[![areyousured53b7.png](https://www.steemimg.com/images/2016/09/01/areyousured53b7.png)](https://www.steemimg.com/image/2GZjB)

# Certainty

People seem to be so sure of things. If there's one goal I have in life, it's to be less sure. Words and phrases float around like: "I read a study which proved conclusively that..." If they were entirely honest, the phrases would be "I have a mental impression purporting to be a memory of an impression that I read a study, purporting to have proven conclusively that..."

# The limits of the senses

The world is (apparently) made up of impressions, and suppositions, or impressions of suppositions. Some suppositions are treated as facts, others are indeed treated as suppositions, and others I ignore or avoid. What a funny old world where we presume our perceptions to be facts, though we know our senses are limited, assuming we even have senses. Stranger still is that I can believe my perceptions of reports of others' perceptions.

# Scientific skepticism, and skepticism of science

A scientific report of an experiment, being entirely honest, would have to include phrases like "I am having an impression of a memory that some seconds ago I added HCl to form a weak dilution." That would be laborious to write, and to read, but (presumably) obviously much closer to the truth. An even more honest report would include statements such as "I am having an impression of a memory that some minutes ago the dilution turned green. This impression does not align with my mental impression of the hypothesis, and so, in my impression of the memory of the tabulated data, I recall that I omitted that result."

A belief in science is the belief that you can read the reports of (presumably human, and therefore presumably biased) observers about their impressions of memories of their perceptions, resulting in an enhanced understanding of reality - and of course, the assumption that every one of these aforementioned entities even exists. For some reason, the idea exists that this method is more objective and more real than my own impressions of what exists. Now, that's quite a remarkable claim. My own perceptions are questionable at best, so to ask me to accept on faith that I can accurately determine reality by examining the mental impression of a memory, of me perceiving a document which purports to report the impressions of memories of perceptions of others, and their interpretations about these impressions... seems to be much like building a house of cards on a foundation of quicksand while standing in a swamp.

That is, presuming anyone was asking me to do that in the first place. Maybe they weren't.

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# About me

[![kurt robinson in the mountains of puebla](https://www.steemimg.com/images/2016/08/26/pictureofmecroppedbdb8d.md.jpg)](https://www.steemimg.com/image/gsqzK)

My name is Kurt Robinson. I grew up in Australia, but now I live in Guadalajara, Jalisco. I write interesting things about voluntaryism, futurism, science fiction, travelling Latin America, and psychedelics. Remember to press follow so you can stay up to date with all the cool shit I post, and follow our podcast where we talk about crazy ideas for open-minded people, here: @paradise-paradox, and like us on Facebook here - [The Paradise Paradox](https://www.facebook.com/theparadiseparadox/)

# Some other cool posts

Here are some other posts of mine to check out:
[Freedom trumps fear: Everything you do is an act of liberty](https://steemit.com/freedom/@churdtzu/freedom-trumps-fear-everything-you-do-is-an-act-of-liberty)
[Automation: An age of unseen prosperity](https://steemit.com/technology/@churdtzu/automation-an-age-of-unseen-prosperity)
[Economics lessons from an alien 👽 A true science fiction story](https://steemit.com/story/@churdtzu/economics-lessons-from-an-alien-a-true-science-fiction-story)
[Psychedelic science fiction story - "Zero Dimension"](https://steemit.com/writing/@churdtzu/psychedelic-science-fiction-story-zero-dimension)