There is though a difference between arguing a claim and so believing in it and denying the existence or grounds of a claim entirely, the person arguing against the claim cannot prove nonexistence either. Experience should provide every human with the knowledge that there is a high chance that what someone says may or may not be truth. To know that X does or does not exist would require perfect knowledge, omniscience if you will, of everything ever. This would require simultaneous access to all and everything thus an omnipresence. It would be impractical to say that one possesses such abilities due to mankind’s limited nature. Thus the claim that something exists may exist can be plausible though the claim that it cannot is completely impractical. One cannot simply deny every claim that lacks evidence; he or she can only merely disagree with it.a
The idea that something can be dismissed without evidence seems to be a notion that suggests anything can easily shift. The fickle nature of the human being is subject to so many changes that we ourselves become so unpredictable? Perhaps it is possible that this scenario might take place but with longer, more drawn-out thought process it must take more than a mere change of heart to reverse these decisions. It took time to create decisions on any subject, with or without evidence and it could have started with an all too simple question of “What do I think?” that developed into a long discussion on opinion. If the ultimate end of that thought was to be simply discarded on a small whim or conviction, what was the point of even trying to complete the choice of deciding? The choice may not have any evidence (maybe it was intuitive to man and had no method to identify the evidence) but can the faith connected to that decision so easily be shattered? I don’t believe that the creation of a belief without evidence proves either one of the following: A). absence of evidence is proof of absence, and B. because there is no burden of proof there is no reason to be upset that such a built up decision was thrown away in a short instance. This idea is solely based on the fact that other people find it too unstable to simply change their ideas. If there is no burden of proof or basis of argument, then what else is there to anchor the idea in place?
If what you believe can easily be changed, can it be done so without evidence if that faith was without a base in the first place? Taking personal preferences and taste into consideration, when I listen to music either I like it and I continue to listen to it or I make a face of disgust and discontinue listening to it. This is the reason I still listen to Radiohead and the reason I stopped listening to Laura Veirs in middle school. Why I liked it before didn’t seem to have an answer but neither did my sudden distaste for Veirs’ music so what was formally true had become untrue in a moment’s notice.
Despite this argument, there can be certain cases where evidence is required to in order to disprove a fact. For instance, the idea behind Allegory of the Cave is that those imprisoned below are unwilling to accept the idea of a surface world, that there is only one reality, what they see in front of them, the screen and fire and shadows. Though the first released cannot turn his eyes to the light after having spent too much time below, he comes to see the truth behind this reality of a surface world and a more enlightened person emerges from this scene as he expands his knowledge. He had been raised believing the screen and shadows and fire for so long, he did not need evidence to claim its existence; the ideas behind what the objects were became inherently obvious. Thus he required evidence in order to convince himself of the greater expanses of the world he was living in; he needed his eyes opened to the light, to force his eyes to adjust in order to discard previous knowledge. The knowledge thus became formally true and was discarded after a sharp, painful realization. What was once true on the sole basis of the absence of another reality resulted in the creation of another idea with greater physical evidence.
The idea behind evidence is that it is supposed to help support claims and ideas of truth so that they might express more meaning. If there is no base to logically prove the idea and create meaning so if there is nothing to support the house, what house is left behind to stand? It is a very unstable house. However, ideas without evidence cannot be supported for long because in many cases the basis of their “evidence” is the fact that there is a lack of evidence to prove the idea’s nonexistence. Because of this, it may be dismissed without evidence. Ideas created on assumptions can be dismissed and may naturally extinguish themselves because of the severe fault of having “blind faith” as the only source pulling the statement into the “granted as true” section of the brain. Without evidence claims lack sufficient strength to sustain their own arguments.
by
gingerbreadstar (student)
