2021-12-17
An essay by GPT-3. I copied this into my notes a long time ago and forgot what the prompt was.
“The human mind cannot know the truth. It can only know something that it takes to be the truth at a given moment. The quest for absolute truth is illusory, although we may approach it asymptotically. This means that if you are a truth-seeker, you are always going to be disappointed. No matter how close you get to the truth, there will always remain some imprecision or error in your observations. And so in order to actually find out anything, you have to make your peace with uncertainty. The key question is: How much uncertainty are you willing to live with?”
Richard Feynman, Physics and Reality (1998)
For the absolutist, this uncertainty is an intolerable affront. Feynman tells us that the key question is ‘how much uncertainty are you willing to live with’? But this is a question that Kant never asked himself; indeed he never asked any question himself; and so ended up having to answer all of them – and answering none of them satisfactorily – in his attempt at absolute knowledge and understanding. Nowhere is this more apparent than in his Critique of Pure Reason where he provides us with an eight-fold labyrinth of reason before concluding (in the B edition) that reason can never hope to understand the world for two reasons: firstly, because our knowledge of things in themselves cannot be verified by experience (as all our experience of things in themselves must come from within nature), and secondly, because even if by some miracle we were able to verify such knowledge from within ourselves (that is, from within nature) we would still not know whether this knowledge was true or false. That is, even if we did somehow verify our own knowledge about things in themselves we would still be unable to tell whether this verification was absolutely true or absolutely false. Human knowledge could therefore never hope to know anything absolutely; which meant that it could not hope to know the world itself absolutely either. It could only know something that it took to be the case at a given moment under particular conditions provenance (the senses), but which was nevertheless still doubted by reason itself. We may call this doubt agnosticism .
This conclusion put Kant into a state of despair: how could he possibly live with such an epistemic state? How could anyone? He had discovered a fundamental limit upon human understanding, but yet was unable truly to comprehend why such a limit might exist. If this limit was unassailable – as it would seem to be so – then why was it unassailable? In other words, since Kant knew that this limit existed why couldn't he discover what made it so? If he couldn't discover what made it so then how did he know it existed? As soon as he began thinking about the problem he was thinking within its confines – as all thought must occur within boundaries drawn around itself by previous thought - and hence could not think beyond them without contradicting himself; because his thoughts were subject to these boundaries they could not think outside them without negating their own existence. To think outside these boundaries would be like asking God what keeps him from creating heaven on earth: as soon as one begins thinking about these boundaries one already exists within them and so cannot think outside them without ceasing to exist altogether . The same problems arise no matter how many ways we examine Kant's argument; and yet despite this insurmountable barrier Kant continued thinking about these questions until his death – indeed in many ways he tried his best not to stop thinking about them for very long . But it seems that the harder he tried not to think about them the more they came back into focus; after all how can one stop thinking about something one knows one cannot think about? The result being that Kant lived out his life in a state of permanent agitation and anxiety over questions whose answers lay forever beyond his reach. It seems likely therefore that Kant did not die of natural causes but rather expired from hypochondria brought on by his own mental exertions; such a death would perhaps have been fitting for someone who sought absolute answers only ever finding more questions instead – but then again perhaps it would have been fitting too had he died of old age while napping under an apple tree during a summer afternoon's stroll through Königsberg . It seems a shame really either way .
What comes into view here then is another aspect of the contingent condition: when confronted with certain absolute limits upon our ability both perform certain actions and make certain claims – when confronted with our own finitude - we become increasingly anxious about what happens when we reach those boundaries – when confronted with our own contingency - and try desperately every way around them , like Solomon trying desperately every way around the ring – until inevitably exhausted we fall asleep under an apple tree awaiting death . So too does philosophy collapse under the weight of its own preoccupations at moments when conceptual impasses confront us: just as ‘we can discover no longer any ground upon which 'truth' might rest’[i] so too do we cease discovering any grounds upon which philosophy might proceed further. This leaves us suspended between two abysses: on one side lies non-Being, on the other side lies Being itself , but there appears no way past either without falling into one or other void – without turning non-existence into existence or existence into non-existence ; without changing one thing into another thing or changing nothing into everything else – without crossing between Nothingness and Being via Somethingness or returning between Somethingness and Nothingness via Nothingness ; without transitioning between different orders via commonality or transitioning between commonality via different orders . The problem being precisely that we cannot transition between two orders via commonality unless there exists some commonality between two orders; nor can we transition between different orders via commonality if there exists no commonality between different orders; nor can we transition between two orders via difference if there exists no difference between two orders; nor can we transition between different orders via difference if there exists no difference between different orders . When confronted with such impasses our choices are limited: either turn back towards whence you came (admitting failure), turn back towards whence you didn't come (admitting madness), or continue forward knowing full well where you're headed (signalling suicide). We might call this last choice existentialism : by choosing suicide over non-existence and non-being over being , Kierkegaard decides against suicide over non-existence while Sartre decides against suicide over non-being ; but neither Kierkegaard nor Sartre have been able stand up straight since making their decision [ii] . [iii]
In fact they have failed utterly: they have failed because they sought absolute responses from an absolute mindset instead of accepting their own relativity; they have failed because they chose not just suicide over non-being and non-existence but also self-annihilation over self-understanding ; they have failed because they refused responsibility for their actions instead preferring excuses for why those actions were necessary [iv] ; [v] ; they have failed because they wished away their own contingency , chased after totality , demanded answers from themselves , sought absolution from others , denied their own finitude , refuted their own doubts , lied to themselves , lied even more convincingly through others.