A Brief Email Discussion On The Evidence That Our Brain Lies to Us

Garard: In chapter 3 of your book, How to Defend the Christian Faith: Advice from an Atheist, if your content is true, how would you know?

Loftus: Because of the scientific evidence coming from both psychological studies and neurology.

Garard: But to suggest you can't trust your brain would suggest you can't trust the evidence from scientific and psychological reports. You could be misunderstanding them, you could be mistaken about what you're reading, they could be mistaken, how do you avoid total skepticism?

Loftus: No. Only a lying brain could reach that conclusion. For upon accepting this evidence, total skepticism could not be an option since the evidence tells us the truth about our brains, that they can and do lie to us. Henceforth, to keep our brains from lying to us about things we desire to be true but aren't, we would demand the same kind of evidence that forced our brains to accept this conclusion. Where there isn't this same kind of evidence we would force our brains to heel by proportioning our beliefs to the evidence, and by becoming authentic by not pretending to know what we don't know.

Thank you. Thank you very much! The End. [Loftus exits the building.]

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