Keith Russell

fando:

It's worse than that.

To the solipsist, nothing exists but the solipsist.

All the functions of his consciousness, including concepts and what we call 'sensory data', are--the solipsist believes--internally/self generated.

Keith.

tronvillain

*shrugs* It is a possibility, but not favoured by Occam's Razor.

Thomas Metcalf

I usually confront solipsism with a pair of very closely related arguments.

The first is simply that it's not at all useful to think of one's mind as the only thing that exists. Such a position raises a host of explanatory questions; why is my experience this way instead of some other way?

The second is more intuitive. If solipsism is true, then, for example, why does it always rain on me? What possible reason would my brain have for annoying me, angering me, and/or saddening me once in a while? There's just some strong intuitive support, I think, for the idea that one's mind would make things a little nicer.

[ November 22, 2002: Message edited by: Thomas Metcalf ]</p>

JP2

Yep, I agree. I think I was being a little bit esoteric with my wording, and that's why you may have misinterpreted me.

When I used the phrase "higher truth" I wasn't referring anything that may exist physically beyond the human condition - in the same way that we may appeal to a god as a said "higher truth" - rather, that they merely choose to deny any truth obtainable via human perception, thus creating a "truth" (or non-truth in a way) that goes beyond that which humanity can ever hope to realize.

In denying the real world, the deny the truth of the senses, creating a dogmatic truth-system of "non-existence". In the same way I may look at a tree and say it exists, they will choose to observe the tree and say it doesn't exist. Both my position and the position of the solopsist represent statements of "truth" (that is, a statement that aims to identify the veracity of any idea or entity) the difference being that while my position concurs with the evidence afforded to me by my faculty of human sense, theirs transcends it in a way, creating a new dogma of non-existence, in the same way that my position could be viewed as a dogma of existence.

Their "higher" truth comes from a position that denies the human condition, and whether you wish to say that they have transended the human condition or subverted it in the process, I would say, is merely a matter of semantics.

I know I haven't explained myself very well, but it's fairly difficult to enunciate with the contraints and ambiguity of the English language and all (the philosopher's cop-out #1 ).

Yes but there's a difference between expanding the human condition - which would seem to be the unstated goal of science and that which you speak of here - and transcending it.

While again it could merely be construed as a matter of semantics, I believe that the phrase "transending the human condition" speaks of going beyond that which is part of the totality of the "human condition" and our own human subjectivity as a whole towards some "new" condition. Solopsism transcends the human condition to a degree, as it denies the main faculties of human existence (those of the senses, our understanding of ourselves as beings in a universe of entirely separate beings and so forth) and instead postulates a truth that could only be arrived at by "going beyond" what we would normally expect to be able to infer from our human subjectivity.

To understand that which is "beyond us" (that which, in a bifurcated conception of the universe, we may refer to as the "external" world) doesn't involve transcending our humanity, as we still approch this "beyond" from a subjective, human perspective, and identify this perspective as the only possible way to comprehend the world "external" to us. Rather than transcending our humanity, and dismissing its potential as a foundation from which to acquire truth, we, in the system of "learning" you describe, utilise our human position as best we can, "expanding" our own conception of our own condition in the process. Thus, we could say, that the scientific goal is geared towards "expansion" rather than "transcendence". The solopsists, on the other hand, would seem to deny the possibility of using the human condition as a means to expand our conception of existence as a whole, and postulate their own truth - that of the "non-existence" of the external world - that goes beyond - transcends - what our human experience would indicate.

Once again, I hope I didn't just make things even more complicated. :-/

I agree, but the difference between skepticism and solopsism is that the former advocates the notion that our experiences can be wrong, while the latter tells us that they are definately wrong.

The approach the same subject from the same angle, but solopsism merely goes one step too far and creates a system of epistemology far more dogmatic than the one it attmepts to eliminate (that the real world exists).

Yep, exactly, and I think that's why it's necessary to distinguish between Cartesian skepticism and solopsism (a la my post on the other board) so as to show how one can doubt the veracity of human experience without dismissing it all together.

Or, indeed, why should we experience anything at all? Why should we accept the solopsist stance that we, essentially, are living an absolute lie?

Keith Russell

"Why should we accept the solopsist stance that we, essentially, are living an absolute lie?"

If there is no valid evidence--or very little evidence--to suggest that the solipsist view is 'right'/'correct', then a rational person should reject the solipsist's claim.

Keith.

gymmarty

Well, while there is little evidence to suggest that the solipsist view is right/correct, there isn't any evidence to say that it is wrong/false!
Which is of course, the main basis of the its argument.
However, I don't subscribe to it purely from a pragmatic point, I've yet to see any utility arise from using this belief system, and I think that is what truly makes it invalid.

JP2

Yeah but I'm not so sure that this problem needs "pragmatic validation" so to speak.

Pragmatism, as I see it in a rather broad sense anyway, is merely the method applied to a problem when the "no solution" solution is unacceptable. So in moral matters, for instance, we may be tempted to apply the pragmatic method where we need a solution, and where other methods - which we could say are used to develop the hypothetical "perfect" response - break down and become unworkable when applied to this specific problem. Or, in other words, we only apply pragmatism when we need a workable solution, and we don't have the time to develop a more perfect solution.

With metaphysics/ontology though, while certain methods frequently break down in the face of such problems, I don't think it's as though we need to rush through a solution as quickly as possible so that we may act on it, as may be necessary in applied moral matters. We lose nothing, really, if we fail to develop a satisfactory problem to the issue of "solopsism", and I think it's mere impatience that would lead us down the "does it work? It'll do then" path of the pragmatic method. Thus, I think don't think that the application of the pragmatic method to problems such as these has any say in the validity of the theory at all - and that's really what we're trying to get at here, the validity of the solopsist theory, not it's utility.

Or maybe I'm just being anal retentive again? <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

John Page

Hi fando!

I'm going to get on my hobby horse by objecting to the use of the words objective and subjective.

I think external and internal would be more appropriate in your posting - I consider the debate of solipsism as separate from relativism, the latter does not deny that we have a common external reality that we experience intersubjectively (i.e. with varying degrees of objectivity).

This interpretation provides a 'world view' that explains why it is possible for one to have a conception of solipsism in the first place.

Cheers, John

Synaesthesia

Right on John! The ambiguity in the distinction provides no end to the confusion because it tempts us to think that the idea is so obvious that no clarification is needed.

gymmarty

nah jp2, you're not being anally retentive. I agree with you, using a pragmative interpretation certainly is an easy cop-out for problems with no forseeable solution(s).
Which is exactly why I subscribe to it for the problem of solipsism!

Of course, I'm sure you'll find this to be a far from satisfactory reply. Though I assume that no one really has anything truly enlightening to say when it comes to solipsism.