You're own evil demon

I came across this rather interesting use of a very old thought experiment. Descartes was trying to figure out if he existed independently, or if something was controlling him, like an evil demon. He eventually concluded his ability to think proved his independence. This still left him with a somewhat circular argument but some people start this thought experiment, and can't passed the evil demon. I see people doing to themselves or trying to do to others. They try to make people into their own “Cartesian demons”.

You can do it to yourself by thinking you are a failure, then believing it. You can let others do it by allowing them to tell you that you are in some way flawed. You can let them convince you that they are smarter, or that all humans are incapable of understanding some fundamental truth or that none of us know the real way things work. Of course they have the answer, and if you believe them, you give yourself up to them to get it. Or, you just give up to the idea. Either way you’ve let an imaginary “demon” take control.

The extreme case is a cult, but less extreme cases can be seen every day with fake headlines or fake science and claims that reality is fake. Well established facts become a conspiracy of the elite. Extensive investigations into voter fraud are tossed aside because one paper ballot was counted twice. Always left unmentioned is that the problem was caught and corrected, otherwise, how would we know it ever happened?

People believe we can’t make a difference and that we are being controlled by invisible forces. They fear poison in the water, in our food and even in our medicines. We accept the status quo that there will always be poor despite centuries of solving social problems. There is always some disaster or someone being slighted to prove the point.

The good news, no special powers are required to escape this demon. Just think for yourself. If it’s a claim about science, then find all the research you can and learn how a scientific consensus if formed. If it’s government, get involved. The US just had two polar opposites in the presidency. I’m guessing no one is controlling this. If your evil demon says we can’t know everything and we’re just animals, then how do you know that? You would need to know everything to know that we can’t know it. There is nothing to do but learn more. You don’t know what your limits are.