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Frozenworld wrote:I dunno some people make some rather convincing arguments for solipsism:
https://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/4846074/fpart/1/vc/1
Frozenworld wrote:And he seems rather convinced that he has refuted several claims against his views: https://www.bernardokastrup.com/p/policy.html
Frozenworld wrote:And when I was briefly in the discussion board there seemed to be lots of evidence that his followers gave to support that consciousness survives death, though I questioned the reputability of such sites.
Frozenworld wrote:there seemed to be lots of evidence that his followers gave to support that consciousness survives death, though I questioned the reputability of such sites.
Cito di Pense wrote:What you're doing here is JAQing off, asking idle questions without giving any thoughts of your own. One suspects you have none you wouldn't be embarrassed to reveal.
Frozenworld wrote:I dunno some people make some rather convincing arguments for solipsism:
https://www.shroomery.org/forums/showfl ... art/1/vc/1
Perception? What IS he perceiving? Where is the experience coming from?To all those that are quick to negate the philosophy that nothing exists outside of one's own perception
People argue that solipsism is useless and obviously false because it would mean that you're talking to yourself (as if that makes the experience any different). They say it "degrades" other people, that it's an obviously illogical philosophy because it would somehow assert "you" over "them".
In vivid dreams I've had, people have had strong arguments. I've had pity for others in the dream, argued with them, fought with them, even mourned for them, all with the pure conviction that these people were real. Yet in the morning I would wake up and realize that the arguments people made for their own existence said nothing about the truth of solipsism itself.
Solipsism is the simplest explanation not because it takes dissent out of the picture, as it does not; dissent remains the same, and people will still argue against you, as they would in a dream. The true source of solipsism springs from the fact that we never verify someone else's consciousness or thoughts as an actual experience. In a dream, they all appear to have their own consciousness and thoughts, but actually they are just two-dimensional actors in a temporary play, and no matter how convincing they are, the emotional convictions we experience in a dream in no way make the people in the dream real.
Yet somehow, as soon as people wake up and turn off their alarm clock, they believe the experience shifts radically. Of course you're the only person in the dream, but this is now, and we have logic and thoughts, right? But we come back to the same point we were at in a dream; we are only acting on our subjective emotional conviction, and not any actual evidence. One could theoretically create artifical intelligence that mimicked human intelligence, emotions and thoughts, even arguing aptly for its own consciousness and vehemently denying solipsism, without actually being real.
All philosophies that assume others have consciousness, emotions or experience rely on leaps of faith, assumptions and emotional convictions. This is, of course, more than good enough for most people; they try to logically justify it, always ignoring the persistent fact that they can never actually know whether anyone else has consciousness because they can never experience it, and in fact their own experience has taught them that, in a postmodern sense, there is no difference between "real consciousness" (if such a thing exists) and a mimicking character in a dream.
So before you think that just because "college freshmen joke about solipsism" that it is ridiculous and lacking evidence, perhaps you should try waking up and seeing if the college freshmen are even there. Indeed, there is no way to know, so based on our experience and Occam's razor, what is the more logical philosophy here? Just as one shouldn't be so quick to be defeated by illusions in a dream, one should also question this waking dream we experience everyday and try thinking about what we actually know about the actors that would be the first to silence our questions.
Any type of sensory input. We divide this sensory input into categories such as sight, touch, sound, smell, etc. What we fail to acknowledge is that this classification of the senses is merely constructed and all sensation that we experience is just that, experience. It is difficult to define sensations because when we peel back the layers and look to their essence, there is nothing to be found. There is nothing other than the immediate totality of your perceptual state of being. This remains so whether or not you accept solipsism.
I'd also like to point out how alarmingly consistent the tenets of solipsism are with the theories of quantum mechanics, namely, "the observer determines the outcome of the experiment." How could this possibly be so if not looked at from a solipsist viewpoint?
The same goes for the "we are all one" philosophy preached by Buddhism and other Eastern religions. In the solipsist sense, we are all one because everything exists within the single individual perception. If this is not so, then that immediately falls apart, because we are simply not all one. I am not the people who are replying to my post, I am the person that is typing this one. There is nothing to suggest otherwise because the only perception I have ever experienced is my own.
