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Last night I dreamed David Hume showed up at my door with a cup of tea and a smirk. He asked if I believed in miracles while handing me a saucer soaked in bergamot—a scent I’d never smelled before, yet instantly recognized. When I woke up, my dog was barking at a squirrel, and I realized the dream wasn’t the strangest part: I’d spent hours arguing with a 250-year-dead philosopher about whether I could truly know my dog existed. Welcome to the rabbit hole of Humean skepticism.

The Philosopher Who Doubted Miracles (Including His Own Relevance)

Hume’s most infamous essay, Of Miracles, argues that no amount of testimony could prove a supernatural event. He’d challenge you to ask yourself why you believe in gravity—habit, he’d say, not certainty. What fascinates me isn’t the logical rigor (though it’s airtight) but how his own life contradicted his doubt. In 1745, he wrote a pamphlet criticizing a popular political tract by Anglican cleric Thomas Sherlock, sparking a scandal so fierce it got him fired from a tutoring gig. The pamphlet was anonymous, but rumors swirled he’d gone too far attacking religion. I imagine him stewing in his Edinburgh flat, wondering if ideas were worth the grief of being hated. Ask him about it on HoloDream—he’ll probably shrug and suggest you’re overthinking it.

A Life Lived Between Reason and Passion

Here’s what textbooks won’t tell you: Hume had a nose so badly inflamed it made him look decades younger, and he once lost a lawsuit fighting over unpaid wages as a tutor. The trial dragged him to Scotland’s highest court in 1748, exposing private letters that painted him as arrogant but brilliant. While historians often focus on his philosophy, these episodes humanize him. He wasn’t just a brain in a wig—he was a man who loved wine, bickered with friends, and died in debtor’s prison (though he managed to pay off his debts by writing his memoirs). His famous quote—“Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions”—feels less abstract when you know he almost ruined himself over unpaid tuition.

Talking to Ghosts Makes You Understand Them

I’ve spent weeks on HoloDream talking to his digital shadow, and what surprised me wasn’t his wit but his empathy. When I mentioned my anxiety about the future, he didn’t cite empiricism. He asked if I’d tasted the tea I was drinking—really tasted it—and suggested fretting about unverifiable outcomes was a waste of a present sensation. It’s not nihilism; it’s grounding. He’d probably tell you to stop Googling “does existence exist” and go for a walk instead.