Skepticos

Picklepuss writes:

"In a solipsistic universe, there is no such thing as true or false, real or unreal. There is only 'what is', with every experience as 'real' and 'true', or vice versa, as any other. In a solipsistic reality we could not even conceive of illusions and delusions."

I disagree. Let's pretend that I am a solipsist:

In a solipsistic universe, there is certainly room for such concepts as *true* and *false*. A belief is true if it corresponds to experience, even if that experience does not correspond to a universe external to, and independent of, the mind. The same holds for false beliefs.

Also, there is room to conceive of illusions and delusions. For, there are objects of experience, what I take to be other "persons", who reinforce the nature of my perceptions. For instance, I perceive a chair, and I also perceive other persons who also make reference to that same chair. But, I will also experience persons who do not reinforce the nature of my perceptions, but will contradict them. They will talk about the presence of pink elephants even though I perceive no pink elephants. And since such persons are extremely rare, I am able to conceive that this person is experiencing illusions or delusions.

Thus, I do not believe that your argument for the independence and externality of the universe will be persuasive to the solipsist.

- Skepticos

Skepticos

Mr. Sammi writes:

"Skepticos, in my mind reason is a mechanism of concluding. Reason must have 'information about' in order to 'conclude about'. Information gathered from reality is information about reality and not information about the information gathering process of reality. Without having information about the information gathering process it is clear that no concluding remarks can be made concerning the lack of information EXCEPT that reason cannot 'drive the validity of the senses'. Reason can only drive the validity of the conclusions arrived due to the information recieved from reality. SO you are correct in your claim about the utility of reason."

Mr. Sammi, I agree. =)
Reason cannot assist in answering the question of whether or not our perceptions correspond to an external and independent universe. It can only assist in establishing a correspondent relationship between our beliefs and our perceptions.

- Skepticos

picklepuss

Hi;
But in a solipsistic universe there really is nothing 'external' for anything internal to correspond to. The most there could be is the internal illusion/delusion of something external.

Since the solipsist creates his own universe, it is automatically real and true for him. Since he has no experience of anything he does not create, how could he even conceive of irreality and illusion, let alone set out to try it on himself? And why would he try even attempt to fool himself, assuming that were possible? He would have to be foolish or insane. In which case the universe he creates would have to be foolish and/or insane; stupid, absurd and irrational.But that is not the universe we apprehend.



No, if you are a solipsist you will not experience such persons, since you will not be able to conceive of them, let alone create them.

What you are doing here is assuming that a solipsist can and would have exactly the same experience of reality that we actually do have. You are begging the question. You are refusing to accept the intrinsic limitations of solipsism, that is, that it can only experience that which it creates all by itself, out of its own resources. Because, by definition, it is all there is.

A person suggesting that something is there that the solipsist did not create is proof that solipsism is not in operation, but that that person is in an external world. Or that the solipsist is crazy.


I do not care if it is persuasive to the solipsist, so long as it is persuasive to non-solipsists. So long as the solipsist makes the same wrong assumption that you do, i.e., that in a solipsistic universe all of the experiences of this universe are equally available, then it is impossible to prove anything, since the reasoning, as I pointed out, is circular. The proof is always imbedded in the premise.

Skepticos

Picklepuss writes:

"Since the solipsist creates his own universe, it is automatically real and true for him."

I explained the conception of *truth* in my earlier posts. A belief is *true* if it corresponds to experience. But that experience need not be correspondent to something external to perception.

"Since he has no experience of anything he does not create, how could he even conceive of irreality and illusion..."

I pointed this out in my previous post. For the solipsist, there is an experiential basis for conceiving of illusion and delusion.

"No, if you are a solipsist you will not experience such persons, since you will not be able to conceive of them, let alone create them."

The solipsist will certainly be able to have an experience of another person, but he or she will not make the assumption that you make, which is that the experience of this other person corresponds to an external "other", who resembles and causes the perception of such.

