Ambiguity, intellectual arrogance, and a lack of spontaneity haunts the current academic scene. From vague scientific concepts, the meaning of life, the self, reality, the rejection of theories / methodologies that attempt to go outside a popular worldview, etc. Far too many terms / concepts are used that, upon being analyzed, turn out to be entirely empty. Not only could academia benefit from a rigorous skepticism, but this could also help society too, as far too many self destructive abstractions are painted by society as a result of a lack of analysis – racism, patriotism, consumerism, etc. This is the human tendency to not look outside of “the practical” and to live in ones little box for their whole life. Humans accept the world which they are given. The intent of this post is to shine light on the uncertainty / absurdity of discourse and reality. I’ll divide this into two parts: 1) Ambiguities of language and the human tendency to utilize terms without an analysis of the content contained in the term 2) The Münchhausen Trilemma – a problem that threatens the possibility of certainty, and my thoughts on skepticism & epistemic suspension

In analyzing certain concepts, there reaches a point where to make sense of it, you can only appeal to it circularly ex. “To say an action is morally wrong means that you should not do it”, “Essence is the essential part of something”, “To say that we matter means we have value”. These concepts, upon being analyzed, are empty. They contain an absurdity. It may be the case that the entirety of our concepts are actually empty upon being analyzed enough. It is rather incredible that the human mind has the ability to use a string of of absurdities contained within language as if they are completely meaningful. A lot of discourse isn’t discourse as much as it is word artistry. Interestingly, through psychedelic experience, whether that be through the administration of substances or from natural means such as meditation and sensory deprivation, concepts start to lose their meaning. It seems as though psychedelics inhibit this part of the mind that uses concepts as if they make sense without analyzing their contents. Its not exactly that they cause an intoxicated haze of stupidity, but they make you less accepting of the things you think you know, making all concepts look like these empty abstractions that do not necessarily correspond to reality. We take in sense data and profile it into a conceptual framework, but this is more so practicality than reality. Reality, when you realize that these concepts are folly, ultimately makes very little sense. Mankind is generally scared of this transient absurdity, and to ground oneself in the comfort of structure, we idolize our language. An excerpt from Carl Jung’s Liber Novus explains this interestingly:

“But the unbounded makes you anxious since the unbounded is fearful and your humanity rebels against it. Consequently you seek limits and restraints so that you do not lose yourself, tumbling into infinity. Restraint becomes imperative for you. You cry out for the word which has one meaning and no other, so that you escape boundless ambiguity. The word becomes your God, since it protects you from the countless possibilities of interpretation. The word is protective magic against daimons of the unending, which tear at your soul and want to scatter you to the winds. You are saved if you can say at last: that is that and only that. You speak the magic word, and the limitless is finally banished. Because of that men seek and make words”

Reality does not seem to make much clear sense when you come to these conclusions. Consider the following. The means by which we explore this world, our six senses, can be manipulated if one is colour blind or has Synaesthesia – a rare experiential phenomena in which one converts external data into an internal experiential data unlike the conventionally experienced one – experienceable via. psychedelics. Whereas you may look at a yellow banner and say that it is yellow, a Synesthete may instead say that it is high pitched, because the Synesthete can see sounds, hear colours, and more. There have been several talented musicians who would see their music in colour, such as Billy Joel, Syd Barrett from Pink Floyd, Stevie Wonder, and more. Now, its easy for somebody to decide to write this off as broken brain syndrome, but are they really interpreting data the incorrect way or are they merely interpreting it differently? There is an explanatory gap in physics between electromagnetic waves – what physicists refer to as the datum correlated to our seeing of colour – and the actual experiential data of colour. We could imagine another species that evolved to interpret sound waves as taste, electromagnetic waves as sound, or radio waves and dark matter as a sense that we cannot even imagine because we haven’t experienced it. It seems as though what we experience in our six senses is not really out there objectively. We only evolved them because they are practical to our survival, but as I’ve said, practicality is not reality. So what is out there in raw reality? Well, maybe we can’t really consider “out there” as this orderly intelligible thing. It is likely just an undifferentiated chaos that we experience as orderly for practicality. So, hopefully I have shown you how bizarre this world is at this point. We’re living in a world that makes sense to us because we use concepts to make sense of it, but our concepts do not correspond to reality – they are fabricated – and upon analysis, these concepts contain nothing but ABSURDITIES. How incredible that the human mind can use a string of absurdities dressed in language as if they make sense. Consider the concepts “mental” and “physical”. These are some very basic concepts in our worldview. No linguist, metaphysician, or scientist has provided an adequate explanation for the content contained within these terms. They are completely enigmatic, and any attempt to explain what “physical” means often relies on some appeal to empiricism or complete circularity. Who’s to say that everything isn’t just experience and information?

