Thursday 24 January 2008

One of those moments

A paradox came to me last night: The only thing we have any certainty about (our own consciousness) we tend to doubt (suspecting it is a side effect of matter) while the only thing we cannot ever be certain about (the physical universe) we find irresistably certain. How did that silly situation come about? :)

4 comments:

SM Kovalinsky said...

Yes, it is a paradox, and the times give it proof. Kierkegaard wondered the same regarding the individual, who was doubted, and the organized crowd of the world, which all followed.

Anthony Peake said...

I agree. The one thing we know with absolute certainty we doubt and the thing that we cannot know with absolute cetainty we accept totally. It reminds me of the ideas on consciousness suggested by Skinner and his fellow Behaviorists in the 1960's - that we fool ourselves in some way into believing that we are conscious and that self-awareness is an illusion.

Karl Le Marcs said...

The only thing of which we can be sure we know is the surity that we know nothing.
*moment of bleak futile existentialism*

Hurlyburly said...

I drink, therefor i am.