Every thought we have really could be worthless, and their seeming correspondence with reality a delusion. But if so, well, there’s nothing you can really do about it is there? So why worry about it?
If you assume every thought is equally insane—or has an equal chance of being insane, then yes. If there are some thoughts that seems less insane than others (including the thought that some thoughts seems less insane than others) then you can get some traction and make useful decisions based even though every thought seems insane.
As a side note, many philosophical mistakes are made by thinking qualitatively instead of quantitatively. Do not ask “Is this thought insane?” Instead, ask “How insane is this thought?”
You say that as if it conflicts with what I’ve written, but it’s exactly my point. As soon as you accept that any of your thoughts are anything less than completely insane, then you’ve already accepted that you have some basic capacity for reason, and therefore accepted the assumption I describe. The traction you then describe getting is exactly the traction I describe as gained by accepting this assumption.
You can certainly consider insanity on a scale from 0 to 1, but in that case this assumption is just that not all of your thoughts are equal to 1 on that scale. As such it’s entirely a yes/no question, not a matter of degree.
If you assume every thought is equally insane—or has an equal chance of being insane, then yes. If there are some thoughts that seems less insane than others (including the thought that some thoughts seems less insane than others) then you can get some traction and make useful decisions based even though every thought seems insane.
As a side note, many philosophical mistakes are made by thinking qualitatively instead of quantitatively. Do not ask “Is this thought insane?” Instead, ask “How insane is this thought?”
You say that as if it conflicts with what I’ve written, but it’s exactly my point. As soon as you accept that any of your thoughts are anything less than completely insane, then you’ve already accepted that you have some basic capacity for reason, and therefore accepted the assumption I describe. The traction you then describe getting is exactly the traction I describe as gained by accepting this assumption.
You can certainly consider insanity on a scale from 0 to 1, but in that case this assumption is just that not all of your thoughts are equal to 1 on that scale. As such it’s entirely a yes/no question, not a matter of degree.
I like it. Is that from anything?
Not that I know of, though I’m pretty sure the sequences influenced this thought both wrt the subject matter and wrt the way in which I phrased it.