Axioms

Axioms is a work that explores the true nature of human knowledge, in particular the fundamental nature of deductive and inductive reasoning. It begins by embracing Hume's Skepticism and Descartes' one ``certain'' thing, and then looking for a way out of the solipsistic hell this leaves one in in terms of ``certain'' knowledge. Indeed, to the extent that philosophy in the past has sought to provide certain answers to virtually any question at all, philosophy itself proves to be bullshit - all philosophical arguments ultimately come back to at least one unprovable premise, usually unstated, and can be refuted by simply asserting ``I don't agree with your premises.'' The way out is to give up the idea of certain knowledge. All non-immediate knowledge of the world is based on these premises, which are unprovable assumptions, or axioms. To understand the world around us, we have to begin by making all sorts of assumptions - such as the assumption that there is a real world out there to be understood in the first place, and that the rules that govern it are structured and understandable. The rules of thought, logic, and mathematics that we use to structure this understanding are themselves only methodologies for deriving contingent truth based on unprovable axioms, and changing the axioms underlying any mathematical or logical argument often changes the equally valid conclusions.