The Limits of Skepticism

Halls of mirrors, the left hemisphere, and the curious case of no-virus theory

“The need for certainty is a sign of mental imbalance, and nothing is a greater waste of time than debating with someone who doubts everything, on the grounds that only certainty is admissible.”

—Iain McGilchrist¹

There is a disturbing phenomenon in nature called “ant death spiral:” these poor ants get trapped in some sort of software bug, running in circles until they drop dead from exhaustion. The reason seems to be somewhat unclear, but one thing is clear: all they would have to do is simply leave the trap of the death spiral and get some perspective, if you will. Then again, ants operate in a sort of hive-mind collective, so their free will is very limited indeed.

This strikes me as an apt analogy for die-hard skepticism, the kind of which the history of thought provides ample examples.

Such skeptics always start out with the question, can we really know this or that for certain? They then go on and use purely rationalistic arguments which inevitably lead to the conclusion that no, we can’t. Oftentimes, their sense of self-preservation will stop them there, but some take it further, entirely in keeping with their own limited idea of logic: if we can’t know this for certain, what about that? And so the death spiral plays itself out, until they convince themselves that nothing makes any sense, isn’t true, or isn’t real. And even if they don’t go that far, they will always feel the nagging sense that within their own system, if only they thought it through, that would be the ultimate conclusion.

It’s the same mindset R. G. Collingwood warned about with regard to “logical” criticism of philosophical texts: by isolating certain statements, and thus missing the bigger picture and a true understanding, you will end up destroying everything.²

You can see this with certain relativist arguments in postmodernism, for example: the end result is a profound nihilism. (At least they take their own ideas seriously.) However, such nihilism isn’t logical: after all, they came to this conclusion based on something. There always needs to be a baseline, some ground on which to stand on, otherwise nothing is possible, not even skepticism.

As Iain McGilchrist might argue, the left brain hemisphere is like a sort of ultra-focused calculation machine with no real connection to reality—for that, we need the right hemisphere, which operates non-verbally. From that perspective, the sort of skepticism I described relies exclusively on a freewheeling left hemisphere, with the result that it can arbitrarily make up any ground—any first principles—it likes, ignoring the real ground of reality that only the right hemisphere can intuit.

This dynamic plays itself out in many forms. The social constructionist who seeks to “criticize” everything from the lens of colonialism, or capitalism, or racism, for example, ultimately would need to “deconstruct” himself as well, using the same theory. And even then, it wouldn’t make sense: because where does the theory come from? Is it not socially constructed as well? And what about this new insight that the theory itself is socially constructed? Result: infinite regress of death.

To put it differently, ultimately, the social constructionist, the skeptic, the relativist—they all must ground their ideas in something. And indeed, they do, it’s just that they are confused about it. Their arguments only appear logical because they start from certain presuppositions, consciously or not. The slightest error in those presuppositions will screw up the whole argument. Not only that, they must explain why they chose these presuppositions in the first place, which, in the case of unconscious presuppositions, they cannot even attempt.

If we honestly think it through, in other words, we will be faced with the question of the ultimate ground of reality. We always end up with something vaguely religious: Being itself, higher realities, God, or however you want to conceive of it. Some part of us must be in touch with this ultimate reality (for McGilchrist, it’s the right hemisphere), whether we acknowledge this or not.³

Unhinged skepticism, then, based on a freewheeling left-hemisphere, leads to the construction of an almost schizophrenic hall of mirrors, built from presuppositions, assumptions, and definitions from which there is no escape.

A maze with no exit. An ant death spiral.

People who live in such a hall of mirrors often exhibit all the tell-tale signs of left-hemisphere thinking:

• Deduction from arbitrary first principles (and unconscious presuppositions)

• The conviction that they are 100% right and a flavor of “holy crusade”

• The need for absolute certainty, irrefutable proof, and definite closure

• Anger and irritability when someone tries to reconnect them with the world outside their hall of mirrors

• The acceptance of incredibly implausible conclusions if only they are consistent with the overall structure of their hall of mirrors

Let’s look at a relatively new example of such skeptical excess.

“Nobody Has Ever Proven The Existence of Viruses”

For those who might not know, there are people out there who seriously think that viruses might not exist, and that therefore, all the science ever done using a framework involving viruses is a big lie.⁴ These people can be very loud and intimidating. And they show all the hallmarks of the ant death spiral, of a freewheeling left hemisphere catapulting them into the no-man’s-land of radical skepticism.

