Huh?
Or it might actually exist.
Even that which is entirely the product of a human mind may actually exist. The idea of the Matrix is entirely conceived by human minds, yet is
possibly true.
The issue is simply that "it might be true" is not ever good enough for anything, ever. There are an infinite number of conceivable hypotheses for just about anything that
could be true - the deciding factor is which hypotheses are
more likely to be true than the others.
When presented with an observation regarding a hypothesis, one should never ever ask "does this observation
allow me to believe my hypothesis to be true?"
The correct question is "does this observation
compel me to believe my hypothesis to be true?"
Every observation I could conceivably make would
allow me to believe that some nonspecific deity may exist, or that we live in the Matrix, or that all of life is just a dream, or that I have an invisible dragon in my garage.
But there are no observations that
compel me to believe those hypotheses to be true over any others. Belief is a game of relative probability - what we believe is simply that which we think is most likely to be true. I cannot honestly say that I think that it is most likely that we live in the Matrix above all other possible competing hypotheses, so I cannot believe that we live in teh Matrix - I would need
compelling evidence to justify such a belief,
even though it may still be true.
Disbelief is not the same as a negative claim. You and I and everyone else disbelieve a thousand things every day before lunchtime; I disbelieve that I will run into an invisible bicyclist on my way to work, or that my office will have been replaced by a McDonalds overnight. I
disbelieve because those hypotheses are
less likely to be true than competing hypotheses (such as the hypothesis that if I cannot see a bicyclist in a given location, there is not in fact a bicyclist there; or the hypothesis that demolishing a large building and replacing it with a McDonalds would take more than a single night's work).
Without
compelling evidence, possibly-true hypotheses are discarded as
unlikely. That's the very heart of Occam's Razor. But note that "unlikely" is not the same as "false." Broken clocks are right twice each day, and the fanciful imagination of a child may in fact describe some part of reality simply by chance.
But if you ask what time it is, I'm not going to believe that broken clock simply because it is
less likely to be accurate than it is to be telling the wrong time. I disbelieve the less likely hypothesis.
Uncertainty never ever justifies belief, for the same reason it is irrational to believe that the stopped clock is actually telling the correct time.
Possibility in no way conveys
greater probability; believing the stopped clock to be telling the incorrect time is always
more likely to be true.
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