what it is to deceive

In laying out the Deceiving God Hypothesis (DGH), the narrator discusses the possibility of an all-powerful malicious demon deceiving us by leading us to have false beliefs about ourselves and the world. For instance, we may think we have hands and that the sky is blue, but in actuality this is not the case. This possibility in turn should lead us to doubt all our prior beliefs. The question then is raised of whether this argument in turn causes us to doubt the existence of beliefs or thought itself. I find it contradictory that the argument could cause such a doubt. To deceive is to make one believe something that is not true. Beliefs in turn are thoughts. Thus, we could not be deceived if we had no thoughts. In order for the DGH to call thoughts themselves into question, the deceiving god would have to make us think that thoughts were real when they are not in fact real. However, the fact that the deceiving god makes us think this, means there must be some sort of thought to work with. The fact that the deceiving god is all powerful leads people to think that the god could make it so thoughts were not real. Perhaps this is true. However, if the all powerful being made it so thoughts were not real, he could not deceive us because deception requires the deceived being to have thoughts and beliefs. Thus, so long as the malicious demon is attempting to deceive us in all factions of our being, he cannot use his all-powerfulness to negate the existence of thoughts. If he were to do this, we could no longer be deceived.