These 4 Simple Questions Will Change How You Think About Everything

this video is sponsored by blinkist use the link in the description and you'll receive one free week and 25 off an annual premium membership Molly was born completely blind she has never seen a color a shape an object anything she navigates and understands the world primarily through touch and sound in order to distinguish the object she encounters she runs her hands across their surfaces Molly is also very superstitious for good luck she always carries with her her lucky marble and lucky dye depending on the situation she often takes one of them out and rubs it in her hand she can distinguish between the dye and the marble by feeling and Discerning the dye's angular edges and pointed Corners versus the marbles round smooth surface at 18 years old Molly undergoes cataract removal surgery and an intraocular lens implant her blindness is effectively cured Molly awakes from the surgery and for the first time in her life she sees the world around her all the colors and shapes and objects previously known to her only by touch and language on the table next to the hospital bed are her lucky marble and lucky die in this moment she wants to hold her lucky marble she looks at both items on the table before touching them can she tell which is which can she tell the marble from the die having only touched them but never seen them this question is what is known as molineux problem originally formulated by philosopher William molyneux in 1688 intuitively it might seem obvious to assume that Molly will be able to connect the smoothness she's touched in the past to the rounded appearance of the spherical marble and the pointedness she's felt to the angular appearance of the cubic die but without any prior visual experience without any reference points for what smoothness or pointiness or anything looks like how would she be able to make these connections for hundreds of years versions of this thought experiment have divided philosophers empiricists believing someone in the situation would not be able to identify the objects because knowledge comes only or primarily from first-hand sense experiences which in this case have not yet been had rationalists believe that the person would be able to identify the objects because knowledge chiefly comes from our ability to reason and the connections will be able to be deduced through one's rational faculties nowadays though modern science allows for the possibility of this thought experiment to not just be debated over but actually tested in 2011 MIT professors Richard held and Dr Pawan singha conducted an experiment in which a group of children and teenagers who were born blind received cataract removal surgery curing their blindness just following their surgery the participants were then presented with lego-like blocks one collection of blocks was placed visibly on a table and another identical collection was placed hidden from view under the table only perceivable by touch when the participants were asked to match objects they had felt with objects seen the results were essentially equivalent to chance with 58 accuracy in other words Molly would not dependably be able to identify the marble or the dye the experiment concluded that the empiricists were right the primary tool we have to get the outside world inside her head and to knowledge and understanding is our senses not our reason and then this study is not without critiques though and some argue that since there is variability and other factors involved with things like the surgery's recovery process as well as the duration of time participants were tested after it the problem is still somewhat inconclusive however regardless molineux problem points to a broader problem our first unanswerable philosophical question how do we know that what we are perceiving is accurate if we come to understand the world not primarily through reason but through our sense experiences how accurate are our perceptions and understandings if our senses are limited and often unreliable most of us assume that what we are encountering outside of our head is relatively consistent with how it seems inside but how do we know and can we ever know for sure the term qualia refers to the internal subjective qualitative properties of experiences this includes things like color taste and feelings pain love sharpness smoothness and so on and so whether or not what we are perceiving is accurate to the world in and of itself depends largely on whether or not qualia or our subjective experiences are intrinsic properties of the world or merely a product of the mind or some combination even if we can use tools to measure test and enhance our insights about the physical world the last stop for everything is still the mind we're always left with and limited by the cognitive and perceptual Frameworks in built in the mind since we can never experience anything outside of the Mind including the Mind itself we can never know what anything is actually like outside of it this is often referred to as the egocentric predicament this leads us to the next seemingly unanswerable philosophical question how do we know that what we are perceiving is the same as other people of course since we can never experience anything outside of our mind we can also never enter into another person's to know what things are like for them not only can we not know if the experience of blue is entirely unique to the human mind but we also can't know if the specific blue we personally experience is unique to our mind alone or at least as different from what is experienced in some portion of other Minds since we can communicate relatively successfully about events and objects in the world we can know that differences amongst objects and events outside our mind are generally proportionally consistent with differences experienced inside our mind but just because we refer to the differences with the same terms does not mean that the differences are experienced as the same thing perhaps what you see as green looks like blue in your friend's mind and vice versa but you just associate the same words with the same differences because all qualia are housed in the conscious private mind we can never objectively perceive measure or Define them without using tools or terminology that don't also fall victim to the same problem this leads us to the next unanswerable question how do we know that anything or anyone exists outside our mind at all if you can never get out of your mind and experience anything outside of it and you can never enter the mind of anyone else how can you know for sure that anything or anyone exists outside of your mind we reasonably assume that since the world interface is back with us objects and people respond to our actions people talk and act like they feel and think things and so on that all of these things are real independent things outside of our mind but how can you know for sure that those people and things aren't merely creations of your mind you do this every night when you dream without question can you prove right now that you are not on some sort of spaceship hurtling through the cosmos a member of an advanced species that has sent itself off on a long journey to avoid a catastrophe happening on its host Planet the only way to make the duration of the journey endurable was to be placed in a stasis tube with wires plugged into your brain temporarily clearing all memories and actively stimulating your brain's nerve impulses throughout the trip in order to create a lifetime worth of experiences until arriving somewhere else and remembering it was all a simulated reality of course odds are arguably very unlikely that this or anything similar is the case but the point is the odds are not zero and you simply cannot know for sure although you can never know for sure about anything that exists outside your mind the one thing you can know for sure is that you exist somewhere and something as philosopher Rene Descartes pointed out