Many people dismiss, out of hand, the philosophical position of solipsism. When they hear the word “solipsism”, they immediately laugh in derision. The joke, however, is ultimately on them, as solipsism is the veritable default position in epistemology. Apart from the knee-jerk reactions, it seems like a lot of individuals are ignorant on the subject. Many have this misconception that there is only one form of solipsism, which happens to be some bizzare, radical strain of the philosophy, that posits that the only person who exists is the solipsist himself. This is not, actually, what most philosophical solipsists assert. What they argue is that the only thing that you can, really, be sure of, or have certain knowledge of, is your own conscious experience of existing. You never, actually, experience other people existing (their subjectivity); you merely perceive outward appearances of what are deemed to be other people. It’s conceivable that you could be in a cosmic simulation, a sort of very lucid and well organized dream. The supposed other people, who you perceive, could possibly be phantom projections. This also applies to the universe.
So, with all of this in mind, the true starting point of knowledge is the conscious self. Everything outside of this is questionable in regards to having an objective existence. Questionable, it should be noted, does not mean that solipsists claim that x or y does not exist at all, with certain knowledge. Questionable, literally, means just questionable. It is possible that x or y does exist independently of the mind of the solipsist, but it is also possible that x or y does not exist objectively. This being the case, the only thing that you can know, for certain, of existing is your own self, or mind and the contents thereof.
The conscious mind, or the self, is the default position, the starting point of knowledge.
There are many other philosophical views proposing the above, i.e. from the philosophical anti-realists such as Kant, the Buddha, Protagoras [ “Man is the measure of all things”], and others.
I didn’t see any sort of valid refutation of solipsism in your excerpts posted in this thread. All I saw were, essentially, veiled adhominen attacks and appeals to popularity. Not only this, but the author of those excerpts, basically, reinforced an erroneous conception of solipsism, by focusing on the radical, narcissistic strain of solipsism, which most serious, philosophical solipsists don’t even adhere to.
Legitimate solipsism is not about the phrase “I am the only mind that exists”; that is a gnostic claim that would require the individual to, somehow, climb out of their own mind and objectively look to see if there were other people existing or not. Real Solipsism is, rather, about the phrase “My mind is the only one that I can, unquestionably, be certain of. It’s possible that others minds exist, apart from mine, but there is no way to be 100 percent certain of this.”
Gnostic Solipsism is of the first phrase, “I am the only mind that exists”. It implies certain knowledge of the non-existence of other people, a self-refuting position.
Agnostic Solipsism, on the other hand, and the position that I argue for, does NOT claim certain knowledge of the non-existence of other people. Instead, it posits that their existence is questionable, that they may or may not exist.
I do believe that other people exist, but I don’t claim to know with 100 percent certainty, because I never, actually, experience their subjectivity; I just perceive outward appearances. It’s conceivable that they could be phantom simulations. Hence, their existence is questionable.
The tendency to feel solipsistic is contained within us all when we are absorbed with self, but reality kicks in… like a paused movie that is slowly wound up back into play, and the sound of merry-go-rounds and the sights and smells of the circus can once again be seen and heard… so a fluctuating, but not necessarily fleeting state, if you will.
I think it is defining of new experiences, that take over our senses and immerse us into our selves… a pleasurable PTSD or shock to the system, if you will, that is all-encompassing to the point that it becomes all-consuming… as in the trip to the circus example, of being immersed in the moment, for those few hours and beyond.
Such events aren’t just a trip, they’re a journey, a journey for one… as one’s companion is equally immersed in their own private journey for one.
There is comfort in solipsism, in the fact that one doesn’t have to take another’s whims and wants on, for what is in another’s mind stays in another’s mind.
Solipsism… the natural default setting? rewired… to be not so, by education and vocation for the utility of society.
It seems this point of yours has been swiftly evidenced by the respondents to your thread’s opening post up until this point!
I began exploring Solipsism independently at university, disappointed at the Philosophy of Mind course that I took not even mentioning it - nor even Idealism. Students were expected to either be new and unsure, or Materialists, with Dualism an understandably contentious stance. I don’t think it was too long before I distinguished the epistemological version from the ontological one, and to this day I regard the kind of radical skepticism that sufficiently considers Epistemological Solipsism, to be a necessary depth to properly consider for any philosopher. Any out-of-hand dismissal, that we both notice to be far too common, to me simply suggests poor thinking and an unwillingness to question enough assumptions.
A well-seasoned dismisser of Solipsism would at this point be desperate to joke about two people who appreciate Solipsism agreeing with one other - since in their superficial and stunted understanding, this would constitute some kind of contradiction.
What you have to say is perfectly in line with my own thoughts on the subject, and ought to put to rest any such derision as the kind I just suggested.
In my exploration of the consequences of Solipsism even as far as its ontological application, I realised that if there were to be one mind only, there would be nothing that wasn’t that mind in order for such a mind to identify itself relative to. This leads to the existence of “mind” in general, not belonging to any one individual alone - much like Panpsychism, to which insurmountable problems such as “The Hard Problem of Consciousness” do not apply. If one were to re-consider the possible existence of “other minds” from this point, it takes on a different context, perhaps suggesting that individuals have access to only part of this “mind” monad. I find there’s absolutely no reason to insert, at this point, any religious decoration as no doubt some would be tempted to do - it neither adds nor subtracts anything to the argument. And I find there’s no reason to change one’s idea of real consequences and interactions in order to incorporate such a worldview - afterall “matter” was at first an idea of how to quantise “mind”, before the Materialists inverted this - such that matter was the fundamental substance and mind was some inexplicable consequence of matter (highly unsatisfyingly so in my view). In an effort to bring these two things together, I proposed the fundamental substance of “experience” as a kind of neutral term that implicates both mind and matter, but with an emphasis on matter being a subset of mind, yet also to escape the connotations of mind with some kind of imaginary realm and to keep hold of the reality of existence: as experience. Continuous Experience is the term I use for this mind monad that I mentioned earlier, but re-qualified in the way I just described, continuous because in reality there are no clear boundary lines to separate where one thing ends and another begins. This observation makes speaking in discrete terms in the form of language problematic, so I contrasted this with Discrete Experience that is the compromised conception of Continuous Experience as consisting of discrete things that we can talk about meaningfully. A continuous reality might be more true to experience, but a discrete interpretation of it allows the utility of detailing experience, communicating about it, and manipulating it. It is in this way that I distinguish between Truth and Utility. I call the philosophy, inspired by a synthesis of Essentialism and Experientialism, “Experientialism”.
