quote:
The idea that the world was created last thursday is completely ludicrous. What evidence do you have that we were not created only 5 seconds ago?
exactly.
Its called external world skepticism, and its not ludicrous. You have no way of knowing that you are not dreaming right now (a la decartes). There is absolutly no way for you to know if you are dreaming, because in a dream you do not know you are dreaming. There is absolutly nothing that you could do that you could not dream (ive always wondered how dreaming fits into this. if youre dreaming, can you dream??). The only thing that you cant dream is being dead (again, according to descartes). Hell, you would have no way of knowing you exist (you could be someone elses figment) if you couldnt think (i think, therefore i am). And from here, its only a stretch to consider memory. You would have absolutly no way of knowing if your memories really happened or if ten seconds ago you were created with all of your memories, because your memories is just sensory information filed away, and even thought is just a hard copy of an abstract concept held in storage. Its the same with hallucination. You remember it, but it didnt really happen.
This statement is false.