systems, from my experience, seem more than happy in not knowing every fact. This seems to define those who age with grace and those who become bitter with age. Stories of bitter old professors in the classroom are surprisingly common while the courtesy of those who are poor or uneducated are just as common as well. Now these stories may not be an accurate representation of the state of the educated and uneducated as a whole. But those who keep a truth have more motivation to fight for that truth and remain stubborn about it rather than those who decided to be impartial. Now you may be wondering what that twist is at the end of the film? Well one of the colleagues discovered new information about Oldman that he might not have been lying, and went back in doubt, become hysterical, and gave himself a heart attack and died. I guess the colleague would have been better off realizing that “one can give up a truth, but only if it is replaced by another” mantra was not the only way to live.
You may be thinking by the title, that I will be claiming that complete ignorance is better than knowledge for happiness. And it does seem that those who are ignorant about the problems around themselves are indeed happier in general. I never really thought of explicitly questioning the statement “ignorance is bliss” before as I never spent the time to notice where ignorance can ruin bliss and for the most part no one is completely ignorant. It probably doesn’t help that popular culture frequently portrays the ignorant as very happy people. The immediate example that comes to mind is Gilligan’s island where Gilligan was in general very happy, that is until someone explained the unhappiness of his situation and ruined his ignorance. But lately I have been hearing people suddenly say the world is in a downturn by events that aren’t particularly unusual, and a possible reason for this is ignorance.
Specifically people were complaining about the fuel (gasoline or petrol depending where you are from) prices and unemployment rate in the United States. I shouldn’t say complaining, they were comparing it to a doomsday scenario. Currently the average gas price is approximately $3.5 per gallon and the unemployment rate is approximately 9.5%. Doing a quick search on the internet one finds from multiple sources that for the most part rest of the world has had to pay at least twice as much as $3.5 per gallon (even going back past decades when inflation of the U.S. dollar was less) and a 10% unemployment is quite common (some countries, even western European ones, flirt with 20% occasionally). Also looking at U.S. historical data we see that 30 years ago the unemployment rate was 11% and inflation adjusted gas prices were $3.2 per gallon. So gas prices may have risen a bit from U.S. history, but what should be expected from a non-renewable resource? And for the most part, especially compared to the rest of the world, this recession isn’t too bad, barely comparable to the U.S. depression and not as bad as the recession in recent history (especially considering unemployment). With this in mind, it is hard to be reasonably affirming a doomsday scenario; that is assuming you were aware of this data. For those unaware of this data, well slight changes in recent history may be distressing.
This brings me to the idea that ignorance really may not be bliss. Not being aware of the evil around you would normally be more mind-easing than being aware of the evil (unless you were like Pyrrho and decided not to view things as evil which is another story). But not being aware of the good around you may be more mind-distressing, than being aware of the good. We often see examples of this when we consider people spoiled with luxury. They are inherently ignorant of the value and security of what they have, and thus are unhappy with it. It is hard to say whether the mind inherently observes good or bad in anything so, even with extreme ignorance, people have the possibility of being unhappy. Even if these people were aware of ideas that may not be correct but illicit good around them they would be happy (or relatively happier). I must say the lack of awareness, or possessing ignorance, may not be bliss after all.
These days when someone is referred to as a Skeptic, the immediate thought is that person is an Atheist or someone entrenched in the scientific method. It is not the fault of the outsiders to Atheism by misrepresenting Atheists, as Atheists themselves call themselves Skeptics. I found this out first hand when I joined a Skeptic’s Club at the University of Arizona and found absolutely no Skeptics there, just Atheists talking about technology. I find this very curious as Skepticism inherently indifferent to the side of the Atheists or the scientific method.
On the contrary to Atheism, the works by ancient prolific writer of Skepticism, Sextus Empiricus, are viable arguments for anyone that has a stance on anything. As Peter Suber has mentioned, Sextus’ arguments have been used by Christian theologians in the past to refute others who have taken an Atheistic stance. It is also curious that these Atheists, who claim to be Skeptics, tend to put all of their beliefs in science. The questions raised by Skeptics often seem very scientific, but they have existed before the idea of the scientific method. Modern science prefers to use mathematics to analyze data and come up with new theories, but in fact Sextus wrote a book entitled “Against the Mathematicians.” We must ask is modern Atheistic view of science correct or at odds with Skepticism?
It must be said that science and Skepticism aren’t completely competing ideas, as science does have Skepticism in it. As I mention in my manuscript, the scientific method involves theorizing and testing the theories with experiment, but ends at no proof or fact which surprisingly not many Atheists seem to be aware of. This could be a result from Immanuel Kant’s critique of pure reason, where he supported treating science as a “temporary” fact alongside a skeptical outlook on it. But these days, even hardliner scientists realize that any of the laws of science can be proven wrong at any point in time. And in essence, the scientific method has no end but a continual cycle of experimentation. This makes the scientific method ultimately a way of seeking not a way of settling on facts. Furthermore, it could be said that “scientific fact” is in itself an oxymoron. It seems like Atheists have latched onto the scientific method, as its one of the few methods of seeking that does not rely on traditional religions. Unfortunately this has caused the scientific method to be redefined as something more rigid for many people.
Now Atheists may have inherited the Skeptic moniker from the line of questioning that often appears in the scientific method, but there may be something more to it. Atheists take the stance of anti-belief, the stance of a denier of religious belief. To deny belief requires a firm stance of its own, and in essence a belief in the contrary. But the beginning process to change one’s idea from acceptance to denial is doubt which is what Skeptics are known for. The majority of modern Atheists have come from families who have been traditionally religious, which tend to dominate the world. So they aren’t too far off from those who originally doubted their religious authority figures and more closely resemble Skeptics. But it does seem they are far enough, or influenced by others who are far enough away from the original doubters, such that they have become deniers. And now it is rare for an Atheist to question scientific fact, even if it is outdated. I tried explaining to one of them that the idea of two objects not being in the same place at the same time although seems true in the large scale, in the small scale quantum theory can show wave-like overlap between two objects. This does not even begin to question what defines and object and where does it end, which has its own skeptical and scientific implications. But the point is they have left behind their abilities of doubting with their predecessors. And unfortunately the title of Skeptic did not stay behind as well.