Jobar

This is not going to be as polished as some of my posts, probably; my ideas here are new to me, and may be full of holes.

A number of threads here in EoG lately have gotten me to thinking about solipsism. I told Kent, for instance, that my only presupposition was a rejection of solipsism, and that I assumed an objectively real external universe, which our senses report to us with some fair degree of accuracy.

I have always understood that solipsism is one of those things which can't be logically refuted- there is no way to fairly prove, to the satisfaction of anyone arguing for it, that they are plainly incorrect.

It has occurred to me to ask, how would a solipsist explain himself to himself, and how would he deal with his own experience? Of course, he says it is all internal and subjective- his incredible imagination creates all his seemingly external perceptions.

Now, try to imagine the POV of a firm solipsist. You are certain that nothing external is any more real than your dreams and thoughts. Now, let's try to build on this. You *do* have thoughts and dreams; there are things you perceive going on in your head. Let's say you are rational enough to enjoy the pleasant things, and to dislike the painful ones- you prefer sexual fantasies to nightmares. Therefore, you wish to increase the frequency of the pleasant and decrease the unpleasant. Given these premises, your behaviour will be indistinguishable from those of a rational non-solipsist!

You experience of things 'inside your head' includes the fact that there appears to by a 'you' which interacts with an 'outside'. These interactions are occasions for pleasure or pain; if you wish to maximize the pleasure, you rapidly learn not to take things away from the 'other people' thought-forms because they may strike you or otherwise cause you pain. A pragmatic and rational solipsist would even develop morals- I'm not sure just how noble those morals would be, but I can't see how they would be necessarily less noble than the highest ethical systems known to us non-solipsists.

Thoughts? Am I re-inventing the wheel here, and this method of refuting solipsism is common? I have never seen it (or perhaps I am only just now dreaming it up! )

Oh, if any of my fellow mods think this is more suited to the Philosophy forum, move away. (Although it will eventually relate to theism and pantheism.)

Keith Russell

Greetings:

When one experiences a true break with reality, we no longer call them a 'solipsist'.

We call them 'psychotic'.

Solipsists still operate under the belief that, whether reality is 'real' or not, they ought to deal with it as if it were.

Keith.

abe smith

WELL PUT, Keith! You've dealt w/ that succinctly, much better than I could've; & many thanks for your having saved me the labor, guy!

joedad

Makes sense, or else a solipsist would quickly self destruct via the "external."

The "external" imposes itself on the unwilling solipsist, now psychotic, and prevents this self destruction in many cases. If the "external" were not real, how could this be possible, and in the case of unintended destruction, from a purely solipsistic perspective, how could the "external" terminate the solipsist?

I suppose this is the nature of a psychosis.

joe

edited to add:

But I think I see where you're going, Jobar, as the theistic solipsist already has the "external" agreeing with him that his professed immortality is not a psychosis at all, at least in many, if not most cases. IOW, even if you, the external, destroy me, you have not destroyed me, and many of you agree with me anyway....

Very interesting.

[ September 11, 2002: Message edited by: joedad ]</p>

VirusInTheSystem

quote: Now, try to imagine the POV of a firm solipsist. You are certain that nothing external is any more real than your dreams and thoughts. Now, let's try to build on this. You *do* have thoughts and dreams; there are things you perceive going on in your head. Let's say you are rational enough to enjoy the pleasant things, and to dislike the painful ones- you prefer sexual fantasies to nightmares. Therefore, you wish to increase the frequency of the pleasant and decrease the unpleasant. Given these premises, your behaviour will be indistinguishable from those of a rational non-solipsist!
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Imagine a person who was born sleep, and stays asleep his entire life, completely unable to awake. Now in this sleep is a long and convincing dream, which the dreamer takes to be "reality". Then over the course of the dream, he begins to suspect it might not in fact be "real", but some kind of dream (he becomes lucid in other words).

But he also knows that it is a dream that he can not simply walk out of. Also, he knows that whatever he does in the dream will still affect the rest of the dream. If he kills his mother in the dream, she will remain dead, because this dream has certain set principles and boundries. Dead people have never come back to life magically in this dream before.

So since he will have to "live" with the consequences of whatever he does in the dream, it would only make sense that he'd still act rational and "moral".

Because he knows that the dream is his reality. Although it might not be the "ultimate" reality, it is a reality that he can't change. It's *his* reality. So for all practical purposes, it *is* reality... for as long as he is in it. So he will remain careful not to shatter whatever life he has in his dream reality.

-justin

Cretinist

This is certainly debatable. Wittgenstein's <a href="http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/p9.htm#privl" target="_blank">Private Language Argument</a> may be a potential disproof of solipsism.

Primal

The thing about solipsists is that they think only things percived are real but then what about the perciever and his or her means or percieving? By what mechanism is he or she percieving and is he/she creating the perceptions or are the perceptions beyond his/her control? If they are being created by the self, then by what percieved means? If they are beyond his or her control, again, can we percieve the mechanism controlling perceptions? If not then these mechanisms cannot exist, but then where do perceptions come from? It doesn't seem that they apear randomly, but then again can we see the dtermining forces or fundamental randomness? If not how can either exist?

I notice here people speak of rational solpists, but how can the *rational* be percieved in solipsism; what perception is the *rational* or a *rational*? Also how do solipsists explain both change and uniformity in variation? Or why perceptions change, this would require some sort of unseen mechanism,(unless you can show me a perception called *change* and such) but the existence of anything unseen would refute solipsism.

Lastly how do solipsists explain the origin of the perciever if he/she could only exist if percieved? The only way out of that is to say the perciever lived for ever, but could they see *eternity*?

All these questions serve to make solipsism a a somewhat incoherent position that is also very dualistic, where there must at least be a divide between perceptions and the perciever with no clear bridge between this gulf in site.

[ September 18, 2002: Message edited by: Primal ]

[ September 18, 2002: Message edited by: Primal ]</p>

Kantian

Since there have been no true "advances" (as in a form of rebuttal or answer) on Wittgenstien in 50 years or so, it's safe to say that this "disproof" is no longer potential, but actual. Whether a brilliant rhetorican may come back with a witty repartee remains to be seen, but as far as I am concerned, it was the death knell of Cartesianism, as well as any of its solipsistic imitators.

~Transcendentalist~

[Edited to add: Since the limits of my world is my language and it is cursed with horrible grammar, what does that make my world? ]

[ September 19, 2002: Message edited by: Immanuel Kant ]</p>

Kantian

Apparently i spoke too soon! Here's an <a href="http://www.philosophos.com/philosophy_article_27.html" target="_blank">interesting link on a potential answer to Wittgenstein, in the defense of solipsism.</a>

Jobar

I started this thread because I thought I might possibly have a new approach to disproving solipsism- an endeavor which I have always seen as the 'Mt. Everest' of philosophical problems. After much thought, and reading the replies here, I realize this is just another aspect of the pragmatic disproof, which is not really a disproof at all.

Pragmatically, I don't know if there is any real difference between a solipsistic, theistic, or atheistic worldview. If we try to live our lives to maximize the positive experiences- happiness, pleasure, love, intellectual satisfaction- and minimize the negatives, I can't see what difference our ultimate beliefs make. (I'm speaking here of consistent pragmatism, which very few attain.)

Of course a rational solipsist attempts to maximize his own happiness. But this is equally true for the rational holder of any other belief or disbelief, so although it might be that this approach might be used to demonstrate the ultimate equality of all worldviews, it won't do as a specific attack on solipsism.

Oh well...

[ September 19, 2002: Message edited by: Jobar ]</p>