why do we enjoy poetry From the perspective of neuroscience?

[Belacqua]

"Philosophical skepticism begins with the claim that the skeptic currently does not have knowledge. Some adherents maintain that knowledge is, in theory, possible. It could be argued that Socrates held that view. He appears to have thought that if people continue to ask questions they might eventually come to have knowledge; but that they did not have it yet. Some skeptics have gone further and claimed that true knowledge is impossible, for example the Academic school in Ancient Greece well after the time of Carneades. A third skeptical approach would be neither to accept nor reject the possibility of knowledge."

Yeah, that all sounds reasonable. So I think it's good that you added "some" to your statement. The quote above indicates that the nature and possibility of knowledge is one of the things philosophers argue about. So the statement that they think knowledge must be certain would be over the top -- they discuss whether or not knowledge must be certain. 

I suspect there are weighty tomes produced by British language philosophers post-Wittgenstein on the differences between "probably" and "possibly." 

My problem with some philosophers (I should have emphasized) is that they take their skepticism too far.  The perfect is the enemy of the good, to paraphrase Voltaire I believe.  At a point, such thinking blurs the line between justified true belief and unjustified false belief.  We might be brains in vats.  A thermostat might have awareness.  Science can't study the mind, or whatever.  Nothing is good enough to go on.  Scientists would waste their grant money if they took the same approach.

But the examples you give aren't cases of skepticism. Granted, they are not questions we really need to solve, but each of them points to a problem in thought that is relevant to more important questions. 

For example, nobody really believes we are brains in vats and no grant money has been wasted on the issue. But if we're talking about the interface between the world and the mind, and how it works, and how much confidence we can have in the accuracy of our mental images, then the brain-in-vats issue is a kind of limit-case thought experiment. What can we point to, exactly, to show that our sensory input is a direct reaction to a real world and not a made-up illusion? Nobody thinks there are evil scientists tricking us. Except Keanu Reeves.

Likewise the thermostat example. This is not a case of extreme skepticism -- it's just a way to differentiate between awareness and reactivity. If I say I must be aware because I react to changes in my environment, then I have to show that my awareness includes more than a thermostat's reaction to its environment. Or some people might claim that the difference between the thermostat's awareness and mine is a matter of degree and not kind. I think that those who hold that mind is purely a result of physical brain activity might have to acknowledge this. Let's just say that it's a simple example people use to talk about the difference between awareness and reactivity, or between degrees of awareness.

Whether science can study the mind is an open question. Or I think everybody agrees we can study it to some extent. But it is a real and interesting question about the limits of the scientific method, which demands repeatable inter-subjective quantifiable data. And personal experience may not supply that. 

So I don't think that what you're talking about here are extreme skeptic positions that deny the possibility of knowledge, or demand that to be called knowledge it must be absolute. These are just easy to imagine cases which demonstrate points in larger problems. 

Even the infamous question about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin can be helpful in this way. (Although it's important to point out that this question was never ever used in genuine theological debate. It was made up in modern times to make fun of people.) It can be useful in showing students the difference between location and extension, which is a genuine distinction to make, and it's a distinction which may even be important in discussion of brain/mind questions.