An interesting problem in epistemology – knowledge theory – called the Münchhausen Trilemma threatens our thoughts on knowledge and justification. Knowledge is generally considered a true belief which is justified. So for any proposition to be considered knowledge, it must have an explanation for its justification, but for that justification to be considered knowledge, it too must have a further justification. The conclusion is that for any proposition to be justified, it must contain an infinite chain of justifications – clearly an impossible feat. Epistemologists have tried to reconcile this with something called Foundationalism. Foundationalism says that we know certain propositions because they are self evidently and non inferentially given to us, such as “A=A” or “I exist”. For quite some time I supported Foundationalism, as it’s rather hard not to. Of course I exist – I am experiencing and thinking, therefore at the very least these experiences and thoughts exist, right? No matter what, there was this little pushing “why?” in the back of my head. Just a simple why. The question “why” always wins – nothing ever puts “why” to bed. No matter how much you claim that something is “self evident”, a pushing skepticism lurks around the corner demanding a further “why” for such self evidence. The problem is that any attempt to shine light upon the merits of our reasoning either a) justifies the merits of reason via. a system of reasoning (circular reasoning), or b) rejects the merits of reasoning via. a system of reasoning. It seems that we can not say that we know things, and we also cannot say that it is impossible to know things, because even the latter statement relies upon a certain system of reasoning such as the Münchhausen Trilemma. This is an incredibly paradoxical problem here, and it seems like the only discernible option is an epistemic silence. A complete suspension of epistemic judgement. That is not to say that this is the RATIONAL choice, no, that would just be hypocritical. This is just the choice that decides that given the capabilities our rationality, no reconciliation is currently visible.

Does this mean that Philosophical discourse is dead? Have we put all inquiry to bed? No, not necessarily. Just because you suspend epistemic judgement and justification, does not mean you cannot entertain philosophical inquiry. You can still have philosophical discourse for the sake of pushing depth of inquiry and rigor, its just that the inquiry does not come to a complete end or justification. It’s always mysterious, and perhaps that adds some more beauty and depth to it. This can allow us to look outside of our methodologies and basic frameworks to push our inquiry further.

In summary, it appears that many, if not all our concepts contain empty absurdities. Many concepts can not be rigorously defined without lapsing into circularity. Mind and matter, right and wrong, real and unreal – these concepts which are very basic to our everyday view of reality are threatened by linguistic ambiguity. It seems that through the administration of psychedelic substances our conceptual library begins to fade into absurdity, not from an intoxicated haze, but rather from a rigorous hyperskepticism that seems to actualize the Münchhausen Trilemma in consciousness. The Münchhausen Trilemma threatens our views on knowledge as a justified proposition – if a proposition has to be justified to qualify as knowledge, then doesn’t the justification also require a justification ad infinitum to qualify as knowledge? It has been attempted to reconcile this via. the assertion that we have basic self inferential knowledge, but no matter how much you claim this to be self evident, it is always possible to further ask “why?” to such a system of reasoning. “Why” can never be put to bed, for any attempt to stifle it results in a further “why”. The claim that we can not know anything is just as problematic since it rejects the merits of our reasoning based on a certain system of reasoning, so it seems that the only discernible option is a complete suspension of judgement. Epistemic silence. This world is incredibly bizarre and you do not understand it.