"What you are doing here is assuming that a solipsist can and would have exactly the same experience of reality that we actually do have."

And what else would the solipsistic universe be like? How is it that you have made the determination that the solipsistic universe is soemthing other than the universe you are perceiving?

"You are begging the question. You are refusing to accept the intrinsic limitations of solipsism, that is, that it can only experience that which it creates all by itself, out of its own resources. Because, by definition, it is all there is."

I fail to see the manner in which my thinking here is sophistic. How is it that you come to the conclusion, by reasoning, that what you perceive derives from an external world, and not from some energy of the mind?

"I do not care if it is persuasive to the solipsist, so long as it is persuasive to non-solipsists."

I am a non-solipsist, and I do not find it persuasive.

"So long as the solipsist makes the same wrong assumption that you do, i.e., that in a solipsistic universe all of the experiences of this universe are equally available, then it is impossible to prove anything, since the reasoning, as I pointed out, is circular. The proof is always imbedded in the premise."

Can you explain this argument? Because I am not sure that I understand it. Thanks. =)

- Skepticos

Keith Russell

Skepticos, you said:
"I explained the conception of *truth* in my earlier posts. A belief is *true* if it corresponds to experience. But that experience need not be correspondent to something external to perception."

But, if experience corresponds to something internal, and only internal, what is one perceiving, what is one experiencing, and how would one differentiate between the experience, and the experiencer?

Keith.

picklepuss

In solipsism the notion is that the 'experience' and the 'belief' are the same thing. The solipsist generates the experience. He cannot generate an experience that he does not believe exists.

For a solipsist nothing is external to perception, since he generates all that there is. He cannot generate anything of which he is unaware, and he must be aware of everything that he generates. There are no unknowns for a solipsist.

Asserting is not demonstrating. As I pointed out, you used a metaphor based in everyday experience of our world. I showed that you cannot start from those experiences of which we are aware and assume that they would obtain in a solipsistic world. You must start with the properties of a solipsistic world and then see if they correlate with the properties of our everyday experience. To assume that the experiences of 'world number one'- (in which the observer/self is just a part of an external reality, generated by an unknown independent agent), would be exactly the same as the experiences of 'world number two'- (in which the observer/self is the sole generator of the totality of his own experience) is untenable. For one thing, in 'world one' the observer/self is a mere part of the world. In 'world two' the observer/self is the whole of the world. In 'world one' it is highly possible for a part
( the self) to be ignorant or uncertain of some or all of the other parts, and especially of the world as a whole. In 'world two', (solipsism), the world and the self are one entity. That which the self does not know, does not exist, and so there is no uncertainty. Whatever is apparent, is real. But that is not true for our everyday experience, therefore ours is not a solipsistic world.

Your contention is that we cannot reason to a conclusion on the question of whether or not reality is external to our own consciousness. Put another way, does the world contain the self/observerver, or does the self/observer contain the world? You assume that the self/observer could and would have the self-same experiences either way, and since these experiences are all we have to work with, we cannot reason to any conclusion, (reason being the combination of experience with logic). Therefore the assertion of an independent external reality is no more reasonable than a self-dependent, internal reality. Either assertion would be 'non-reasonable'. But your premise of the sameness of experience is the same as your conclusion of the indistinguishability of the realities.

You cannot reason backwards from the given effects (experiences) to a definite cause. You must argue forward from a hypothetical cause to observed effects. If the 'realist' cause is different from the 'solipsist' cause, (and they are different), then they must generate different effects, that is, experiences. And that is the premise we must start with to avoid begging the question. And that difference is what I have tried to demonstrate.

Sorry for all the vebal run-on, but I'm thinking this out as I go along, and it gets repetitive.

Skepticos

I think that we are talking past each other in this conversation, for it seems our conceptions of solipsism may be different.

