# How does one deal with not being 100% certain? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 24, 2017, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-deal-with-not-being-100-certain/794500 "2017-08-24T00:24:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2017, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-deal-with-not-being-100-certain/794500/101 "2017-09-18T20:53:52Z")
> [@Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](#): > > Apathy is tragically underrated. So few of us are aware of how vital it is to our survival. Insanity would prevail if we had to care deeply, or even a little, about every damn thing. ---
**Author:** ![Spiritus\_Mundi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c68b51/32.png) [@Spiritus\_Mundi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiritus_Mundi)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2017, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-deal-with-not-being-100-certain/794500/102 "2017-09-20T02:43:38Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Ah, okay. Of course to me it’s not that I’m denying a need to disprove it - it’s because I don’t _have_ a need to disprove it, and never did. Similar to the cases of alien abduction, conspiracy theories, and gods, it’s not my job to prove that wild claims are wrong; it’s the dude making the claim’s job to prove it’s right. I don’t think it is at all analogous to such fancies. At its heart, it speaks to the question of how we ground our initial principles that allow us to form conclusions about our world. But again - I am talking about epistemological solipsism (as I think aligns to the OP). The imagined conversation might be: **solipsist** Hey - you have no good reason for believing your perceptions are an accurate reflection of an external reality. **begbert2** Don’t need one, Dude. You are making fanciful claims about (non)reality. **spiritus** That is a conscious denial of the need for proof. > [@](#): > > My idea of solipsism goes far beyond perceptions being unreliable - it is premised on the idea that perceptions are _false_. That is metaphysical solipsism. A beast rarely encountered outside of a freshman philosophy binge night. ---
**Author:** ![Spiritus\_Mundi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c68b51/32.png) [@Spiritus\_Mundi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiritus_Mundi)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2017, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-deal-with-not-being-100-certain/794500/103 "2017-09-20T02:45:18Z")
> [@Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](#): > > Apathy is tragically underrated. Who cares ---
**Author:** ![Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brown_eyed_girl/32/3574_2.png) [@Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brown_Eyed_Girl)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2017, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-deal-with-not-being-100-certain/794500/104 "2017-09-20T02:59:38Z")
> [@Spiritus\_Mundi](#): > > Who cares Exactly. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2017, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-deal-with-not-being-100-certain/794500/106 "2017-09-20T17:47:14Z")
> [@Spiritus\_Mundi](#): > > I don’t think it is at all analogous to such fancies. At its heart, it speaks to the question of how we ground our initial principles that allow us to form conclusions about our world. But again - I am talking about epistemological solipsism (as I think aligns to the OP). The imagined conversation might be: > **solipsist** Hey - you have no good reason for believing your perceptions are an accurate reflection of an external reality. > **begbert2** Don’t need one, Dude. You are making fanciful claims about (non)reality. > **spiritus** That is a conscious denial of the need for proof. Actually, to _that_ weak a definition of solipsism the response is “Duh - of course my perceptions aren’t perfectly accurate - I wear corrective lenses! Also, what’s your point?” In all seriousness, after I wrote that post I considered it further and realized that there was one additional step required to dismiss solipsism that is not generally applied when dismissing unicorns. That step is to assess both options and see what difference it would make if you were right. Or put another way, if you say, “Dude, look behind you, there’s a dude with a knife!” I’ll actually turn around and look because whether or not you’re right makes a difference! Regardless of solipsism or the reliability of our senses, perceived reality definitely gives the appearance of being remarkably consistent. Enough so that even if it is a hallucination, or even if we turn out to be aspects of reality that we’re unable to perceive with our senses (sci-fi concepts like the aether or radio waves, perhaps), it still remains entirely reasonable to expect reality-as-we-know-it to continue to behave as it has to date, and for our behaviors and habits that are tailored to reality-as-we-know-it to continue to be effective in dealing with the reality we’ll encounter in the future. Which means that when somebody comes up to me and tells me that my perceptions are unreliable (that is, _really_ unreliable), I can (after the above consideration) reasonably respond, “So what? What difference does it make?” And when they can’t give me any response that isn’t equally applicable if reality is real, I can then quite reasonably shrug and say that if they can’t give me a reason to care, I’m just going to assume my perceptions are fine, thanks. And then I’ll take my glasses off and walk into a lamppost. > [@Spiritus\_Mundi](#): > > That is metaphysical solipsism. A beast rarely encountered outside of a freshman philosophy binge night. It’s also the only solipsism worthy of the name. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2017, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-deal-with-not-being-100-certain/794500/107 "2017-09-20T18:17:03Z")
