I finally understand solipsism!

[Someone here]

@Inliytened1 lock it please  .

[Carl-Richard]

5 hours ago, Someone here said:

@Carl-Richard keep playing these intellectual games and you will never awaken. 

I like to think I started to play the intellectual games afterwards 😊

 

5 hours ago, Someone here said:

 Yes . Others appear as if they are  conscious. But is that enough evidence that they are conscious?

It's not "evidence" in the sense that you're literally experiencing their thoughts and feelings right now, but it's a reasonable logical conclusion. However, by the same token, things only appear like you're the only conscious person in existence (and I'm not being facetious when I say this). This is actually what is happening: you're taking appearances (people, eyes, chairs) and making a conclusion about the relationship between these appearances. I'm saying you're making a semi-stingy conclusion for seemingly no good reason. If you want to be really stingy, stick with direct experience: don't even grant the legitimacy of appearances.

 

5 hours ago, Someone here said:

People in your dreams also appear to be conscious..does that make them conscious?

I've said this before: I actually believe it's reasonable to conclude that people in your personal dreams are conscious, because you do essentially the same logical steps to conclude that other people in real life are conscious. I think the reluctancy to conclude this has to do with materialistic assumptions in the culture (dreams only occur "inside your head") and also with the moral implications ("did I actually make somebody suffer in that dream?"). There are also empirical clues pointing to this: people with dissociative identity disorder report having different alters being present as dream characters in the same dream and experiencing the dream from different perspectives (each alter reports this when the person is awake). It's not undeniable evidence, but it's really curious.

 

5 hours ago, Someone here said:

Yes you talk and others talk . You eat and others eat .you go to the bathroom and others go to the bathroom etc.

You did not definitively prove that others are having a conscious experience because the same behaviour happens from others in your dream (all these correlations you mentioned).

You did not definitely prove that you're the only conscious person either. You've only adopted a pseudo-position of conceptual parsimony and falsely claimed that this is the the bottom layer of conceptual parsimony (which it isn't), which is the only reason you would do such a thing (because you somehow claim the philosophical highground by being the most parsimonious position, which is itself is also an assumption, but oh well). I think you would not be so convinced of your own position if you had admitted that it's not the most parsimonious position. You would then instead probably open yourself to other criteria for evaluating your ontology (e.g. explanatory power), granted that you care about rationality, and poof — no more denying other people's experiences (probably).

 

5 hours ago, Someone here said:

Solipsism is one of the most powerful Epistemological positions. And yes it minimises unnecessary assumptions. Which makes it all more powerful . You have not disproved it yet in the slightest. 

It is if you do it right and don't unconsciously smuggle conceptual assumptions. If you do that, then you end up with direct experience, or the inconveniently named "Absolute solipsism". I've tried to qualify along the way that solipsists "tend" to do the unconscious smuggling, because some people call themselves solipsists and don't do the unconscious smuggling (something which for example Leo seems to fall under). My frustration with him calling it solipsism is exactly because of this distinction: many people do the unconscious smuggling when the concept of solipsism is brought up (mostly due to culturally inherited assumptions, like with dreams) and are bound to misunderstand what is being communicated.

 

5 hours ago, Someone here said:

I don't understand what you are saying here .

You bought a Lamborghini, but you're unconscious of this and think you bought a pedal-driven tricycle, and then you awkwardly limit your top speed to 20 mph (downhill if you're lucky). I'm trying to show how unreasonable it looks to unconsciously smuggle conceptual assumptions while also claiming bedrock parsimony. In reality, you're inhabiting a pseudo-position of parsimony; half-assed parsimony. I'm saying that if you acknowledge that this is the position you're in, you should re-evaluate your priorities, or more specifically your meta-theoretical criteria for constructing your ontology, e.g. optimizing your explanatory power. Because if you've given up the throne of supreme parsimony, then you have a lot less to lose by bumping up things like explanatory power.

 

5 hours ago, Someone here said:

What assumptions are the solipsist making  ? It's self-evident that you are having a conscious experience and that everything (including objects ..time ..space..others etc) have no reality or substance outside of your experience. 

You close your eyes..the visual field goes poof . You go to sleep ..the entire universe goes poof 

Your kind of solipsist assumes (among other things) that the way your eyes are oriented in space have a bearing on your ontology, that the way you relate to other human beings have a bearing on your ontology, that the way you experience your bodily sensations and mental activity have a bearing on your ontology, etc. Again, you're assuming space, time and objects, and you're making logical conclusions based on those. This is not self-evident (in the sense of it being baseline reality independent of assumptions), because you can inhabit a reality beyond space, time and objects (and you can get thoroughly acquainted with it even while immersed in so-called spatio-temporal reality — it's called enlightenment).

Edited December 31, 2023 by Carl-Richard