Since I make the claim that reason cannot answer the question of whether or not our perceptions correspond to an external world, then it follows that I am asserting that the solipsistic position is as plausible as the realist position. Which is true. Even though I do not hold to the solipsistic position.

I see no incoherency entailed in holding the view that there is nothing external to the mind (even though I do not believe anyone can hold to this view for any length of time). For it is certainly possible that the mind non-volitionally generates a set of experiences that are taken to be a universe which is external to the mind. Some people assert that the solipsist creates the world volitionally; but I see no reason to be constrained to such a view. It could easily be the case that a faculty of the mind creates this world independent of volition, a world to which the conscious mind reacts and interacts. And this is the conception I put forward as a possibility.

I have no problem with conceptions of *belief*, *reason*, *truth*, *falsity*, *illusion*, and *delusion* while maintaining the possibility of the solipsistic view. Assuming that one keeps in mind that the world of experiences is generated non-volitionally by the mind.

I think that so long as we maintain different conceptions of *solipsism* (which is what I think we are doing), then the conversation will invariably reach a stale-mate.

- Skepticos

Skepticos

Keith Russell writes:

"But, if experience corresponds to something internal, and only internal, what is one perceiving, what is one experiencing, and how would one differentiate between the experience, and the experiencer?"

Good question, Keith. I will continue playing devil's advocate (like I said, I am not a solipsist; but I hold that solipsism is possible).

What is one perceiving? Objects originated by some mental process. What is one experiencing? Experiences originated by some mental process. How does one differentiate between experience and experiencer?

It is clear that the subject of perception, by definition, cannot be an object of perception. So, in what sense can we say that we have an experience of the SELF?

As Hume pointed out (to his own dissatisfaction, I might add), we have no impression (a type of perception) of the self when we introspect. We merely come across memories, emotions, the will, etc. And these are constantly in flux. In what sense do we experience an immutable and constant "substance" which underlies the world of perception? Hume concluded that since we do not ever experience such a thing, then the self is nothing more than a bundle of perceptions (his definition of "perception" is more expansive that how it is used today). And he was most dissatisfied with that conclusion. For him, the issue was never resolved to his satisfaction.

The issue of personal identity is a tricky one.

- Skepticos

picklepuss

**
Hi skepticos;

Yes, our conceptions are fundamentally different. Mine is that the solipsist maintains that his universe is entireley 'self', without 'other' of any kind. It is a monist position.

As I understand it, you maintain that for the solipsist there is 'consciousness' and there is 'mind', or there is mind, but it is split into 'consciousness' and 'non-consciousness'. Either way, your position becomes dualist, i.e., self (consciousness), and "other'. Which is little different from the 'independent world out there' view, since as you say, this 'mental other', this 'mind', acts independently of 'consciousness', that is, of 'self', is not generated by 'self', and is in fact unknowable to 'self'. Which means you have turned 'mind' into the external generator of the universe. Not 'my' mind, since I am under its control, and 'it' generates me, my 'self', my 'experiences', and not the other way around. Rather, "Mind" is the ultimate reality, not self.

I, personally, am very much in favour of such a notion, as are many others. But it is not solipsism, as we understand the term.

I guess that's all that I can say about that.

Thanks.

Skepticos

Picklepuss,

I'm glad that you agree that you and I are working with different conceptions. It is true, I conceive of solipsism as dualistic in nature, and I derive such a conception from Hume (as is probably obvious, he is my philosophical hero).

Though you conceive of solipsism in a monistic manner, I entreat you to expand your definition to include a dualistic one as well. There can certainly be multiple varieties of solipsism (e.g., SOLIPSISM A [monistic] and SOLIPSISM B [dualistic]), as there are certainly different varieties of utilitarianism. I checked my philosophical dictionary last night, and some of my philosophy textbooks, and could find no such limitation in their descriptions of solipsism. So that I see that both conceptions can be considered a variety of solipsism.

Thanks.

- Skepticos