‘or even if **there** turn out to be aspects of reality’, rather. Curse my habit of self-editing and my tendency to jack everything up when I do! Or maybe that typo/botched edit is actually perfectly correct and all you are just hallucinating the wrong word when you look at the screen. Yes, that’s it. Imake no erorrs ever. ---
**Author:** ![truthseeker3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e68b1a/32.png) [@truthseeker3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/truthseeker3)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2017, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-deal-with-not-being-100-certain/794500/108 "2017-09-20T18:25:10Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > So what then is truth and meaning if the world happens to just be a figment of your mind? What then? How do we deal with not having total certainty of what seems like a foundation for the rest of our knowledge? Lots of people go through a solipsistic phase in adolescence. What helped me was realizing how outrageously egotistical it sounds. I mean, everybody in the universe is going to go poof if I stop thinking about them? It’s kinda baloney - don’t take it too seriously. (Also, I’m not sure how you can passionately argue that the self is the only thing that exists in this thread while arguing just as passionately that the self does’t exist after all in another thread.) ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2017, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-deal-with-not-being-100-certain/794500/109 "2017-09-20T18:33:37Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > …, we cannot know with total certainty that we aren’t living in a simulation or that reality is some kind of mental construct. It’s a very lonely and isolating feeling that is rooted in some truth, especially considering how truth is a representation of reality and we seem to value it so much. So what then is truth and meaning if the world happens to just be a figment of your mind? What then? How do we deal with not having total certainty of what seems like a foundation for the rest of our knowledge? Well…assuming the world is not a product of my own delusion, there are a couple of things that I can take comfort in: -I must be interesting or important enough to someone or something if they are going to create a virtual environment for me to live in. -They clearly put a lot of effort into it. -They made it relatively comfortable. Not opulently so and there are a couple of things that could have been better…but generally good enough for me. -They could have worked a bit harder on the AI for most of the “bots” ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2017, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-deal-with-not-being-100-certain/794500/110 "2017-09-20T18:38:41Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Well…assuming the world is not a product of my own delusion, there are a couple of things that I can take comfort in: > > -I must be interesting or important enough to someone or something if they are going to create a virtual environment for me to live in. > -They clearly put a lot of effort into it. > -They made it relatively comfortable. Not opulently so and there are a couple of things that could have been better…but generally good enough for me. > -They could have worked a bit harder on the AI for most of the “bots” You just think it’s comfortable now because they haven’t gotten bored yet. One of these days, for no real reason, they’re going to remove the ladder from your pool. ---
**Author:** ![Machinaforce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@Machinaforce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machinaforce)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2017, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-deal-with-not-being-100-certain/794500/111 "2017-10-09T23:56:07Z")
[Is Anything Real? - Introduction To Solipsism/ Solipsism Explained - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv4bKg8YAD8) It’s just that videos like the above get me thinking. How do I treat other people then? How do I regard them? I mean, all I have is a “sense” of realness or unrealness. But that’s just my head and I cannot decide which one is true or if either of them are the truth. How do I go on not being able to be certain that what is around me is real. It’s a very lonely feeling to be honest. ---
**Author:** ![snfaulkner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snfaulkner/32/433_2.png) [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2017, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-deal-with-not-being-100-certain/794500/112 "2017-10-09T23:58:45Z")
How have you been going on up until this point? ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2017, 9:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-deal-with-not-being-100-certain/794500/113 "2017-10-10T09:59:23Z")
Machinaforce, read this and be certain: [Quantized gravitational responses, the sign problem, and quantum complexity Zohar Ringel1,2,\* and Dmitry L. Kovrizhin1,3 See all authors and affiliations Science Advances 27 Sep 2017: Vol. 3, no. 9, e1701758 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1701758](http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/9/e1701758) ---
**Author:** ![Razncain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9d8465/32.png) [@Razncain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Razncain)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2017, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-deal-with-not-being-100-certain/794500/114 "2017-10-10T13:36:59Z")
_Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd._– Voltaire Life is about probabilities, not knowing with 100% certainly keeps things interesting enough. [The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt](http://bigthink.com/praxis/the-cocksure-versus-the-intelligent)–Betrand Russell ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2017, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-deal-with-not-being-100-certain/794500/115 "2017-10-10T13:48:06Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqFZawWKmbo > > It’s just that videos like the above get me thinking. How do I treat other people then? How do I regard them? I mean, all I have is a “sense” of realness or unrealness. But that’s just my head and I cannot decide which one is true or if either of them are the truth. How do I go on not being able to be certain that what is around me is real. It’s a very lonely feeling to be honest. How would you behave differently if things are \*real \*vs _not real_? ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2017, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-deal-with-not-being-100-certain/794500/116 "2017-10-10T16:44:19Z")
