Solipsism

[Mason Riggle]

@Someone here what evidence will you use to verify your evidence?  If I'm dreaming of a table, and in this dream I can see the table, and I can set things on it.. is that enough evidence to conclude that the table exists, or to examine it further? 

[Someone here]

14 minutes ago, Mason Riggle said:

@Someone here what evidence will you use to verify your evidence?  If I'm dreaming of a table, and in this dream I can see the table, and I can set things on it.. is that enough evidence to conclude that the table exists, or to examine it further? 

There are two things. First, you assume that knowing requires sense experience. Secondly..that doesn't entail solipsism like you want it to. The reason why is that just because beings cannot be known to exist outside the mind, it doesn't follow that they don't. That is, just because you don't know p, it doesn't mean p is false.

[Someone here]

16 minutes ago, The Lucid Dreamer said:

No basis for examination? You can examine your own being directly. Right now. Because you are it. It doesn’t get any more empirical than that. What do you think evidence even is? The very concept of evidence begs the question of the existence of “other.” It only has value if you presuppose that there are others who can corroborate your observations. But no one can observe your own being for you.  Can you see that this is a meta-scientific problem? 

But if you want to just throw up your hands and say “It can’t possibly be known, because I have no way to verify it scientifically” then that’s that.  You’ve already failed.  If you keep trying to approach this problem with your conceptual mind, you will never understand.  But it looks like you’ve already decided that no amount of inquiry could be sufficient, and so that will be your reality. 

Of course I'm not a solipsist, but you didn't really put up an argument against it here.  Secondly,if you claim there is a "world outside yourself" you better have good reasons for believing so. The thing is, no one has been able to do it.
 

[Mason Riggle]

@Someone here The phrase 'outside the mind' makes no sense to me. 
 

[Osaid]

I think it's really interesting how, experientially, there is no difference between a reality where solipsism is "true" and a reality where solipsism is "untrue". The only difference is that in one of them you imagine others to have some other existence, and in another you imagine that they don't. The difference is always just what you imagine, it can never come down to anything else. Almost like this idea of "me" and "other" is imaginary or something.

Also, remember, imagination isn't less or more real than any other thing, that's just a hierarchy you're projecting. Your table and your imagination of an apple are equally real. There's nothing that is less real than something else.

[The Lucid Dreamer]

8 minutes ago, Someone here said:

Of course I'm not a solipsist, but you didn't really put up an argument against it here.  Secondly,if you claim there is a "world outside yourself" you better have good reasons for believing so. The thing is, no one has been able to do it.
 

My suggestion is that you stop expecting an argument for or against solipsism and just do the inquiry.  No one is going to be able to argue you into any position on this matter.  The Truth is not derived through debate. 

Edited February 28, 2022 by The Lucid Dreamer

[Someone here]

10 minutes ago, Osaid said:

I think it's really interesting how, experientially, there is no difference between a reality where solipsism is "true" and a reality where solipsism is "untrue". The only difference is that in one of them you imagine others to have some other existence, and in another you imagine that they don't. The difference is always just what you imagine, it can never come down to anything else. Almost like this idea of "me" and "other" is imaginary or something.

Also, remember, imagination isn't less or more real than any other thing, that's just a hierarchy you're projecting. Your table and your imagination of an apple are equally real. There's nothing that is less real than something else.

 

I've tried making a case against solipsism in one particular argument, but it rests on the assumption that the sole existent being would be God. That is,

If solipsism were true, I would be God. But God is a perfect being, and my unknowing whether anything else but myself exists is an imperfection. Therefore, I am not God, and solipsism is not true. (of course this doesn't solve the other mind problem, just that what exists is not dependent on me).


I'm not quite sure if people would be willing to grant that solipsism entails that person being God, though. But characteristically, they seem almost identical. For example, being a necessarily existent conscious being that is the source of all existence.

Edited February 28, 2022 by Someone here

[Someone here]

15 minutes ago, The Lucid Dreamer said:

My suggestion is that you stop expecting an argument for or against solipsism and just do the inquiry.  No one is going to be able to argue you into any position on this matter.  The Truth is not derived through debate. 

Don't give up too early. I think it's a fruitful conversation that we are having.

If a tree falling in a forest without a sound or the proposition that we all live in The Matrix or that there is a teapot floating around in outer space, we really cannot know in the most absolute sense whether these things are the case or not. Indeed, this kind of reliance on absolute knowledge does not just lead to solipsism but rather epistemological nihilism. We can't know anything in the most absolute, impractical sense of the word know. For the same reason we do not behave as complete nihilists, one is wise to not behave as a solipsist. To the degree we can know anything beyond an unreasonable doubt in that we have some degree of empirical evidence for it -- accepting the inherent infallibility of all empirical evidence for anything -- we can accept reasonably that other minds exist besides our own.

[RMQualtrough]

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

Don't give up too early. I think it's a fruitful conversation that we are having.