The microbiological world of the cell, of viruses, and of life itself is in many ways mysterious. There is a lot we don’t know and don’t understand yet, and the more we know, the more we marvel. A healthy reaction to this state of affairs would be wonder, curiosity, and a nuanced probing with the goal of understanding better and more. Viruses, for instance, while somewhat elusive, seem to be involved with information exchange and might provide clues as to how life came to be. Indeed, viruses may have something to do with information exchange between our realm and higher realms, the teleological landscape, or disruptive DNA changes in earth’s history: there might be a lot going on that goes beyond the materialist and gradualist presuppositions of modern science.

However, those who question the very existence of viruses go about it very differently: they demand absolute certainty. Ambiguity is not something that makes them think deeper and wider, but that repels them. Hence, for example, they come up with a rigid definition of the term “isolation,” often based on a dictionary of all things (typical left-hemisphere approach). Since what scientists somewhat loosely call isolation doesn’t meet their arbitrarily defined criteria (remember, skeptics must be grounded in something, in this case in Merriam-Webster, but they don’t realize that they need to justify their choice, if indeed they are conscious of their presuppositions at all), they conclude that all those scientists are liars, or deluded, and in any case one hundred percent wrong. This obsession with “isolation” and “purification,” along with rigid definitions and demand for absolute proof, is another clear indication of left hemisphere-dominance.

While the old-school skeptics often do make very sophisticated philosophical arguments, ultimately mistaken as they may be, the no-virus people mostly don’t show any sign of deeper thought about science, the scientific method, the nature of truth, or any other philosophical reflection. They just pronounce rigid definitions (often not going beyond consulting a dictionary), then claim virus theory doesn’t fit, and conclude it must be wrong entirely.

But they face the same problem as all other skeptics do: the ant spiral of death.

Because once you have these rigid definitions in place, you soon realize that they not only exclude the existence of one thing, but of many, many other things. As always, most don’t think it through. But some go further.

Consequently, there are people in the no-virus camp who, upon reflection, come to the conclusion that not only do viruses not exist, but neither do nucleic acid molecules, proteins, and indeed DNA and RNA.⁵ It’s what you get when you use a skeptical, deconstructionist approach based on top-down deduction from first principles, and mistake this mental construct for reality. The result: predictable talking points, as is the case with all people who live in “halls of mirrors,” and pronouncements that have the flavor of shouting absolute certainties from the pulpit. What a far cry from, say, the writings of the great physicists of the 20th century!

You may ask why I chose this particular example from the fringes of the interwebs. It’s because I think it can serve as a warning about where unhinged skepticism and obsession with certain ideas can lead: a colossal waste of energy, and eventually death-by-exhaustion, if only metaphorically (but who knows).

So what, then, is real? Like really real? There is a reason why whole libraries could be filled with books discussing this question. At the end of the day, we cannot answer it with a purely rationalistic mindset, or we will risk ending up in the ant spiral of death: concluding that nothing can truly be known about reality, and/or that our particular view is absolutely true. But since we do know that we live in reality, even though we see through a glass darkly, we might do well leaving our self-imposed halls of mirrors, whatever ideological flavor they may take, step back, and get in touch with real life, real experience, deep intuition and our felt sense of the bigger picture.⁶

This hopefully will allow us to get back into a grounded and nuanced understanding of science and of ourselves, a spirit of subtle and rich thought instead of fist-thumping pronouncements, an acceptance of ambiguity, uncertainty, and endless mystery, and a deep sense of connection with wider reality that will keep the left-hemisphere and its childish demands and reactions in check. We might even avoid getting sucked into the ant death spiral.

Only then will truth be allowed to florish, and goodness and beauty as well.

God knows we need it in this day and age.

1. Iain McGilchrist, The Matter With Things, Perspectiva Press, 2021, p. 1269

2. See R. G. Collingwood, An Autobiography

3. You could take evolution as the “ultimate ground,” but this tends to run into trouble; this is not the time and place to think about such things.

4. This includes, of course, virus-based bioweapons and gain-of-function research.

5. One Mike Stone for instance, see in the comment section of this article.

6. As McGilchrist often notes, language breaks down at this point; those who know what I’m talking about will understand, those who don’t won’t.