One of the most common issues that has plagued epistemology since the days of Rene Descartes is scepticism. Notably, Descartes conception of an ‘Evil Demon’ who systematically deceives individuals by making them believe their external perceptions are true, when they are false in actuality. Other conceptions of this idea include brains-in-vats, evil geniuses, and dreaming. For a long time issues such as this have plagued the entire field of epistemology, without, I believe, any truly satisfactory answers rejecting the sceptical arguments. As a result of this inability to reject the sceptics, the true solution is to accept the sceptical scenario, and so long as our experiences and subjective perceptions appear to be uniform, it does not matter whether we are being deceived.

Sceptical scenarios typically dumbfound a thinker, as they believe their knowledge to be pointless if it does not conform to “the real world.” If we are living in a sceptical reality, does it matter whether or not there is a higher-order reality if we never experience it? I argue that it does not.

Typically, sceptical arguments revolve around the premise that we do not know whether or not we are being systematically deceived. However, the question of whether we are or aren’t is simply empty. It does not matter whether we are being deceived or not, what matters is that our reality appears to be uniform, and our experiences seem to typically correspond to our beliefs. So long as we never have any reason to doubt our reality being genuine, we have no reason to care about any sceptical argument about deceit.

Often one will claim, “if I’m living in a false reality, I’d want to know and try to join the higher-order reality.” This is similar to Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” in Republic. Applying the above arguments, so long as those in the cave have no reason to suspect “true reality” is anything more than what they are currently experiencing, they have no reason to try and break free. Furthermore, if those in the cave realize that they are being deceived and most of their knowledge does not correspond to true reality, they ought to abandon what they think they know, and start anew. While the resulting cognitive dissonance will surely be uncomfortable, more uncomfortable is the idea of knowingly living a lie.

The above position may be surmised by the common saying, “ignorance is bliss.” So long as we don’t know we are in a sceptical reality, we ought to live as if we are not. If we ever reach a point where we know that our reality is merely a deception, we ought to shed our beliefs and tackle the new reality, no matter how uncomfortable it may be. Until this point is reached however, one has no reason to entertain any sort of scepticism as a detrimental possibility, so long as their experiences do not exhibit inane irregularities.