In a world full of information of all kinds, how can anyone believe anything at all?

This is something i've been subconsciously pondering. and as a result, I ask questions. when someone gives me even the slightest bit of information i'll break it down so far to the point where it's barely recognisable.

ha do you know what? i don't even know where to begin on this. I'm trying to write this and it's so hard to put it into words. It's like this is so huge in my mind and as a re-read over what I've written it sounds like a child wrote it.

haha oh well.

Some philosophical schools will maintain that finding an answer that sets well with an individual person is the only solution to the problems you describe.

They will insist that knowledge is dependent on language, which is an independent system that controls what we think and limits what we can say. Instead of speaking language, such philosophers will insist, language speaks itself through us.

I myself think that there are reliable areas of knowledge, such as the physics that allowed us to go to the moon and send probes into space to explore other planets in the solar system and their satellites. Microbiology--especially the discovery of the workings of DNA--is another reliable area of knowledge.

I do not think that religious belief systems are a reliable route to knowledge since they are products of the human imagination and their belief systems can differ very widely (and very wildly!) from one another.

I also am convinced that many areas of the humanities and the social sciences are precariously centered on the dubious use of language. People practicing these disciplines--especially in literature and history--often devise systems of classification that are quite arbitrary and no more valid than some other possible classifications.

These people tend to forget that just because you can coin new words with language, you are not necessarily bringing into existence new things. This becomes obvious in the case of concrete language. Most of us would not believe in the existence of aliens from the Andromeda galaxy that are building green-cheese factories on the far side of the moon even though this phrase can be easily interpreted.

On the other hand, many people think that a statement like "Justice is the pursuit of ethics in accordance with the principles of natural law" actually mean something, when it really does not. This becomes obvious when you change such statements very slightly by saying "Floxication is the pursuit of craxitons in accordance with the principle of natural autoxicance."

As a person who has studied linguistics, I have concluded that language is a supple, flexible medium that can adapt itself to express all sorts of new things. I also am acutely aware that it can also fool people into thinking that some of its manifestations are meaningful when they really are not.

Harleigh Kyson Jr.

I love your question, and I totally know what you mean. But I guess you gotta think, we have to learn from others. If we could only take as truth things we ourselves had personally observed, we would never get anywhere. We'd still be living in trees pooping on ourselves. On the other hand, though, of course you have to decide for yourself what to believe in some cases. People will tell you the moon landing was staged. But there is more evidence, in museums and so forth, to support that it actually occurred, so you know, yeah, the solution is to be discriminating, and decide either that you believe a particular thing, or that you don't have enough reliable information to form an opinion. But I feel you, man! "Carbs are good. Carbs are bad. Eggs are good. Eggs are poison. Vitamin C is good. Vitamin C will kill you. Mercury causes autism. There is no evidence whatsoever that mercury causes autism. Organic food is the only responsible food to purchase. Organic food is driving up the cost of groceries for everyone, resulting in poor people going hungry." WTF???

Your brain is the recipient of five senses and all the information they send to the brain.

From all of that you sift through the dust and the dirt to find the realities. It's a matter of thought as well as action. If you do want to know the truth then you go searching for it. You cannot rely on the words of another human being alone. You have to build your own foundation of intelligence as well as wisdom. Together they can give you answers to what is right and what is wrong. Use your common sense to pan through the mud to find your nuggets of belief and truth.

Your question is a good one but it presupposes a realist ontology. Your claims suggest that there is a "real world" and an objective way to see and understand it.

I think it is easier to accept a socially constructed world (via language) that is not simply subjective (as opposed to objective) but constructed to mutual acceptance. We find that humans as "seekers of understanding" in an objective way are always within the frame of understanding. There is no objective place to view from because you have to have a "viewer" (who has specific physical traits, experiences, believes, strengths, limitations, etc.). This "affirms" (for lack of a better word) the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.

Addendum: To reply to Harleigh's comments and confidence in science (i.e., physics, microbiology, etc.), I would remind everyone of the "problem of induction" found in the philosophy of science. Science is rooted in using inductive reasoning to make claims; however, such rationality cannot lead to certainty because future cases may undermine it. It is a tool and a way to gain "likelihood" but it itself cannot give certainty. We are perpetually lost in an epistemological struggle.

Most of it is made up right down to the history of humanity.

Most people dont even believe in themselves.

There is something you can do to give your life meaning & depth plus it will keep your mind off these others subjects you are getting too involved in & will make sick.

Build traits in yourself that you would like others to know you as.

Make a project of this. You will like yourself, project this to others & they will like you also.

Then you have something concrete to believe in. You will know who you are & what you stand for & so will others.

If you are anxiously talking to others this way I bet they run when they see you coming....but believe me I know where you are coming from.

Read many other posts in philosophy & you will get many more idea's to help you.

All the best.

Harleigh raises some interesting points about semantics, but when in doubt realize all or any info isn't reality, or as one sage(Alan Watts) put it :

"The menu is not the meal"

1) We could all study for lifetimes and barter and debate what truth is; but ultimately in spite of words or semantics; in order to survive this life we have to in a word: ACT

2) It is through our actions, that ultimately, information becomes reliable or not. If we choose to never act, we die.

3) I could literally preach to you all-day that dark-meat chicken has more bad-cholesterol then white-meat, and back it up with research and patient-test-studies, and the like...

But if you haven't eaten food in weeks and all that is available is case-studies and dark-meat chicken sitting on a plate in front of you; to Hell with the case studies right, you, we, all of us want to live, right???

4) And ultimately it comes down to that: Action and Survival; we can learn to be nice and cordial in the process of trying to meet these needs in ourselves and the rest of our Human-Family; but ultimately it comes to learning to survive with the needs of self and others and the information 'Realtiy' presents about these needs.

5) The trick is to tell the difference between Data(case-studies of dark-meat), and Life(knowing that the plate of dark-meat is enough to help me survive another day), irregardless of what the 'experts' are spewing...

There are two groups of people festering on this Earth. People with common sense, and people without it. People without it try to make up things that fit their reality, and people with it know what to believe and what not to believe. Better decide soon which group your going to be in, seems like your teetering on the edge.

Finding an answer that sits well within you, is not the only solution, but sometimes it is the best. Search far and wide until you have exhausted your search?! Believe in yourself?! Your gut. Just Believe!!! Again... Just beleive in ones heart?!...Yours... :)

That which makes the bites go slinding down lots much less complicated, makes it extra tasty and the scent ooohhhh.....yessss so lots extra useful. The sauce on the perfect. The icing on the cake. The topping on the ice cream. the affection on the will. All those little extras valuable do make the main dish look lots nicer and much less complicated to tolerate! Ranch here.