A very simple notion can discredit your observation, that is ontological reasoning is substantially a prefabrication of future thinking, and it cannot be displaced out of hand to imply to shift reasoning toward future languages of the mind.
Both are part and parcel of an original identity, and the cogito’s failure did not end with rationalism.
In fact esse set percipii developed from an inherent unity from which the later was taken away.
Course this may be dismissed , but under what grounds, is quite unimaginable .
Philosophy of language has an incomplete understanding of it’s changing axiomatic shift. Sense data was an early error by Russell, and that is an example of running into a blind no exit.
A prefabrication of future thinking? How can something (ontological reasoning in this case) be prefabricated in the future?
I’m sorry, Meno, but as usual your syntax is impenetrable to me - the terminology is always fine semantically, but the way you smoosh it together so tightly prevents me from ever getting precisely to the point you’re making - which I am interested in!
If I’m making an oversight, I want to know. But you might need to speak normally.
No problem Silhuette, I’m used to not being understood, and its not fault of Yours.
The prefabrication consists of very early , and also archaic philosophy ; trying to take in and comprehend the problems within the mode of understanding through which, to transmit knowledge.
That knowledge inferred ( and inference became a modal logic based on the future from that era on) was not available at that time.
So, that language of philosophy has little qualifocatipnal resemblance( Wittgenstein - family of resemblances)
to identify any future compatibility as regards to the question of identification of, any transcending objects( objects used in the most general conception or idea then available.)
Hence inclusion of sets, boundaries, within language was presupposed, in line with no empirical understanding of the limitless( as in the spatial temporal underatanding of limitless circumnavigation of the earth because of its spherical shape)
The lack of bounderies coincided with their understanding of the absolute nature of existence.
One cannot dismiss this structural derivitive, otherwise we are guilty of
not using (dx) a derivitive within and how it related/relates to the without.
Without has two meaninga, one implies the idea that one cannot exist without( outside the boundary) while at the same time it means witbout which, as in one depends on the other.
The idea that one can not exist without the other, implies a form of binding relations, and such bound substantially within a transcendent object, has always been accepted , in terms of the archaic notion of basic logic.( either this or that, either or, -the excluding principle)
Coming to a point, this excluding principle coming later than the panpaychism of earlier times , presented a problem, of the excluding middle.
The middle became the object through which transcendence came to figure in, arguments, and led to in modern times with the Kantian and Hegelian issues of modern reasoning.
The point I am trying towel is, that language analysis assumes a lot of this reasoning to be unnecessary. ( logically- so as.to unsubstantiated them, make them not to figure onto the whole picture , which was, after all prefigured ( not as a quality, but a quantifiable modality)
This is, the very era on Russel and Ayer had trouble finding a ground for sense, sense in the sense of establishing a ground, to the idea of mind being sensible/ apprehensible.
Of the ground or the substance, which is based on arguments of necessity, to be dosposed without any functional derivitive, leads to solipsism.
Such solipsism then becomes a prior sw differentiated absolute , that creates an sternal xyxloc2 reaffirmation of trying to create ground for future arguments for it.
That argument is the trap of existential modality to establish the Being, of the original ‘set up’ reason for encapaulating Being and Existence, as it were under the same set.
This is why Sartre called his opus, Being amd Nothingness. rather the Being or Nothingness.
He wanted to reunify, or de-integrate into substantial unity of the two. and it is through such modeliru9 that he foresaw the same thing that archaic philosophers forsaw only in absolute terms, , leading to a pre-figured, all inclusive idea.
They dis not or were capable of talking in terms of none else but identifiable absolutes, and this is the missing link within which we lost the language of inherent meaning.
Language was not merely based on resblance5(Wittgenstein) but on a sensible and commonsensible reality.
Hope didn’t make it even more confusing, but syntax, or patterning of parts of ideas, loose precedents to indocoduall5 constructed bits, of perceiptable meanings.
It is of late, that artificial intelligence has made a necessity of integrating meaning of partial variables, a necessity, rather then accepting a redundancy of total meaning of a narrative, as exclusive of partial association, where that can be substantiated by propositional differentiation of partial associative meaning.
What that does to propositional veracity, is to devalue the meaning based on similarity and simulation. and over come that by evaluation. of associative nexus formed by the newer reintegrative total meaning.
After partial entropy, and a new forming level of redundancy, a language based on similarity, can not function without some model of certainty, and that is the point within and without which solipsism has to , by necessity survive it’s conditional qualifiers.
Silhuette, if You think that philosophy is inauthentic if, one part of the cogito communicates with an older, even archaic modal apparatus, then that will defeat the argument for a holographic representation.of consciousness.
I apologise for having to set this argument on terms of a solipsistic mode, but at least, I merely want to give the impression of where ‘i’ am coming from, of indeed that description would even begin to make sense, in view of the aforementioned