The ultimate endpoint of empiricism might be deemed to be futility or madness: "A brilliant neuroscientist I was reading recently said . . .. we never really encounter the world; all we experience is our own nervous system." Eknath Easwaran, Introduction, The Bhagvad Gita, p. 41 (Nilgiri Press 2007).
I recall having that same thought during one of my earlier philosophy courses, back in my personal dark ages. The realization David Hume led us down a dead-end alley, that if we rely solely upon our physical senses to understand the world, we ultimately end up with nothing. We are only fooling ourselves if we think we know anything at all empirically, because whatever is "really" there, if anything, is unknowable except by and through our admittedly limited sensory framework. We know only what our eyes make of reflection, what our fingers sense from the nerve endings, what our ears translate from air vibrations -- though to speak of reflections, of touch sensations, and of auditory interpretations is ultimately circular -- we are simply saying we know what we know based on what we know we sense. What lies beyond, if anything, is beyond darkness or feel or sound (or silence).
We can argue that there must be something there, from which we make our interpretation, flawed or limited though it may be. But it is equally likely, if not more likely, that there is nothing there in every sense of the word, that we are building a world based on illusion. Of course, that way lies solipsism, in which I can know only that I exist (because I sense myself) and can never know for certain that you exist. And may well have doubts as to my own existence, at least late in a restless night.
Yet I find myself at heart believing that I exist, and equally that you, the reader, exist as more than my imagined reading of words on my imaginary laptop. That I'm not making this all up. Which tosses me into some form of religious belief (though of course that may be the ultimate illusion). As in
"Our persona is known by the sensations . . . which we cause in other persons [and of course sense in ourselves]. But the exact character of our own feelings, seeings, and hearings cannot be communicated. . . . But in spite of these limitations . . . we do have a kind of mystic knowledge of each other. . . The knowledge of what might be called the 'inside' of the other person is possible only because we all share in the Logos of God." Howard Brint, The Religious Philosophy of Quakerism, p. 70 (Pendle Hill 1979).
Winner: 4th Contest August
Winner: June Flash Fiction
