Knowledge, Memory, Understanding

Imagine you’re on the witness stand, hand on the Bible, swearing to tell the truth. You describe exactly what you saw with absolute conviction. Yet study after study shows that eyewitness testimony is astonishingly unreliable, like trying to recount a vivid dream the morning after, when colors bleed together and entire scenes vanish. Memories fade and distort. Details slip away like sand through your fingers. Hidden biases color everything, like sunglasses you forgot you were wearing.

If we can’t even trust our own memories of events we experienced firsthand, what can we truly claim to know?

This isn’t just a courtroom problem. It’s the central puzzle of epistemology, the philosophical quest to understand knowledge itself. For centuries, thinkers have defined knowledge as justified true belief: something you believe, that happens to be true, and that you have solid reasons for believing. It sounds like a fortress built on bedrock. But look closer, and the structure begins to wobble.

Skepticism is the ultimate disruptor

The ancient Greek philosopher Pyrrho argued that we should suspend judgment on everything, since every claim has an equally convincing counterclaim. Later, Agrippa distilled the problem into a brutal trilemma: to justify any belief, you must either embark on an infinite regress of “why?” questions, resort to circular reasoning, or rest on unproven assumptions. Doubt prevails.

Words by Carley into the rabbit hole:  The Three Horns of the Trilemma

1. Infinite Regress: You justify belief A with reason B, but then need a reason C for B, leading to an unending chain of justifications with no ultimate grounding.
   • Example: “Why is this true?” “Because of X.” “Why X?” “Because of Y.” …and so on forever.
2. Circular Reasoning (Begging the Question): An argument uses its own conclusion as a premise, creating a loop that proves nothing new.
   • Example: “The Bible is true because it’s God’s word, and we know it’s God’s word because the Bible says so.”.
3. Dogmatic Assertion (Axiomatic Assumption): An assertion is made that is taken as self-evident or simply “just is,” halting further questioning.
   • Example: “Human life has value because it just does,” or accepting a fundamental principle without proof

Our senses, our primary window to the world, only deepen the problem. They feel utterly reliable: pain strikes like a sledgehammer, sights and sounds arrive like a seamless film. Yet migraines throb without cause, phantom ringing invades silent rooms, and some cultures distinguish dozens of shades of blue where others see only one. Time drags in boredom or races under stress. Perception isn’t a crystal-clear camera; it’s a funhouse mirror, constantly editing and distorting the raw data.

René Descartes tried to doubt everything until he found something indestructible. What if life is a dream? Dreams feel completely real while we’re in them. What if even mathematics is an illusion? In the depths of radical doubt, he discovered one unbreakable truth: the act of doubting proved his own existence. “I think, therefore I am.” From that solitary certainty, however, reaching the external world is like crossing a chasm on a fraying rope bridge.

David Hume struck at our confidence in cause and effect. One billiard ball strikes another, and the second moves. We say “A caused B,” but we have only ever observed sequence, never the necessary connection between them. (Picture a turkey fed daily, confidently expecting tomorrow’s meal…until Thanksgiving). Our belief in patterns comes from habit, not logic. Science itself relies on this shaky induction: the future will resemble the past because it always has.

Even pure reason has limits. Kurt Gödel proved that in any sufficiently powerful logical system, there are true statements that cannot be proved within the system. Mathematics, our paragon of certainty, contains truths we can never pin down. In physics, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle shows we cannot precisely know both a particle’s position and momentum, an inherent limit, not a technological one.

Science advances spectacularly (vaccines, smartphones, space travel) yet every conclusion is provisional. We see what our theories allow us to see. Paradigms shift (as Thomas Kuhn showed), and yesterday’s facts are rewritten. Multiple theories can fit the same data (Quine), and while we can falsify bad ideas, absolute truth remains elusive.

Does this mean we’re doomed to ignorance?

Radical skepticism claims yes, but it’s self-defeating: to assert that we know nothing is itself a knowledge claim.

Better paths exist. Some philosophers anchor knowledge in immediate certainties, like “It seems to me now that I see red.” Others treat beliefs as a coherent web, each part supporting the others. Still others define knowledge as the output of reliable processes: if our cognitive faculties generally work well, their deliverances count as knowledge. Standards also vary. Philosophers demand near-godlike certainty; everyday life settles for “good enough.”

Then Edmund Gettier showed that even justified true belief can fail.

Imagine a stopped clock that happens to show the correct time when you glance at it. Your belief is justified and true, but only by luck, not knowledge.

Absolute certainty is a mirage. What we have instead is fallibilism: knowledge as high probability, always open to revision, grounded in the best available evidence. Charles Peirce saw inquiry as endless error-correction. Critical realists insist there is a real world, and we can grasp it imperfectly but meaningfully through our flawed instruments.

Can We Really Know Anything?

These limits should make us humble. Moral truths, the existence of other minds, and the universe’s deepest origins may always partly escape us. Yet we fly planes, cure diseases, and love fiercely on probabilistic knowledge alone. Healthy skepticism sharpens thought without paralyzing action.

Real wisdom lies in intellectual humility: speak confidently where evidence is strong, remain tentative where it is weak. And here is the beautiful irony: the question “Can we truly know anything?” partly answers itself. We know enough to wonder, to doubt, and to keep searching.

In a universe of uncertainty, that is a profound achievement.