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The munchausen trilemma undermines the concept of “weighing the evidence”. Everything anybody believes to be true is either founded upon circular reasoning, a r

The munchausen trilemma undermines the concept of “weighing the evidence”. Everything anybody believes to be true is either founded upon circular reasoning, a reasoning of infinite regression, or an arbitrary set of unprovable axioms. The consequence is that any level of belief in any truth can only be based upon faith. People who believe that their world view is based entirely upon facts and universal truths tend to have a very hard time accepting this. They will often say that scrutinizing something to that level is a pointless waste of time for things that are so obviously true, which is perhaps ironically the exact behaviour also exhibited by the most closed minded of the true believers that they often find themselves so frustrated by.

ink 5y ago
While your first statement is correct, you may want to acknowledge that "faith" in ideas can be seen as a continuum from completely subjective to mostly objective. For instance: believing in QAnon conspiracies isn't the same as believing in, say, climate change. Yes, both require your definition of "faith", but the former requires you to suspend your belief in reality while the latter is congruent with your observations of reality.
- AmericanChopper 5y ago
  This isn’t true at all. I would characterize faith as being a belief in any truth that you cannot prove. There is no such thing as a truth that can be proven (or at least none has been discovered so far). All truths are equally non-probable. Your stance seems to be that a set of unprovable axioms you prefer to have faith are somehow superior to some other set of unprovable axioms that some other people may choose to have faith in. You might have all sorts of perfectly reasonable justifications for the axioms you have faith in, but if you want to claim your beliefs transcend faith then you’ll have to present a logical proof that survives the munchausen trilemma.

ink 5y ago

While your first statement is correct, you may want to acknowledge that "faith" in ideas can be seen as a continuum from completely subjective to mostly objective. For instance: believing in QAnon conspiracies isn't the same as believing in, say, climate change. Yes, both require your definition of "faith", but the former requires you to suspend your belief in reality while the latter is congruent with your observations of reality.

AmericanChopper 5y ago
This isn’t true at all. I would characterize faith as being a belief in any truth that you cannot prove. There is no such thing as a truth that can be proven (or at least none has been discovered so far). All truths are equally non-probable. Your stance seems to be that a set of unprovable axioms you prefer to have faith are somehow superior to some other set of unprovable axioms that some other people may choose to have faith in. You might have all sorts of perfectly reasonable justifications for the axioms you have faith in, but if you want to claim your beliefs transcend faith then you’ll have to present a logical proof that survives the munchausen trilemma.