on inconsistency

Last week in class we discussed Moore and his logical arguments regarding reality.  Moore claims that he can prove the existence of his reality because he senses his reality.  He can prove the existence of the furnishings in his room because he can see them and feel them.  Moreover, Moore also claims that some realities are over determined, such as the reality of death after drinking a poison.  In class, we argued that the exceptions to these statements merely go against reality and are not the true reality.  We also argued that though the skeptic may believe that his hand might not exist, he would never venture to cut it off.  

The problem with the logical point of view is that it is inconsistent.  In order for a reality to make sense, it has to be consistent and universal.  Though the reality that we perceive tends to, most of the time, agree with Moore's logical claims, there are still occurrences that defy his claims.  The few occurrences that go against Moore's logic are enough to invalidate his theories, as it makes them inconsistent.  Claiming that there is a logical organization to the universe and random and rare chaos at the same time does not make sense.  There is either a logical organization that all of life follows at all times, or there is random chaos.  There cannot be both.

In class on Friday we discussed a woman  with multiple personality disorder.  Multiple personality disorder would be considered by Moore to be all in the mind.  Moore would consider the individual with multiple personality disorder to have one self identity, that is afflicted with mental illness.  He would say that the mentally ill individual has the same body and mind despite which personality was manifested.  This seems to be true, however, there are inconsistencies.  There are reported cases of multiple personality disorder where people's bodies chemically changed depending upon which personality is present at the time.  In one case, a man had an allergic reaction to a particular substance that caused hives and swelling while one personality was present, and when his other personality was present he had no allergic reaction at all.  In another case, an adult with two personalities, an adult personality and a child personality, responded differently to drugs depending on which personality he identified with.  When this adult believed he was the child personality, his body responded to lower levels of drugs than when the adult believed he was the adult personality.  These medical cases completely defy Moore's logic, and do not make sense according to his theories.  This is merely one example of the many inconsistencies in life that go against logical theories.

Before studying logic, most of the class agreed that your reality is what you believe it be and that reality is completely subjective.  I have theorized that you create your own reality and that everything that occurs in life happens because you believe it will happen.  I feel this theory is strong because it is the only theory that universally makes sense.  This theory seems to make sense with any possible scenerio.  For example, in class we discussed how language must be real because we all use it an understand it.  Since Moore's logic is inconsistent and not universal, it is invalid and cannot apply to language or anything else.  However, all of us believe that language works and that we all understand it, so perhaps this is what makes it so.  We would not even try to use language if we did not believe, without a doubt, that it is real.  Using another example that we argued in class, the skeptic can question the reality of his hand all he wants but he probably would never attempt to cut it off.  Moore claims that this is because his hand is real and exists despite what the individual might believe.  However, consider that by the mere fact that the skeptic is doubting the existence of his hand is evidence that he does in fact truly believe he has a hand, therefore he does, which would cause him to bleed if he attempted to cut it off. 

Anything that we doubt is something that we firmly believe in, otherwise we would not waste time doubting it.  No one sits around doubting the existence of dragons because none of us firmly believe that dragons exist.  An individual might take a moment to state that he does not believe in dragons, but he would never spend his life coming up with theories as to why dragons might not exist, and even if he did spend his life doing this, no one would care about his work because no one believes in dragons enough to care to examine any possible doubt.  Thus, all of the things that we doubt are things that we firmly believe in.  Therefore, if belief were to presuppose existence, everything in our reality would make sense.  We believe in everything around us, even the things we doubt.