About the construction of mental world-models....
We form mental world-models. We form a Star Trek-world mental world-model, in which Capt. Kirk and Mr. Spock are treated as real. We form a Harry Potter-world mental world-model, in which Dumbledore and Voldemort are treated as real. And we form a mental real-world world-model, in which Mom and Dad are treated as real.
My mental real-world world-model is formed from sensory impressions. When I find that my sight and touch coordinate, I treat the orange in my hand as real, and I treat the table as real, and so on--the things right around me, that I can sense right now, are treated as real. When I learn that other people can still stumble over blocks left in the living room even when I'm asleep, I start learning to see objects as persisting in an objectively existing reality of which my senses give me reasonably reliable information.
I go on to include more and more in my real-world mental world-model. I learn to trust my neighbor's senses, too. She says she saw a hawk in yonder tree yesterday? OK, there was a hawk in yonder tree yesterday. She says she traveled to China last year? OK, there is such a place as China. And so on. My mental real-world world-model expands. It includes even faraway objects like the Sun and the Moon. I also learn that the senses with which we detect features of objectively existing reality can be extended by scientific instruments. Geiger counters can detect gamma radiation. Doctors and dentists can use X-rays to take pictures of the inside of my body. Magnetic fields can be detected by the appropriate instruments. I also learn that we are able to gather clues about the past. I learn that once, there were dinosaurs. And I trust that that's so because I trust that other people really have dug up dinosaur bones and really have used refined techniques developed by many scientifically-minded people to figure out how old they are and what sorts of animals they were. I trust that "science knows more than I do." And the more my real-world mental world-model aligns with well-established scientific facts and well-established scientific theories, the closer my real-world mental world-model comes to accurately reflecting objectively existing reality, in all probability.
Now, I *could* go all the way back and simply *not* think of the blocks that it seems someone else can trip over even while I'm asleep as persisting objects in an objectively existing reality. I *could* restrict the statements I make, carefully speaking only of my mental images and mental sounds and mental tactile sensations and never speaking of apples or oranges or tables or chairs or lions or tigers--or other people. Mine would then be a much more limited real-world mental world-model, of course--but I could do that. And then there just wouldn't be much that I agreed was true.
I should note that I generally do not object to the saying of "I don't know." If we don't know, that's what we should say. Sometimes, it seems as though ridiculously high bars are being set for agreement that thus-and-such is true, but OK, if someone wants to set a ridiculously high bar for belief, he certainly may. But I do want to see consistency. I don't want to see a ridiculously high bar set for one belief (say, belief that evolution happened) but a ridiculously low bar set for another belief (say, belief in God).
I acknowledged that in the sentence preceding the one you marked, don't play smart.
If postmodernist is an idiot that chooses to ignore stuff arbitrarily to suit his fantasy than you are right MindWalk.
But, I have a different person in mind. Maybe that's not your postmodernist, maybe we can call it a sceptic. I'm a skeptic, meaning that I generally do not hold beliefs without good reason, and that the degree of confidence with which I hold a belief depends on how strong the evidence and arguments for it are. We'll see if that's what you mean.
Firstly it's a person with no claim on universality. His philosophy is applicable only to him, and he doesn't care if it's applicable to any other human being. I'm not quite sure what "applicable" means here.
Secondly, he aims to find things that make sense. In terms of science, that means he'll use that refrigirator because it keeps his food fresh, he'll accept the law of gravity if he can use it to accuratly determine how to hit his neighbours cat. Let me point out that in so doing he is accepting that there is an objectively existing reality of which his senses give him reasonably reliable information. He has also, presumably, learned that other people also seem to gain reasonably reliable information about it via their senses, and that other people's observations can count as evidentiary if error does not infect them. He learns that sometimes, care is necessary in properly interpreting what we observe. But if the other fellow tells you that he just watched a play at the local theater, and if you have no reason to think he's lying, it's reasonable to suppose that there really was just a play at the local theater. But he will also take the newest finding on brain funcionality with a grain of salt, because from his experience that doesn't quite work like that, and he can afford to do that, until more is known on the subject. The *newest* finding is one he should probably have some reservations about, because it hasn't yet been confirmed by other researchers. Whether or not to tentatively accept it with a fair degree of confidence depends on what he knows about the research and the researchers and how surprising he finds the result in light of that knowledge. On the other hand, he should accept well-confirmed scientific findings, even counterintuitive ones, with a much higher degree of confidence. It would be perverse to withhold belief in them simply because he did not personally carry out the research, as long as he knows that the findings are in fact well-confirmed. He might also find that astrology is incredibly accurate in his hands and can use it to great effect. You let me know when someone actually finds that to be true. Perhaps he thinks the world is indeed just a computer program like in Matrix, and finds that incredibly relevant to his everyday life. I don't know why anyone would think that. I can easily see why someone might withhold judgment as to whether or not there was an objectively existing reality of which his senses gave him reasonably reliable information--i.e., as to whether or not he was *not* merely experiencing a virtual reality--but the everyday living of his life requires him to treat even a virtual reality exactly as though it were not merely virtual. And if he wants to assign moral worth to other people, then he needs to assume that there are actually are other people, which means assuming that he is not merely experiencing virtual reality.
It's a man that doesn't ignore the bullet science created that killed him, but a man who whishes he had just a little more time to meditate, because he would then be able to stop that bullet with his mind. Good luck stopping bullets with your mind. Presumably, that man has scads and scads of evidence that bullets can kill and that minds do not stop bullets, so it's hard to see why he would think that having a little more time to meditate would help.
That is not a man that is against science and doesn't wish to denounce it, but is also walking on the fringes of science and even beyond where that is applicable. It looks to me as though he's either ignoring quite a bit of it or else simply ignorant of quite a bit of it. If he's simply ignorant of quite a bit of it, then he has good reason to be cautious about holding beliefs in the areas of which he is ignorant. But he also has good reason to accept with a fair degree of confidence well-confirmed scientific results in even those areas, so that if he learns that scientists regard something as a fact, he should, too, and if he learns that scientists regard a theory as very well-confirmed, he should, too.