In regards to the friend lying it's not unreasonable to be open to the fact they might turn into Hitler next week.

Yeah I have no idea how you're operating in your everyday life then. Your philosophical disposition is either completely contrary to how you actually use skepticism (or that of anyone) or your life is completely messed up. I say pay attention to how skepticism is practically used (it’s the one we know of and works to improve judgment) and examine the rational basis for it. Imagination is not the same as basis for skepticism.

I'm just going where the evidence leads. I mean color doesn't exist in the world outside our minds after all. Sounds like more evidence for the radical skepticism and not so much the measured one. You still haven't addressed my point about the arbitrary line you draw between the two.

If you wanted to be reasonable in your skepticism you would have to admit that you don't know if other people are conscious, it's just a hope that you aren't alone. I mean you can only verify your own experience right? Sounds like your version of reasonable skepticism is wishful thinking.

”

I’ve been asking myself that question from when i was a kid – I can see how i have always WANTED to BELIEVE that other people think and feel and experience stuff inside their head/themselves, just like me — yet, i could never get over the FACT that when i am looking at them with my eyes, i see none of that going on – i am just seeing a picture. Yet the picture looked so much like my picture that I didn’t want to accept that maybe what i think about what other people think and feel and experience ‘within themselves’ isn’t actually real and really only exist in my own head/’consciousness’ and i truly am ‘alone’ in my ‘consciousness’/’inner experiences’ as ‘thoughts, feelings and emotions’.

Because, that would then imply that i am ALONE here, ALONE in existence, AS existence – and even though common sense deduction of the FACTS would indicate that to be reality, i see how i started to, throughout my life, deliberately convince myself that what exist inside of myself as my ‘mind’, exist within others as well through ‘interpretative perception’, even though i could not and cannot possibly see this for real – as i cannot actually open up the head of another human and see the thoughts and feelings – just so that i would not feel so alone or have to realize that i am alone.

Because, what would it imply to be/exist ALONE here? It would imply that i am responsible for all that exist here as this world/reality that i am seeing with my eyes, as it all IS me, just me, alone, here. It would imply that i am ‘God’ and all that exist here is my creation — it would also imply that i would have to face the fact that i have never been aware of being ‘God’ and of when, how or why I created this existence in the first place — which scared the living shit out of me. So, i took the road of self-deception and pretended that i am ‘not alone’ because ‘other people feel what i feel, they think what i think – and i am my thoughts and feelings, so that means that i am not alone responsible for what is here’. Though what i have had to come to terms with is the deliberate self-deception in convincing myself that i am this ‘system’ of ‘thought, feeling and emotion’, while deeeep down within myself I kind of know that that is not really who i am – i simply brainwashed myself deliberately into losing myself within that system to just not have to face the FACT that i am ALONE here.

This is the sad reality of it because it is the FACTS – as i can see that ‘consciousness’ as what i believe about what ‘other people’ think, believe, feel and experience, still only exist within MY MIND — so, it’s a matter of making that decision: will i stop fooling myself and face the FACTS that ‘consciousness’ is my own self-made illusion or will i continue hiding within myself to not face the ‘God’ that is me and the enormous responsibility that comes with it?”

Yeah I just think you jump from A to Z without recognizing you’re jumping to Z instead of to B (your response to the friend and scientist example) I can’t help you if you think these errors are at such scope that they’re plausible signs for hidden gigantic errors.

It's not jumping from A to Z it's being open to the possibility. But even then you example of the friend doesn't apply to that of reality when it's becoming clear each day that our perception of it does not match the way it actually is. Color is a huge example as it does not exist outside our heads.

You’re either really confused with how these concepts are put together (imagination/logical possibility isn’t remotely the basis for skepticism) or you’re constantly plagued by dysfunctional paranoia in your personal life.

Neither one. I just question the distinction you make between forms of skepticism.

If your friend broke your promise or lied about something, and thus gives you suspicion to become “skeptical” of their character. This is very different from your apparent type of skepticism that he’ll turn into a Nazi and kill you someday, because you can imagine it out of logical possibility. How this helps anyone’s judgment, I don’t know.

I divided the two into different categories of skepticism out of nominal convenience. I can easily reword this into saying I think there's one type of skepticism, one that makes sense because it serves a purpose, yours isn't really functionally working skepticism.

This went around in circles repetitively so this is my last comment.

I suppose there is a point in that. Everyone lies at some point in their lives so it's not reasonable to suggest that they would turn EVIL later. Some people admit when they lie too and others do it for the right reasons.