if you can think and doubt you must exist but then where did you come from even if what you perceive isn't real there still seemingly needs to be something other than yourself that created you and simulates causes or implants what you perceive if you in some form exist you must either be the creator of yourself or something else must have created you if we assume the more likely and normal belief that other things and other people do exist and you are created by other people then those who created you must have also been created by something or someone else and whoever created them again must have been created by someone or something else so on and so forth all the way back add infinitum to the beginning of humanity the beginning of Life the beginning of Earth and the beginning of everything and so no matter the case where did it all come from if something or someone created everything who created it or them if everything came from nothing how could it have come to being at all this brings us to our final unanswered and possibly unanswerable philosophical question does God exist of course God means different things to different people but in terms of what is traditionally considered God defined in all three of the abrahamic religious texts the Bible the Torah and the Quran there are quite a few problems and these religions God is defined as omniscient omnipotent and omnibenevolent this means that God is all-knowing aware of everything that has happened is happening and will happen all powerful possessing unlimited power and able to do anything and all good possessing maximal morality the problem is that there are a multitude of paradoxes that arise from these qualities for example the classic omnipotence Paradox the Paradox of the stone which shows that if God is omnipotent he must be able to create a stone so large and heavy that even he can't lift it if he can't create the stone how can he be omnipotent but if he cannot lift it how can he be omnipotent similarly if God knows everything that will happen then he knows every choice intervention and action he will ever make thus he can never change his mind if he does change his mind and he's omniscient he must have known that he was going to change his mind beforehand and therefore he wouldn't be changing his mind if he didn't know he was going to change his mind he must not be omniscient if he can't change his mind he must not be omnipotent lastly there is what is known as the problem of evil which is defined as follows if God is all-powerful all-knowing and all good why does evil and tragedy and suffering pervade the world if God is omnipotent he must be able to prevent evil and suffering if he is also omniscient he must be able to know and foresee it and so he either wants to prevent evil but he is not able to do so or is not aware of it or he is aware of it and can do so but does not want to prevent it in the former he is not all-powerful or not all-knowing or both in the latter he is not all good if one argues that God provides the individual with free will so as to allow the individual to choose to follow him or not would not God's plan and awareness already include the individual choosing or not choosing to follow him for what reason would God cause and allow individuals to not choose to follow him or be morally good if it meant that they would cause evil and suffering if these instances are rather some sort of test why would an all-knowing all-powerful God need to make people undergo tests involving horrible evil and suffering if he can create a flourishing world without the need for tests involving horrible evil and suffering he must work in mysterious sadistic ways of course it could be possible that God is maximally great but not all-powerful or he is not omniscient and is not aware of what's going on or isn't all good but rather he is morally fallible and of course God or the creator of everything or perhaps more accurately the underlying nature of everything could be something entirely different completely beyond our ability to imagine let alone Define but the point is the God we have traditionally defined has its problems and the God we haven't we don't know of in truth we cannot yet disprove the existence of any God any more than we can prove the one many claim to know currently the only honest answer is we don't know ultimately we can't get out of our minds to know what the universe is really like in and of itself we can't enter into other Minds to know what it is like for anyone else we can't know if outside our mind there is anything at all or if it is real in the way we think and we cannot dig within our mind to know where it originally came from but perhaps the problem is merely our conception of our mind or more accurately our conception of ourself we often view ourselves as a distinct and separate thing perceiving other things we see ourselves as being in the mind and our mind as being in our body but the body is inescapably in the world and we are no less dependent on the world than we are the body all of these things are simultaneously interlocked and interdependent thus perhaps in this way there is really no outside of you you are merely a fully embedded non-separate part inescapably attached to the body of the universe if we view ourselves in this way there is no accurate or inaccurate perception no dichotomy between the world as it is and the world as you experience it No Beginning No End no outside no inside no separate no other there is just a single unified whole of everything everything equally true Everything equally proportional eternally dancing the dance of everything to the tune of nothing to doubt the existence of anything outside of you is perhaps entirely reasonable because in this sense you are everything else and everything else is you [Music] this video was sponsored by blinkist our sense of self can be disorienting it is partly our anchor to reality and partly our vessel of alienation from everything the books being You by Daniel Seth the biological Mind by Alan jazanov and the man who wasn't there by Anil anatha Swami provide highly unique and engaging insights into modern understandings of this topic exploring the brain the mind and the self and asking what it means to be you in the world and how you came to be a you in the world using the app blinkist you can learn from all of these books and More in Just Around 15 minutes each by condensing over 5 500 of the best non-fiction books and podcasts across 27 different categories into thoughtfully organized and eloquently written 15-minute text and audio explainers that can be accessed even while offline blinkist allows you to discover New Perspectives learn about thought-provoking ideas and derive useful information about just about any subject whenever and wherever you are if you enjoy sharing your interests and discoveries with a friend or partner blinkist's feature blinkist connect also allows premium users to share their account with another a person for the same price essentially providing two memberships for the price of one connected accounts can easily share their favorite blinks and short casts with each other while also being able to control which titles are kept private if you're interested in further developing enhancing and supplementing your reading habit use the link in the description and you'll receive one free week of unlimited access to blinkist as well as 25 off an annual premium membership the free 7-Day trial can be canceled at any time within the trial period and of course as always thank you so much for watching if you enjoyed considering and trying to answer difficult philosophical questions consider checking out my guided writing journal which I've filled with these kinds of questions you can also find the link to it in the description below foreign [Music]

Channel: Pursuit of Wonder

Views: 801,207

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Id: rK1mhvv920s

Length: 16min 32sec (992 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 11 2022