Can solipsists be humanists?

Can solipsists be humanists?

  • No.
  • I do not know.
  • Yes.
0 voters

I believe that solipsists are not able to be humanists for several reasons. The main reason is that most humans want economical wealth based on technological progression; technology and economy are mainly based on rationality; rationality is mainly negated by solipsists. Solipsists are extreme subjectivists, anti-objectivists, anti-realists, anti-rationalists, even anti-logicians , … nihilists. Merely their own thoughts their own perceptions exist according to them. They are merely believing in their subjective thoughts and their subject perceptions. So they are isolating themselves from all other humans, and this means when it comes to humanism: solipsists are anti-humanists.

This thread is not about ethics. So it is not meant for the discussion whether solipsists are ethically good or evil people. This thread is about the logic behind solipsists and solipsism on the one side and the logic behind humanists and humanism on the other side.

The proposition is that solipsism and humanism are incompatible.

[tab]Ready, steady, discuss!

:stuck_out_tongue:[/tab]

Are people supposed to be humanists?

I voted “no”. Solipsism and humanism are in fact incompatible.

George Berkeley was a solipsist and most certainly no humanist. There are more examples.

And ILP is even teeming with solipsists.

No.

You have to define ‘humanism’ and ‘humanist’ first before you go on to condemn others.
The point that you did not define the terms and by what you have presented you are actually kicking your own backside.

Note the above,
" … today humanism [thus humanists] typically refers to a non-theistic life stance "

Since you are a ‘theist’ [based on what you have posted] it is unlikely you are a humanist.

In addition, Solipsism is an incoherent theory,
iep.utm.edu/solipsis/#H7
Have you read and argue against it to insist your continual use of ‘solipsism’.

But in your ignorance of the above and your insistence in labeling others as solipsistic, your views are actually solipsistic. See my proof here.
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=193716

Prismatic, you are one of the ILP examples I spoke of, since you are a solipsist, as you and many others have proven, and you claim to be a “humanist”. You have also said that you believe in “multiple realities” which are schizophrenic delusions.

And this explains everything about you and your religion.

You are a solipsistic theist believing in the “humanity” god of multiple realities for each solipsist. And each strawman is your angel.

And the fact that you are ignoring everything besides you has to do with the reason why you can live as a solipsist in multiple realities: schizophrenic delusions.

I couldn’t say that it is impossible for a solipsist to also be a humanist. Even though the solipsist believes that he is the only real existence, what he imagines in his mind still holds value to him. Even in a dream, one can care about the fairy unicorn. So if the solipsist in question happens to dream that his fairyland people are the highest power in the universe, then he would still be a humanist, just another silly one.

Are solipsists any less rational than objectivists?

Seems to me, both possibilities are about equally likely.

The Solipsist’s epistemological position is such that one cannot directly know that others experience the same consciousness that they do, or at all. They still experience “people”, it’s not like “everyone else” suddenly disappears - you’re not “the only one in the world”. Even as an ontological position, at the very most you’re the only conscious person in the world.

As such, the entirety of your existence, to you, including your conception of a reality independent of your consciousness, is within your consciousness. There’s nothing else to be distinguishable from, in order to define your identity. Everything becomes what you see as you, as just another part of your conception of “you”. You even come to realise that there is nothing against which to define even yourself, so even that slips away. There just “is” experience. It doesn’t belong to anyone. It just appears to be centred within a particular experience of a body and not particular experiences of others.

When all is part of the same experience: “others”, “yourself”, “the rest of the world” - everything is one in one big connection. Why wouldn’t you be a humanist if all was humanity and humanity was all seamlessly inter-connected with everything? People talk about experiences like this on hallucinogenics or through religion - all you need is a proper analysis of Solipsism to its logical conclusion, which is only really a strict and uncompromising approach to knowledge: the only true Skepticism.

You can still do things that (what you see as) other people tell you that they experience as preferable, and in that sense you’re being a humanist whether or not their reactions are some kind of obejctive truth. Some of them will even reciprocate, whatever they are - even if they are just hallucinations, they are as much human as you will and can ever know as a Solipsist.

Solipsism is so much of a taboo, people don’t even dare to stop to think about it - you’re all so quick to dismiss it. Of course it’s compatible with humanism.

having the thought experiment, wondering about solipsism at some point is not a problem. If you have that position much of the time, you can’t be much of a humanist because you are up in the thinky, detached, cut off, OCD corner of your brain and not much of a human, humans being social mammals with limbic systems and intimacy with the world. As far as the OP much depends on how humanism is defined. The kind of thinking that leads to solipsism comes out of empiricism - though it can be reached by other routes like Hinduism or Buddhism, but those systems push love and compassion respectively to offset damage from solipsistic thinking. I think there are still problems with those systems, but as opposed to the kind of ‘rational’ Westerners who are solipsists, those systems recognize a potential incredibly damaging side effect. The modern ‘scientific’ empiricist, especially those who identify themselves as skeptics and who spend a lot of time arguing with or bemoaning the existence of people who believe things they do not are an outgrowth of humanism. The humanism that began to set itself in contrast with Abrahamic religions, while not noticing what it had in common with them: a hatred of nature. Of course many people who identify as humanists are fighting very hard to save nature, and others love at least parts of human nature (mentioned because I meant nature in a very broad sense, opposing the monotheisms and their offshoot humanism in contrast with, say, pantheisms, shamanist centered practices, etc.) But yeah, if you are up primarily in that verbal corner of your brain and think that is you and think you arrived at your beliefs, unlike all those you consider irrational via the good forms of empiricism only, you can’t be much of a humanist, becuase you are a partial person. Yes, as Sil above says, a solipsist is not precluded from doing things that non-solipsists do, but their cut offness, and confuses about how they reached their conclusions and what could be called metaphorically left brain containment makes them the kind of clever judgmental anal cut off smug ‘husbands’ (be they man or woman) to partners they consider irrational, but who in fact use more of their brains than the really quite damaged solipsists.

I also explained how thinking through Solipsism beyond the usual shallow presumptions about it turns Solipsism into a profound connectivity amongst all humanity, because it requires that you discard even the notion of “you”, never mind the notion of you-as-disconnected-from-the-rest.

It has the exact opposite effect to what you are describing.

I’m always skeptical about people speaking of using more or less of their brain, as though they’ve been doing experiments measuring brain activity - statistically not a common past-time. Everyone uses all of their brain unless part of it is damaged, even though it’s true that some parts are less stimulated than others in comparison to other brains, when exposed to different stimuli. And not all of it is entirely “listened to” courtesy of the frontal lobe. The whole process of rationality is based around this concept, so you could argue that an irrational person is listening to more of their primal impulses and thus using part of their brain more than a rational person, but clearly you’ve missed the point if you attempt to do so. The quality of outcome matters - and the frontal lobe has a lot to do with social behaviour too. Less rational people are not going to be as socially adept as those whose impulses are moderated in a more optimal way. I assume that there is also such a thing as behaviour that’s too inhibited by this very same process, causing too much reservedness, but awkwardness, anxiety and other symptoms of those who are socially withdrawn is a lack of control over your amygdala and the rest of your limbic system. You could argue that an asocial person is using more of their brain in this sense - it really isn’t accurate or meaningful to speak in such terms. You also speak of “left brain” thinking, which is fine if you’re just speaking colloquially, but neuroscientifically it’s pretty outdated.