Paco asked:

How do I know that you will not kill me in my sleep?

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This has got to be one of the oddest, silliest questions I've seen here, and that's really the only reason
I'm addressing it...

Now, in answer to your question: there is no absolute certainty, if that's what you want "knowledge" to
be, that I won't. There you go, simple and complete, right? You alsodon't know that someone else
won't kill you in your sleep, or for that matter, that I won't pour maple syrup over you in your sleep. In
addition, the ceiling might fall down and turn into rose petals as it falls. Or snakes might rise up from
the cracks in your floor, do a dance, and turn into vines around your bed. Or if you want another
paranoid fantasy, perhaps you're being filmed through hidden cameras in the nearest walls as you
sleep... um, by the CIA, or maybe the NFL. Why not? Hey, as long as we're speculating... There is
nothing at all that makes anything absolutely certain... we just assumethat the world won't wobble
and fall into the sun in the next few minutes. We have all sorts of "laws", i.e., inferences, that
convince us, for example, that our fingernails won't start showing cable TV channels... but they're all
empirical, and so subject to doubt. So go right ahead and spin whatever fantasies you want to... or
you might go out and buy some good science fiction...

On the other hand, you might rethink what you shouldmean by "know". It is possible that a realization
to the effect that you are at this moment seeing a shade of red is certain knowledge; or that you are at
this moment feeling pain... some will argue that. Not me, however. But I don't hold that kind of
certainty as a standard for knowledge, either. By my standards, I know that the earth will not fall into
the sun, and that I will not kill you in your sleep. I go by likelihoods... and so does science. That's
about the best you cando... and that's knowledge.

Steven Ravett Brown

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