We are fascinated with personal identity. We make many efforts to try to "know" ourselves, or to "get in touch" with our own feelings. To be sure, I know that I have feelings. I know what it is like to be happy and sad; I know what it is to feel pain and pleasure. I know that I have thoughts, and those thoughts affect what I do and how I feel. The question to consider, however, is whether or not I can know that anyone else feels the same types of feelings and has the same kinds of thoughts. Is there anyone else who is actually a living being with feelings and thoughts like I am? That almost sounds like a silly question. Upon closer examination, however, it is interesting to note that we generally accept the idea that others do have "minds," but this acceptance is based upon inference and, if I may use the term, "faith." In other words, we trust that others feel and think based upon evidence that is less than scientific.
If people tell me that they are in pain, how do I know that they are really in pain? How do I know that what they are describing as "pain" is the same sensation that I feel when I think I am in pain? The same would be true of something that is pleasurable. There does appear to be varying degrees of pain and pleasure, but aside from this, the question remains, how do I know? I can infer, based someone’s actions, facial expressions, etc. that this person is experiencing what I understand to be pain. I can understand, based upon analogy with my own feelings, that this person is probably feeling something similar to what I call pain or pleasure, but that alone does not prove the case. The bottom line is that we simply have to "trust" that the other person feels the way that he or she describes it. If we find that the other person is a liar, then subsequent reports of how that person feels may no longer be trustworthy.
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