Question

Philosophy

Is there anything you can know with absolute certainty? If so, what is it? If not, why not?

Answer 1

Yes, the only thing that's absolutely certain is ultimate (objective?) reality. But we humans don't know what that is. Instead, we have 'human reality': the mental construct -- filtered through our sensory systems -- of our perception of a small sliver of reality (i.e., consciousness).

When we speak of certainty, knowledge, facts, evidence or proof, we're speaking of human reality, not objective reality. Science has provided amazingly consistent and persistent models of objective reality. And technologists have 'proven' the efficacy of these models by developing devices and gadgets based upon them. The consistency and persistence of these technologies leave little doubt that many of our models of objective reality are very reasonable facsimiles. We can communicate, via multimedia, across the globe on the Internet. We can send probes out to every planet in the solar system and into interstellar space. We can even land probes on comets, rovers on the moon and Mars.

We know, for a fact, that gravity and evolution exist, even though we're still working out how they exist. We've got theories to explain these facts and, so far, they're standing up to the test of time. In absolute terms, we know nothing for certain about ultimate reality. In practical terms, we've learned a lot about human reality through the use of the scientific method