Solipsism

[Nick316]

What do you guys think of this?

The basic idea is: nothing is proven to exist except for your own mind. We can't really be sure if anything outside of our mind even exists. Everything could be merely a figment of our own imaginations. It is both irrefutable and indefensible.

I've thought about this for a while before. It is a really interesting concept.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

What do you guys think of this?

The basic idea is: nothing is proven to exist except for your own mind. We can't really be sure if anything outside of our mind even exists. Everything could be merely a figment of our own imaginations. It is both irrefutable and indefensible.

I've thought about this for a while before. It is a really interesting concept.

I think it's taking epistemic certainty to its limits, and all we know with 100% certainty is our own existence (I know mine, you know yours), and we can in principle know the laws of logic (and thus mathematics). That's all we can know with 100% certainty.

But since the existence of everything else can be substantiated to 99.9999% certainty, though, that's good enough for me

 

[Gadarene]

It's the antidote to presuppositionalism, which is a particularly silly theological notion.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

It's the antidote to presuppositionalism, which is a particularly silly theological notion.

*Wikis"

Pfffhahaha

 

[Gadarene]

*Wikis"

Pfffhahaha

I know, right?

 

[Paradoxum]

Well I would disagree that you can know that your mind exists. You can only know that you experience things. You may not be the source of your thoughts, you may only experience them.

You can either suppose a very powerful and creative subconscious which creates this world, or suppose that the world exists. Other people act like I do, so it seems fair to think they are real like me. I understand how other people could be like me. It is harder for me to understand how a my subconscious could create the world.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Well I would disagree that you can know that your mind exists. You can only know that you experience things. You may not be the source of your thoughts, you may only experience them.

Experiencing thoughts is the definition of 'thinking', whether they emerge from your own cognition or somewhere else (e.g., your subconcious).

 

[Paradoxum]

Experiencing thoughts is the definition of 'thinking', whether they emerge from your own cognition or somewhere else (e.g., your subconcious).

Some people seem to think that they produce their thoughts at will though.

 

[Davian]

What do you guys think of this?

The basic idea is: nothing is proven to exist except for your own mind. We can't really be sure if anything outside of our mind even exists. Everything could be merely a figment of our own imaginations. It is both irrefutable and indefensible.

I've thought about this for a while before. It is a really interesting concept.

I don't really see the point in it, particularly when used in the "solipsism, therefore (insert personal wishful thinking/deity/worldview)"

Even if I were just a brain in a vat, or existed as a simulation in a supercomputer, I could still observe the world I perceive around me. Hypothesize, test, falsify, repeat. If the properties of this world appears to be consistent, then build on that (falsifiable) assumption, and carry on.

So, less irrefutable, more irrelevant.

Did you have something in mind that this concept might be useful for?

 

[Eudaimonist]

The basic idea is: nothing is proven to exist except for your own mind. We can't really be sure if anything outside of our mind even exists. Everything could be merely a figment of our own imaginations. It is both irrefutable and indefensible.

I've thought about this for a while before. It is a really interesting concept.

While an interesting concept, it's a waste of time.

It's pretty much a philosophical dead end, and I think it more reasonable to accept that our life experience gives us plenty of cause to accept that an objective reality exists and that there are other aware individuals present. Even if we can't disprove solipsism on its own uber-skeptical terms (it denies even sense experience as evidence against), on balance anti-solipsism is the way to bet.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Catherineanne]

What do you guys think of this?

The basic idea is: nothing is proven to exist except for your own mind. We can't really be sure if anything outside of our mind even exists. Everything could be merely a figment of our own imaginations. It is both irrefutable and indefensible.

I've thought about this for a while before. It is a really interesting concept.

Dr Johnson was asked by his biographer, Boswell, about this one when they were walking in Scotland, I think it was, and invited to comment on it. In reply he kicked a huge rock, and said, 'I refute it thus!'

Anyone who is unsure of the reality of the world around him would be well advised to do the same.

 

[Gottservant]

What do you guys think of this?

The basic idea is: nothing is proven to exist except for your own mind. We can't really be sure if anything outside of our mind even exists. Everything could be merely a figment of our own imaginations. It is both irrefutable and indefensible.

I've thought about this for a while before. It is a really interesting concept.

When only you experience it, it is nowhere.

 

[Eudaimonist]

When only you experience it, it is nowhere.

What is nowhere?


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[quatona]

It's pretty much a philosophical dead end

Even worse, it´s practically a dead end.

 

[Gottservant]

What is nowhere?


eudaimonia,

Mark

I find this unhelpful.

 

[Eudaimonist]

I find this unhelpful.

I'm asking for clarification. When you wrote: "When only you experience it, it is nowhere", what did you mean? Please elaborate.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Paxton25]

I'm asking for clarification. When you wrote: "When only you experience it, it is nowhere", what did you mean? Please elaborate.


eudaimonia,

Mark

This is Descartes 101 if anybody cares. To say that ''when you experience solipsism, it is nowhere'' is to experience the boundaries of Descartes' 2 absolutes onto which he began to build his ''Cathedral of Knowledge'' (with reason, Age of Enlightenment).

1) I have thoughts
2) I exist
3) ''I think, therefore, I am'' is as far as you can go with 100% certainty before having to rely on sensory perceptions (which could be deceptions by an 'evil demon').

Think sensory deprivation tank; think full, latex body suits that cover your entire face. It's not that great.

 

[Gottservant]

Thanks Paxton25, for your help there. You came close to drawing the connection I want to make and I think you explained your point well.

I'm asking for clarification. When you wrote: "When only you experience it, it is nowhere", what did you mean? Please elaborate.


eudaimonia,

Mark

When only you experience it, the information has the smallest possible value to you as a function of experience, since it is not likely to encounter any other variables in the act of being processed and therefore, as a function of experience, not likely to have an experience added to it. The only place something can exist and not have experience added to it, is a place with no value itself, that place is nowhere.

When only you experience it, it is nowhere.

Put another way, when the signal that correlates experience, with your person, in your brain, is firing and you don't relate the signal to anything else in your brain, the signal dies. When the signal dies in your brain, it goes to the place where all signals die out: nowhere in your brain.

When only you experience it, it is nowhere; when only you feel the signal, the signal is fading.

This is the directionality of experience. To reverse this directionality, you must share your experience and so enter into a determinative relationship with the world, that restores the information to a meaningful place. In your brain, this means putting a signal somewhere where it will have an effect.

When everybody experiences it, it is right there.