Suppose I am nearby another human (let’s call her Brenda) and I feel a strong gust of wind.

“I feel a strong gust of wind,” I might say.

Suppose Brenda then says “I don’t feel anything.”

This would be surprising. It would be surprising because when we feel wind (or at least, when we feel strong gusts of wind), we assume that others who are nearby also feel that same wind.

Suppose I am also feeling hungry.

“I feel hungry.” I might say.

Suppose Brenda then says “I don’t feel hungry”.

This is not surprising at all, because when we feel hungry we don’t automatically assume that others nearby also feel just as hungry.

Both experiences are my experiences. I never experience Brenda’s experience of the wind, if she has any, nor Brenda’s experience of being hungry, if she ever is. I only ever experience my experience of the wind, and my experience of being hungry. Why would I assume then, that Brenda would feel the gust of wind because I felt the gust a wind, and not assume that Brenda would feel hungry because I felt hungry.

A natural answer is a story about past experiences. Lots of times in the past when I have felt a strong gust of wind, I have observed people reacting as if there were wind, or reporting that they feel wind. On the other hand, lots of times in the past when I have felt hungry, sometimes other people report being hungry and sometimes not, it just depends. And so from these past experiences I generalize about wind and about hunger, and apply these generalizations to Brenda.

But is this a true story? How would I know that it’s true? I don’t exactly have lots and lots of memories of people reacting to strong gusts of wind, nor do I keep a tally of all the times people nearby have reported being hungry when I am hungry.

I have a suspicion that the belief

“in my past experience of strong gusts of wind, nearby people always react in some way to strong gusts of wind”

is a belief I hold not based so much on memory but on the belief already held that strong gusts of wind are felt by people nearby.

Still, it could be that my past experiences explain my present belief about wind, even if I don’t have strong memories of them. Indeed, it could be that my past experiences of wind explains my current beliefs about wind, and further my current beliefs about wind explain my beliefs about my past experiences. And this fun little roundabout is not circular.

There are other stories we could tell, of course. When I have a feeling of wind, I assume that there is an external to me immediate cause of that feeling, and I don’t assume that same thing about hunger. I assume that hunger has an internal to me not-so-immediate cause, perhaps. So I assume the feeling of wind is caused by a thing “out there” (let’s call this thing “wind”), but the feeling of hunger is caused by a thing “in there” (let’s call this thing “an empty stomach”.) Combine this with another assumption, that other people are more or less like me, and experience the world more or less like I do.

With these two assumptions, we can perhaps tell a story like this: when I experience the feeling of wind, I assume there really is wind out there, and since other people experience the world as I do, when they’re “in the wind” so to speak, they must also experience the feeling of wind. By contrast, when I experience hunger, I don’t assume there is an empty stomach “out there” for other people to experience. My feeling of hunger is connected to my empty stomach. Whereas my feeling of the wind is connected to a wind out there which other people can experience as well, if they’re like me.

This story raises more questions, of course. Why do I think other people are more or less like me? What is it about feelings-of-wind that makes me think they have an external cause, and feelings-of-hunger that makes me think they have an internal cause? Why not think there’s an external empty stomach that everyone nearby can feel? We can note that our experience of feeling-of-wind are accompanied by other sense data, like windy sounds and sights of things moving about, and we don’t get these sorts of sense data with hunger. We cold even point out, quite simply, that the feeling of hunger feels like its coming from “inside” somehow, and the feeling of wind “feels like” it’s coming from “outside” somehow (I feel the wind on my skin, I feel hunger in my stomach). But these considerations will be only the beginning of a proper explanation.

Another story we could tell: It could be that there is some brainiac programming we have, some sort of wiring or knick-knack, such that we just always interpret feelings-of-wind as being the sorts of things that nearby people will also feel, and another wiring or knick-knack of the brain that tells us that feelings-of-hunger are only sometimes felt by other people.

So far we have been talking of explanation. Another question is justification. Regardless of why we naturally believe these things about wind and hunger, are we justified in believing them?

Suppose I am once again nearby Brenda and I feel a strong gust of wind, am I justified in believing “Brenda also feels a strong gust of wind.”?

Whether we say yea or nay, we might think that in order to be justified in so believing, we would need some reasons or argument beyond just the experience of it seeming true that Brenda feels a strong gust of wind when we are nearby Brenda and feeling a strong gust of wind. If we have some good reasons or argument, then we are justified, if we don’t have good reasons or argument, we are not. To me it seems that this thought is false. I shall try to explain why.

Let me compare two propositions.

1. In order to justifiably believe “Brenda also feels a strong gust of wind”, one needs reason or argument beyond the experience of it seeming true while being nearby Brenda and feeling a strong gust of wind.
2. In order to justifiably believe the above proposition, one needs reason or argument beyond it seeming true that one needs reason and argument in order to justifiably believe things like “Brenda also feels a strong gust of wind”.

It seems to me that if (1) is true then (2) is also true. When I feel a strong gust of wind while being nearby Brenda, I naturally form the belief “Brenda also feels a strong gust of wind”. It seems true. I may not know the story of how it happens that it seems that way, and I may not have any independent reasons or arguments for why I should believe it, but it will nonetheless seem true that Brenda also feels the strong gust of wind.

If we want to say we need more than that, I must ask why? What reason do we have beyond some other seeming, a seeming that one needs reason or argument for this or that sort of proposition, for example. But do we have good reason or argument for this, anything beyond a mere seeming?

It seems not, to me.

And so, and in conclusion, the next time you seem to feel a strong gust of wind, you might just ask yourself; does it seem about lunchtime now?