David Hume's Work on Finding Absolute Truth

For example, we can clearly imaging things that don't exist like a unicorn. This could lead us to believe our minds have created a new image which is contrary to what Hume says is possible. But actually this unicorn is made up if images that we have already seen before and our mind is just combining the image of a horn with that of a horse. Thus the human mind is incapable of creating anything completely original. It only has the ability to rearrange pieces of what has already been imprinted in us through our senses. This seams extremely constrictive upon our imagination and it left me with a feeling of confinement to our perceptions. If this is all we are capable of than all we really are is as Hume says "A Bundle of perceptions." But the more I tried to disprove this theory the more I found myself believing it. At first I tried to think of something totally original, but how is anyone to know for sure that this new thought isn't simply an obscure combination of images retrieved from former impressions originating from the senses. To determine the originality of my thought I broke it down into its components only to find that they were all composed if things which I had seen before. For example the colors of this supposedly original thought were clearly colors which I had seen before. So then I tried to think of a totally new color, one which no one had ever seen before. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine this new color, hundreds of colors I had seen before filled my thoughts but the best I could do to think up a new one was to mix the ones that I had already seen. And this was exactly like the unicorn example. I thought that perhaps using the word color to trigger the search was limiting my ability to see anything other than what I have previously labeled as a color. So I began focusing on forms, for example God. Because I had never seen God before I was hoping for a color, which I had never seen before.

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