The only reason to be afraid of unreality is if you’re worried that, because of the unreality, the rules will suddenly change on you. That is, if you think the people you care about are going to suddenly pull off their human mask and start laughing at you - or you think that everything will suddenly vanish around you. If you’re not worried about the curtain being ripped away, then it’s entirely reasonable to deal with the reality you’re presented with. If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it’s probably a duck, for all practical purposes anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Machinaforce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@Machinaforce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machinaforce)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2017, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-deal-with-not-being-100-certain/794500/117 "2017-10-12T15:44:57Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > How would you behave differently if things are \*real \*vs _not real_? If they were real then it’s business as usual and I would behave in the same manner as when I was certain I was real. But if they weren’t, then it would be a terribly lonely feeling. Like you’re the only one who “exists” and that’s just some thing I can’t deal with. I try to not think about it but in all my interactions with people it just keeps coming back. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2017, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-deal-with-not-being-100-certain/794500/118 "2017-10-12T16:38:42Z")
What is the difference between somebody who exists and somebody who doesn’t? ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2017, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-deal-with-not-being-100-certain/794500/119 "2017-10-12T16:58:21Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > Like you’re the only one who “exists” and that’s just some thing I can’t deal with. If you are the only one who exists, then who is creating the simulation? ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2017, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-deal-with-not-being-100-certain/794500/120 "2017-10-12T18:55:21Z")
When he was about eight years old, one of my sons asked me if I knew how to stop worrying about dying, because everyone was going to die. The only thing I could do was tell him what my worries about dying were like, which was: [ul]I tended to do it in bed, before falling asleep, I didn’t do it all the time, it would come and go in bunches, and That I had noticed that it happened more often if I was unhappy with my life and that working to make my life happier tended to cause it to go away. [/ul] He mostly seemed relieved that other people worried and that starting to worry about dying didn’t mean that he would always be worrying about it. I told him that he could talk to be about it again if it didn’t go away and he never did. I only mention this because it feels similar. It also feels similar to some recurring worries that I discussed while in counselling for recurring headaches. I was asked, does thinking about that depress you or is that what you think about when you’re depressed? And it turned out to be what I was thinking about when I was depressed. When the depression was lessened, I didn’t think about it at all. I obviously can’t speak about your situation. The only way to test which comes first (because minds are murky) is to lessen any anxiety you have about dealing with people or lessen feelings of loneliness (depression?) and see if thoughts about certainty lessen, too. Wishing you well in any case. On a lighter note: > [@QuickSilver](#): > > How would you behave differently if things are \*real \*vs _not real_? Maybe not at all, see HHGG (original radio version) quote. > [@](#): > > ZARNIWOOP: But don’t you see that people live or die on your word? > > MAN: It’s nothing to do with me, I am not involved with people. The Lord knows I am not a cruel man. > > ZARNIWOOP: Ah! You say . . . the Lord! You believe in . . . > > MAN: My cat. I call him the Lord. I am kind to him. > > ZARNIWOOP: All right. How do you know he exists? How do you know he knows you to be kind, or enjoys what you think of as your kindness? > > MAN: I don’t. I have no idea. It merely pleases me to behave in a certain way to what appears to be a cat. What else do you do? Please I am tired. ---
**Author:** ![Machinaforce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@Machinaforce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machinaforce)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2017, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-deal-with-not-being-100-certain/794500/121 "2017-10-12T23:08:37Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > If you are the only one who exists, then who is creating the simulation? The issue being that I am the one making it but the thought that the people I want to bond with and such might not be real is terrifying. It’s lonely to think that I might be the only one and everyone else is a figment of my mind. It’s like I can only feel myself as real and there’s this sort of wall between me and others [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-deal-with-not-being-100-certain/794500.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-deal-with-not-being-100-certain/794500.md?page=7)