I suppose sensation is being as opposed to not being. Without sensation, there is nothing, which is inconceivable to the conscious mind. Stop moving completely for a moment, stop thinking, do not attempt to rationalize anything and just be still. Your state of being at that time will be the only thing in existence from your perspective, to assume that anything else is existing will require faith. I guess I can't give you a concrete answer because you are still presupposing that you are experiencing a "thing." Why does this have to be so? When you tear down the labels and rationalizations behind everything you'll find there is no longer any point of reference, and no coherency. You are left with nothing but the sensation of your own isolated perception, with no clear source or meaning in sight.
laklak wrote:There's no bloody reason to get up and go to work on Monday morning.
Frozenworld wrote:I'll quote a few pages from the forum link, also it's not the whole thread just the replies from the OP which is only the first 7 pages (I read it):People argue that solipsism is useless and obviously false because it would mean that you're talking to yourself (as if that makes the experience any different). They say it "degrades" other people, that it's an obviously illogical philosophy because it would somehow assert "you" over "them".
In vivid dreams I've had, people have had strong arguments. I've had pity for others in the dream, argued with them, fought with them, even mourned for them, all with the pure conviction that these people were real. Yet in the morning I would wake up and realize that the arguments people made for their own existence said nothing about the truth of solipsism itself.
Solipsism is the simplest explanation not because it takes dissent out of the picture, as it does not; dissent remains the same, and people will still argue against you, as they would in a dream. The true source of solipsism springs from the fact that we never verify someone else's consciousness or thoughts as an actual experience. In a dream, they all appear to have their own consciousness and thoughts, but actually they are just two-dimensional actors in a temporary play, and no matter how convincing they are, the emotional convictions we experience in a dream in no way make the people in the dream real.
Yet somehow, as soon as people wake up and turn off their alarm clock, they believe the experience shifts radically. Of course you're the only person in the dream, but this is now, and we have logic and thoughts, right? But we come back to the same point we were at in a dream; we are only acting on our subjective emotional conviction, and not any actual evidence. One could theoretically create artifical intelligence that mimicked human intelligence, emotions and thoughts, even arguing aptly for its own consciousness and vehemently denying solipsism, without actually being real.
All philosophies that assume others have consciousness, emotions or experience rely on leaps of faith, assumptions and emotional convictions. This is, of course, more than good enough for most people; they try to logically justify it, always ignoring the persistent fact that they can never actually know whether anyone else has consciousness because they can never experience it, and in fact their own experience has taught them that, in a postmodern sense, there is no difference between "real consciousness" (if such a thing exists) and a mimicking character in a dream.
So before you think that just because "college freshmen joke about solipsism" that it is ridiculous and lacking evidence, perhaps you should try waking up and seeing if the college freshmen are even there. Indeed, there is no way to know, so based on our experience and Occam's razor, what is the more logical philosophy here? Just as one shouldn't be so quick to be defeated by illusions in a dream, one should also question this waking dream we experience everyday and try thinking about what we actually know about the actors that would be the first to silence our questions.Any type of sensory input. We divide this sensory input into categories such as sight, touch, sound, smell, etc. What we fail to acknowledge is that this classification of the senses is merely constructed and all sensation that we experience is just that, experience. It is difficult to define sensations because when we peel back the layers and look to their essence, there is nothing to be found. There is nothing other than the immediate totality of your perceptual state of being. This remains so whether or not you accept solipsism.I'd also like to point out how alarmingly consistent the tenets of solipsism are with the theories of quantum mechanics, namely, "the observer determines the outcome of the experiment." How could this possibly be so if not looked at from a solipsist viewpoint?
The same goes for the "we are all one" philosophy preached by Buddhism and other Eastern religions. In the solipsist sense, we are all one because everything exists within the single individual perception. If this is not so, then that immediately falls apart, because we are simply not all one. I am not the people who are replying to my post, I am the person that is typing this one. There is nothing to suggest otherwise because the only perception I have ever experienced is my own.I suppose sensation is being as opposed to not being. Without sensation, there is nothing, which is inconceivable to the conscious mind. Stop moving completely for a moment, stop thinking, do not attempt to rationalize anything and just be still. Your state of being at that time will be the only thing in existence from your perspective, to assume that anything else is existing will require faith. I guess I can't give you a concrete answer because you are still presupposing that you are experiencing a "thing." Why does this have to be so? When you tear down the labels and rationalizations behind everything you'll find there is no longer any point of reference, and no coherency. You are left with nothing but the sensation of your own isolated perception, with no clear source or meaning in sight.
