I've long thought that the dream argument for skepticism is the most disturbing. Many skeptical arguments are quite fanciful, and it's easy to dismiss talk of evil demons and brains in vats as just silly. Of course, the silly can sometimes be true, so I'm not sure categorizing those cases as silly helps much, but obviously this line of response is in any event totally unavailable for the dream argument. It's not at all silly or fanciful to suggest I could be dreaming. It happens almost daily.
A seemingly unconnected opinion of mine is that I've long been skeptical that children are worth the trouble. I mean, I can see how raising a child could be immensely rewarding, but there seems to be an extraordinary amount of nuisance involved; it seems like I could find other ways of being fulfilled that would take less effort, and I have a perhaps unfortunate inclination toward laziness.
However, it has now been pointed out that children, at least very young ones, could have a benefit that had never occurred to me. They might provide help with the otherwise seemingly intractable dream argument. Though given the mechanism involved, I wonder if they open one up to the equally devastating hallucination due to lack of sleep argument.
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