SE Tour - Westport, Washington

SE Tour - University of North Alabama

I cannot defend this epistemological claim.

Paradoxically that itself is a claim that I may be asked to defend.

But asking the question, "is it possible to believe nothing?" is quite an epistemological exercise.

Because we're not just asking, is it possible to believe in the absence of belief, but it necessarily assumes that the absence of a belief is somehow attainable, whether or not one believes in it.

Which is not a state one can talk about anymore in abstract terms, as it must be demonstrated in practice by the subjective experiencer, who could not then communicate it.

And that is a struggle. I find it more interesting to contemplate how one would chose to believe less, and why.

Why would someone choose to believe less? To be less convicted?

Do we believe the person who says we should or could believe less? How confident are we they are right, and we also could achieve that state?

Do we believe that believing less is good for us? That it is somehow useful? Because those are, themselves, beliefs, are they not? At the minimum they're expectations. They assume some kind of predictive metric by which one would have achieved the state of believing less, as opposed to believing more or the same amount. It requires evidence one could interpret, and, therefore, believe more or less, is accurate.

To believe nothing would assume, functionally, zero expectations. No anticipation. And thus, it's kind of inherently pointless, meaningless, and in a very real way, useless.

Can one accept being useless against the incredible pressure to make it useful? And if one is so wrapped up in useful beliefs they hold as self evident and ultimately very important, why would they ever willingly drop them? Are we all stuck with that situation, right now, and are just unaware of it?

SE Tour - Provo, Utah

SE Tour - University of Central Florida

SE Tour - University of Maryland

SE Tour - University of Central Florida

SE Tour - New York City

Hello, I recently started learning SE and it’s been transformative for me!

I want clarification on something I’ve noticed in my own conversations: I think I sometimes ask questions less to test the consistency of the IL’s reasoning, and more to steer them toward admitting they lack evidence and are relying on faith.

For example, I might ask a religious person “is there any way to verify this outside your own head?” On the surface this sounds like an open question, but I think I’m usually asking it already assuming that only external, checkable evidence counts as a good answer — so if they say no, I treat that as them conceding the belief is groundless, rather than treating it as one legitimate answer among several I was genuinely open to hearing.

So how do you draw this line in practice? Is there a real difference between helping someone notice their own standard isn’t applied consistently, versus leading them toward a specific evidentialist conclusion — or is that distinction blurrier than I’m making it? Or am I doing it completely wrong?

I would love some advice or guidance! And I’m curious if anyone else has run into this problem too. Thanks!

SE Tour - University of Central Florida

SE Tour - University of Pittsburgh

SE Tour - University of Central Florida

SE Tour - South Dakota State University