Frozenworld wrote:So before you think that just because "college freshmen joke about solipsism" that it is ridiculous and lacking evidence, perhaps you should try waking up and seeing if the college freshmen are even there. Indeed, there is no way to know, so based on our experience and Occam's razor, what is the more logical philosophy here?
Fenrir wrote:My only quibble is the contention that most scientific discoveries contradict our view of reality, which I think is totally unfounded.
My guess, however, is that that minor quibble is about to be overwhelmed by a tsunami of nonsense just as soon as the narcissists idealists get here.
Cooperative behaviours in archaic hunter–gatherers could have been maintained partly due to the gains from cooperation being shared with kin. However, the question arises as to how cooperation was maintained after early humans transitioned to larger groups of unrelated individuals. We hypothesize that after cooperation had evolved via benefits to kin, the consecutive evolution of cognition increased the returns from cooperating, to the point where benefits to self were sufficient for cooperation to remain stable when group size increased and relatedness decreased. We investigate the theoretical plausibility of this hypothesis, with both analytical modelling and simulations. We examine situations where cognition either (i) increases the benefits of cooperation, (ii) leads to synergistic benefits between cognitively enhanced cooperators, (iii) allows the exploitation of less intelligent partners, and (iv) the combination of these effects. We find that cooperation and cognition can coevolve—cooperation initially evolves, favouring enhanced cognition, which favours enhanced cooperation, and stabilizes cooperation against a drop in relatedness. These results suggest that enhanced cognition could have transformed the nature of cooperative dilemmas faced by early humans, thereby explaining the maintenance of cooperation between unrelated partners.
romansh wrote:Frozenworld ... when are you going to help me with my pixie problem?
edit
And by the way Snow City I sense you are not long here for this world.
https://centerforinquiry.org/forums/top ... ng/page/2/
Why were you blocked there
I believe it (or at least respect it) because there is no hard evidence to suggest an alternative viewpoint (other than personal comfort and social convenience), it is seemingly impossible to disprove, and it is the final product of Occam's razor.
I'd also like to point out how alarmingly consistent the tenets of solipsism are with the theories of quantum mechanics, namely, "the observer determines the outcome of the experiment." How could this possibly be so if not looked at from a solipsist viewpoint?
The same goes for the "we are all one" philosophy preached by Buddhism and other Eastern religions. In the solipsist sense, we are all one because everything exists within the single individual perception. If this is not so, then that immediately falls apart, because we are simply not all one. I am not the people who are replying to my post, I am the person that is typing this one. There is nothing to suggest otherwise because the only perception I have ever experienced is my own.
I will begin by saying that by any standard of proof, the onus is on an opponent of solipsism to prove solipsism is false. That is because solipsism is the default stance. You exist, and that is all you can be sure of. Basic Descartes which has not been shown to be false. The best argument against Cogito is that 'maybe you only think you exist' but this argument can never get off the ground since this already implies the Cogito. (How can you think something without existing?)
Now,
IT is important to define the different notions of solipsism.
First there is the notion that all that exists is your mind. This might encompass an experience.
If if encompasses an experience then nothing disproves solipsism. Your feeling something bump is just a sensation of yours, as is your sensation of being in control of things when you are. All that exists are the sensations, and they are what comprise your mind.
Mind might encompass experience plus action
If it encompasses action then there must be something that you have action over. Therefor either you have action over all things or else you have action over some thing, IN WHICH case there exist multiple things.
Now solipsism can still hold true if you think the self has action over some of its 'body'. IF you think that the self is comprised of a body and a mind, then solipsism is still defualt, because quite simply, the things you experience, the 'people' you have relationships with are just part of your body, part that you do not have control over.
To deny solipsism in this sense is to say that other people have consicous minds, but this is not proven and in fact we have no way of proving this. We take it by faith.
If the self is considered to have control over all of itself, then solipsism is clearly FALSE because we do not have control of everything.
