If, according to Pliny the Elder "There is nothing certain but uncertainty&

Question: If, according to Pliny the Elder "There is nothing certain but uncertainty" how can we be "certain" it is true!?

Hi Folks,

So is he saying that we should be uncertain of everything!?

So if I drop this pen, it is uncertain it will hit the floor!.
Let's try !.!.!.!.!.!.!.
Well I'll be!. It did!.
It didn't hover in mid air, and Pliny didn't appear to catch it!.

Any notions!?

Bob

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Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:

It cannot be true at all!. It is contradictory!.
It's like saying the only absolute truth is that there are no absolute truths!.

If there are no certainties then uncertainty cannot be certain!.

If we say that certainty and absolute truth are the same, ie!. true at all times, then, clearly there are no such truths!.
Because, truth requires mind and there were times at which there were no minds at all!.
That is to say, even logic/mathematical truths cannot be eternal!.

Certainty, absolute truth, etc!. are illusions of our finite minds!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

if you drop the pen its probable it will hit the floor,lets say the odds of something not happening is one in 1oo trillion trillion trillion race to power 100000000 trillion 100000trillion!. no matter how hard you try to prove the uncertainty in this case you are most likely to find it not being disproved,but still its uncertain!.even a universal law like gravity is uncertain,even if it has worlked well for so many years-even infinity how are you sure it will worlk well in the future!? so every thing is uncertain!.

when you say we are not sure the statement "everything is uncertain" is true,you are using the premise of the statement to argue against it,so there is inconsistency,either dont use everything is uncertain argument against the statement or donot believe everthing is uncertain!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

a number of things could have happened!.
What you didnt mention was probability!. And that rules over uncertainty!.

I belive you should be uncertain of his answer and base your uncertainty on probabilityWww@QuestionHome@Com

Pliny was wrong about lots of things!.

Mathematics is full of certainties!.

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