![]() One could, of course, just have faith that the world of the red pill is ‘true’, but faith in something which cannot be proven is not rational. If there are two worlds which seem equally real and cannot be distinguished from one another, how is anyone supposed to see any importance in, or method for, choosing between the two? I propose that this problem renders the very question impossible to answer rationally. Without any way to tell whether the new world of the red pill is any more real than the old world, it seems that it becomes almost meaningless to speak of there even being any important difference between the two worlds. If one wants to, one can still be skeptical after taking the red pill, or one can be just as trusting of her senses and the people around her as she would have been with the blue pill.Īll of this is meant to illustrate the point that the supposed benefit of taking the red pill, namely that one has true knowledge of the world, is worthless because there is no way to confirm or deny that the red pill has actually done what it claims to be able to do. The point is that there is no way to tell. Perhaps the old world was real and the new world is a machine controlled matrix. Perhaps the red pill’s world is just a different matrix, controlled by different machines. That is, while there would be no doubt after taking the red pill that the person in question is living in a different world, there does not seem to be anything that guarantees that this new world is the real world. With the blue pill, people can engage in some type of Cartesian skepticism and question what seems to be true about the world around them, or they can have faith that their world is as people tell them it is and as it seems to be.Īfter taking the red pill, people can still be just as skeptical and question whether this new world is any more real than the old one. On the contrary, the people remain unchanged and have only their senses and their minds to tell them about their world.Ī person can be skeptical about whether or not they are living in the real world regardless of which pill that person takes. It is not as though taking the red pill gives people some sort of new ability to have unquestionable knowledge about the world in which they live. With the red pill, the world in which the person lives is certainly different, but everything in the description above still applies.Įpistemologically, the two worlds are the same, they offer the same type of sensory experiences and the same methods for people to use to examine their world. With the blue pill a person is sent back to her life as it was, and experiences the above scenario. Which pill did he take? It seems that this scenario could describe what happens after taking either pill. In short, he wakes up and is just as convinced as he was the day before that the world around him is real. If he were to ask anyone around him whether or not he was in the real world he would receive nothing besides confirmation that, indeed, his world is the real world. The laws of physics seem the same as the day before he looks the same all of his senses work in the same way and he has no doubt that everything around him is real. He wakes up and the world around him seems totally real. Let me begin be describing a scenario that takes place after someone takes one of the pills. ![]() The second part of the essay will focus on refuting several possible criticisms of my argument, and concluding that even the very idea that there is a meaningful choice to be made is flawed. The first section of this essay will compare the two choices and explain why I think that there are no crucial differences between them. This answer is, of course, somewhat counterintuitive, but I think that if we take the time to look closely at the consequences of taking each pill, then it will become clear that there is no reasonable way to choose. The basis for this conclusion is that, if we really examine the substance of the question, there is no meaningful way to understand the difference between the two possible choices. That is, I do not see any way to argue that one ought to choose either red or blue. Which pill, red or blue? I propose that it does not matter which pill one takes and that there are no rational grounds for making the decision. SUBSCRIBE NOW Articles You Won’t Know the Difference So You Can’t Make the Choice says Robin Beck
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