88. This Is Not A Pipe

By René Magritte(1898-1967) - Image taken from a University of Alabama site, "Approaches to Modernism": [1], Fair use (Old-50), Link

The image above is not a pipe. It may look like a pipe but it is not one. This is "The Treachery of Images" as the painting is rightly named. It touches on the fact that what we see is not reality. Our sensory data is an abstraction of reality but sometimes we are unaware of that. This image is a reminder to question your senses.

We can take this argument further. Our minds are filled with misconceptions because they interpret the world they engage with. The mind makes connections where there are not any. It sometimes sees non-existent patterns. Again, we are rarely conscious of this. We tend to believe what it tells us. To add to the complexity the misconceptions vary from person to person.

So our sensory data and the ideas in our heads have errors. Would it be too much of a leap to conclude, "There are no authoritative sources of knowledge nor reliable means of justifying knowledge as true or probable?" Maybe you shouldn't trust the dissonance your mind feels right now. It could be wrong too.