If a tree falling in a forest without a sound or the proposition that we all live in The Matrix or that there is a teapot floating around in outer space, we really cannot know in the most absolute sense whether these things are the case or not. Indeed, this kind of reliance on absolute knowledge does not just lead to solipsism but rather epistemological nihilism. We can't know anything in the most absolute, impractical sense of the word know. For the same reason we do not behave as complete nihilists, one is wise to not behave as a solipsist. To the degree we can know anything beyond an unreasonable doubt in that we have some degree of empirical evidence for it -- accepting the inherent infallibility of all empirical evidence for anything -- we can accept reasonably that other minds exist besides our own.

"Things" are made of perception. E.g. falling tree = no sound, as the thud is a product of the mind in response to a stimulus... Floating teacup is made of shapes/color (sight) and feel (touch). No teacup symbol when not observed.

Other humans are made of perceptions. You don't actually have a face when you are alone lmfao. Because it's made out of sight, and without a mirror you don't see it (maybe you can see your nose kinda, or eyebrow hairs)... I guess we can feel it... But it's not "looking like" a face until a perception makes it look that way.

Remove all perceiving of other people and see them vanish into nothingness. Imagine standing in a noisy crowded train station...... You go completely deaf, the chatter ends, everything goes silent. You go completely blind, the crowd vanishes.

They are still there, but now you see their true "default" form: Nothingness. Which is I think also infinity... There is nowhere for them to be other than right back here... See all locations and perceptions in general appear to the same field which is itself 100% static. No matter what person it is, they're always going to find themselves static locked "here", and "otherness" seemingly locked in the "out there"... Of course the "out there" is a mental projection as described.

[Someone here]

12 hours ago, RMQualtrough said:

"Things" are made of perception. E.g. falling tree = no sound, as the thud is a product of the mind in response to a stimulus... Floating teacup is made of shapes/color (sight) and feel (touch). No teacup symbol when not observed.

Other humans are made of perceptions. You don't actually have a face when you are alone lmfao. Because it's made out of sight, and without a mirror you don't see it (maybe you can see your nose kinda, or eyebrow hairs)... I guess we can feel it... But it's not "looking like" a face until a perception makes it look that way.

Remove all perceiving of other people and see them vanish into nothingness. Imagine standing in a noisy crowded train station...... You go completely deaf, the chatter ends, everything goes silent. You go completely blind, the crowd vanishes.

They are still there, but now you see their true "default" form: Nothingness. Which is I think also infinity... There is nowhere for them to be other than right back here... See all locations and perceptions in general appear to the same field which is itself 100% static. No matter what person it is, they're always going to find themselves static locked "here", and "otherness" seemingly locked in the "out there"... Of course the "out there" is a mental projection as described.

I think you are conflating the common sense/ordinary/conventional perspective with the philosophical perspective.

In the conventional perspective, the default is the existence of an independent external world and this has survival value and occupy human consciousness most of the time. But this conventional perspective of the senses, empirical evidences, reason (basic and pure) has limitations. This perspective is analogical to say, the Newtonian perspective which has limitations when dealing with relativity or QM. Due to its limitations, philosophers had ventured to explore beyond the conventional perspective, i.e. the philosophical perspective.

From the philosophical perspective, one has to discard the independent external world default of the ordinary perspective and starts afresh. This is why Kant asked for proof of the external world. So far, no one has provided convincing proofs and imo, there will never be any from the philosophical perspective.

The philosophical perspective that holds the existence of an independent external world is 'philosophical realism', objectivism, and physicalism. Note philosophers like Putnam (has since given this up) and many other analytics hold this independent external world view within the philosophical perspective.

It seems to me that even from the philosophical perspective one has to believe for some reason or another that it is ever so slightly more likely that those things that the non-nihilist, non-solipsist believes to be true are in fact true. Indeed because of the lack of proof in the most absolute, philosophical sense, we cannot know in the most absolute philosophical sense that we are not living in The Matrix, on The Truman Show or in a dream world or that certain falling trees do make sounds and that there is no teapot orbiting in the Solar System or that the Solar System even exists in some sense. However, of all those possibilities of which a true nihilist would think just as likely as any that propose the real world exists or that give any reason to make choices that provide survival value, the rest of us decide philosophically that it is ever so slightly more likely that any of the set of possibilities that in some way confirm the so-called real world in such a way that we can know things in the everyday in that we haven't absolute proof but rather evidence that warrants belief on probabilistic grounds are true than all the other possibilities. That's all it takes to not be a nihilist and not a near nihilist solipsist. And out of the philosophical context, of course we don't stand around talking about our beliefs as if they are just some weak probabilistic outlook, but all our words refer to and cares regard the relatively huge differences on that teeny tiny scale of believability that is accessible to us even if it is from 0% more likely than not (i.e. nihilism) as opposed to 1 in a googolplx-googolplexes. This provides complete justification for our everyday belief in the real world.

 

Edited March 1, 2022 by Someone here