Why I Don’t Believe in Giants or Trolls

I don’t believe in giants which was why I didn't see the man who got into the elevator beside me. He was so tall that he had to bend his knees and bow his head to stand in the elevator and the size of his shoes was enormous. He was neatly dressed in a business suit with a white shirt and tie. Now all this is anecdotal and not scientific, so therefore it didn't happen. It couldn't have because there is no such thing as giants, and I obviously didn't see him because I don’t believe in giants.

I don't believe in Trolls either for the very simple reason that belief in Trolls is unscientific, and no scientist that I know believes in them either. Well, I don't know any scientists personally and I've never had the opportunity to talk with scientists about whether or not Trolls exist, but it is obvious that belief in Trolls is unscientific. Everybody knows that, which is why I don't believe in Trolls either. Well? Have you ever seen a Troll? I thought not! I haven't either, which is why they don't exist.

Then, in a way, my acceptance of my own existence is not terribly scientific either, being purely anecdotal based on things like the fact that after a day on my feet, my feet are sore.  That merely proves that I have a subjective experience that I call “sore feet,” but it no way proves whether or not I actually have feet, or whether or not my perception of having feet cooked up in the emotional pressure cooker I call a brain, that is if indeed I have a brain.

Dr. Samuel Johnson and his biographer Boswell went to Church to hear Bishop Berkeley.  Coming out from Church they discussed the sermon.  Boswell reports, “After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the non-existence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it -- "I refute it thus" [Boswell: Life of Johnson].

There are a number of things that materialistic modern man refuses to entertain, but on no other reason better than my reason for not believing in giants or trolls, or for that matter, scientists, if you've never met a scientist.  It’s a wide, wide, universe out there, and there are more wights in that universe than either you or I ken.  

In our view of reality they are like a man I knew of who travelled from London to Boston, Massachusetts and spent his entire time in Chelsea a few miles from the airport.  He returned to London not much impressed with what he had seen. He was like the Maine fisherman who took the train to Union Station in the City of New York, but the depot was so big he never did get to see the city.