So the senses that solipsism is not disproven are:
All that exists is your experience, including your experience of control and of being affected by things that you percieve as 'other'.
Or
All that exists is your mind and your body. You have control over some aspects of the body, and not others. The body supplies your mind with sensations. The crucial point is that no other minds exist.
A sense that solipsism IS disproven is:
All that exists is you (either body+mind or just mind), and you have control over every aspect of yourself.
This is not true because we simply dont have control over everything.
Solipsism is a most potent idea in the context of philosophy of MIND. Does your consciousness exist in a world with other consciousnesses or is it just your consciousness?
Since each consciousness only has access to its own consciousness, it has no way of proving that any other consciousness exists. Therefor the default stance is SOLIPSISM. Nevertheless this is hard to accept because we see other 'peope' who seem to behave just like us, therefor we infer INDUCTIVELY that other consciousness probably exists, unproven.
I dont think that solipsism states that nothing exists besides our consciousness, it merely states that we can never know anything about what exists outside our consciousness because we will never experience anything other than our consciousness. which means there is no reason to believe other people are actually other minds, or to believe that the external world's contents will 'continue to exist' when we are not experiencing them.
but solipsism does not deny that what we are experiencing is caused by external ripples.. this is still within possibility. It can simply never be determined true or not.
solipsism is logically flawless.. but it is also uninformative in the strictest sense of the word.
In my opinion, and this is just my opinion, outside influences are the reasons for selective experiences. The way a photon hits my retina leads to my perception that is a symbol of an outside event (although in my opinion, very far removed from the actual event in time and space). If reality did not exist and I was merely a consciousness observing nothing for the totality of my life and merely creating my own reality, I would have no reason to create a reality that was not homogeneous and undisturbed. Ripples exist in my reality, though, disturbances that tend to point to a source for said disturbances. If I were a singularity, a non-observing entity that created my own reality, then disturbances and ripples would be pointless and impossible, for there would be no outside source for those disturbances.
There could be an argument made that may seem contradictory to this assertion, and that is that the disturbances and imperfections are created inside of my own consciousness, thus pointing to the idea that my consciousness IS the universe... but that is something I already agree with, because every aspect of me contains a ripple from somewhere in this universe, and thus, I hold a record of every single thing that has ever happened in this universe. Gravitational waves and colapsing stars are forming barely perceivable vibrations in the atoms of my being.
I don't believe that we have to perceive something for it to exist, because I believe that we NEVER perceive that which actually exists, and only perceive ripples FROM that which exists. The thing that gives it its "real" quality is the disturbance that removes our observant mind from perceiving nothing at all, a homogeneous perception. Homogeneity is NOT what we perceive though. We perceive effects, ripples, that must have reasons for their disturbances
We don't live in an unbroken void... thus, something has to disturb my reality. If reality was a solitary exercise, then there would be no reason for certain things to "turn on" over other things, or for certain things to happen over other things happening. Even saying that things happen because we perceive them to happen is escaping the point... if reality was solitary, all within my own mind, then I would have never had an outside influence to choose one way of perceiving over another... my reality would be homogeneous and uninfluenced by outside sources.
That is my view on solipsism.
Frozenworld wrote:
Granted though there is no evidence for solipsism [or idealism] either since it is a leap of faith to assume you are it and nothing else.
Thommo wrote:If you're going to those extremes to ignore consilience, why not go one step further and deny your own existence?
You can't prove *anything* exists through philosophical argumentation alone. If that drives you to solipsism there's no reason it shouldn't drive you to believe nothing exists at all and to abandon philosophy altogether.
The thing is most people are trying to explain what they perceive, and solipsism - and indeed Kastrup's idealism - don't actually do that. No matter how hard you try if you conceive the world as purely mental there's no reason for other people to behave as though they are like you. There's no reason for object permanence or laws of physics. Sure, you can believe it if you want to, but to claim as Kastrup does that this is reasoned or evidenced is the height of folly.
"The origins of Solipsism in Western Philosophy comes from the Greek Pre-Socratic Sophist Gorgias who claimed that:
Nothing exists.
Even if something exists, nothing can be known about it.
Even if something could be known about it, knowledge about it cannot be communicated to others."
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