Certainty is Sooo Passé
"Despite how certainty feels, it is neither a conscious choice nor even a thought process. Certainty and similar states of knowing what we know arise out of involuntary brain mechanisms that, like love or anger, function independently of reason."
-- Neuroscientist Robert Burton
Apparently turning away from the cuddly blanket of your preconceptions can have adverse effects on your sanity. From the Wikipedia article on Certainty:
"Al-Ghazali was a professor of philosophy in the 11th century. His book titled The Incoherence of the Philosophers marks a major turn in Islamic epistemology, as Ghazali effectively discovered philosophical skepticism that would not be commonly seen in the West until René Descartes, George Berkeley and David Hume. He described the necessity of proving the validity of reason- independently from reason. He attempted this and failed. The doubt that he introduced to his foundation of knowledge could not be reconciled using philosophy. Taking this very seriously, he resigned from his post at the university, and suffered serious psychosomatic illness. It was not until he became a religious sufi that he found a solution to his philosophical problems, which are based on Islamic religion; this encounter with skepticism led Ghazali to embrace a form of theological occasionalism, or the belief that all causal events and interactions are not the product of material conjunctions but rather the immediate and present will of God."
Link
-- Neuroscientist Robert Burton
Apparently turning away from the cuddly blanket of your preconceptions can have adverse effects on your sanity. From the Wikipedia article on Certainty:
"Al-Ghazali was a professor of philosophy in the 11th century. His book titled The Incoherence of the Philosophers marks a major turn in Islamic epistemology, as Ghazali effectively discovered philosophical skepticism that would not be commonly seen in the West until René Descartes, George Berkeley and David Hume. He described the necessity of proving the validity of reason- independently from reason. He attempted this and failed. The doubt that he introduced to his foundation of knowledge could not be reconciled using philosophy. Taking this very seriously, he resigned from his post at the university, and suffered serious psychosomatic illness. It was not until he became a religious sufi that he found a solution to his philosophical problems, which are based on Islamic religion; this encounter with skepticism led Ghazali to embrace a form of theological occasionalism, or the belief that all causal events and interactions are not the product of material conjunctions but rather the immediate and present will of God."
Link
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