The Five Minute Hypothesis

Imagine that all of your memories of events before the last five minutes do not correspond to an actual history at all--you were created only five minutes ago, as was the universe, and all of your memories of things before those five minutes were planted in your mind upon your creation.  This idea is called the five minute hypothesis.

The five minute hypothesis is, like the brain in a vat hypothesis or Descartes' evil demon hypothesis, something that can be neither verified nor falsified.  Even if it is true, though, nothing about the way I live changes, even if the ramifications are enormous when it comes to metaphysical reality.  I will prove below that even if such a seemingly unlikely hypothesis is true, I still have the exact same identity, knowledge, and lifestyle that I otherwise would have possessed.

So, on the five minute hypothesis, what remains unaffected about reality and the way I live?  What is still true and what is not?

Even if I and the material world were created only five minutes or a
 single moment ago, "Some things--like logic, mathematics, truth, my own
existence, causality, the uncaused cause, and the past--are utterly
impossible to escape from because there is no way they could
be false or illusions" [1] (Note: by saying the past cannot be an
illusion I mean that there is a past, even if only a single moment of time).

While things like my consciousness, logic, truth, mathematics, the present moment, the past, causality, and the uncaused cause would still exist--and I would still be aware of them and be capable of proving them with absolute certainty--there are portions of my worldview which would have a very different relationship with reality.  An example is my Christianity.  I have committed myself to Christianity on the grounds of probabilism, for there is a great deal of evidence supporting the veracity of Christianity.

And all of that evidence would still exist even if the five minute hypothesis were true--I would still find historical evidence for the existence and resurrection of Jesus, archeological support for the Bible, the internal consistency of the Bible, etc.  However, if the universe was created only five minutes ago, then many components of Christianity would be false, as the Bible details genealogies and timelines that could not have actually occurred.  But it would still be true that since all of the evidence for Christianity remains and I am still aware of that evidence, Christianity would still seem very probable to me.

Now, I will focus on how even if this scenario is true my memories [2] still shape my identity and actions.

Even if the material world, and I myself, was created five minutes ago,
things still appear to be much older--and this is ironically similar to what
some young earth creationists will argue for.

Little to nothing about how I live is affected if the five minute hypothesis is true!  For instance, I remember meeting my best friend Gabi around five years ago.  In the years since we have become very close friends.  But even if our memories of all our previous encounters during those years were fabricated by whatever created me five minutes ago, we would still have the same level of relational closeness and love for each other that we would have had did the remembered past five years actually occur.  Either way, we are still best friends and that remains true regardless of the recentness of creation.

My grasp of language, logic, and everything else is unaffected.  I am just as knowledgable, disciplined, and functional as I would have been had the memories of my past life all actually corresponded to actual previous 21 years of my life.  Any true conclusions I hold are still true, and I am still aware of what my conclusions are and whether or not I can prove them logically, so the five minute hypothesis poses no threat at all to the coherency or veracity of my core worldview and epistemology.  Even if the hypothesis is true, I am still familiar with whatever I am familiar with in the external world, I am still aware of my own inner desires, and I still know my own worldview, with all its nuanced distinctions between points of absolute certainty and probabilistic perception.

These serve as just some of many possible examples of how my life is still functionally the same and I still have the same personal identity even if the five minute hypothesis is true.  Like with the brain in a vat hypothesis [3], even if the five minute hypothesis conforms to reality, my core worldview and epistemology are still inescapably true and my everyday actions remain unaffected.  Seekers of truth need to take these possible scenarios seriously on the epistemological level, but they also need to identify what about reality remains unchanged and the ways that their lifestyle actions remain unaffected--and, in this case, much remains the same even if the five minute hypothesis is true.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/07/thoughts-on-time.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-reliability-of-memory.html

[3].  See here:
A.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/12/brain-in-vat.html
B.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/02/brain-in-vat-reality-remains-unchanged.html