13. I'm aware of the impossibility of proving a posteriori knowledge.

To the chagrin of many economists, it is a truth less than universally acknowledged that statistics can never actually prove anything. All they are capable of is demonstrating some consistency of conjunction between different events. They always stand the chance of being refuted by some brute fact.


If anyone paid attention when being taught about the inductive paradox, they'd soon realise this. After all, no matter how many white swans one sees, the potential for a black one to fly overhead makes generalisations about the colours of swans based solely on experience obviously unreliable.

Thus it is with many assumptions and inferences. And thus to all the people who pointed out that they were better than me because they had a girlfriend and I didn't (lesbian or not) pay attention at the back, the fact that being better than somebody who has a lesbian girlfriend neither affirms nor denies that one has a girlfriend oneself.

More importantly, if you thought you could defeat me with reference to facts about the world, when it's quite clear that any attempts to do so presuppose the possibility of definite and unimpeachable a posteriori knowledge where the knower can themselves be quite secure as to knowledge of those facts being true, then you're deluded. And thus once again, I'm better than you.