On Idealism, repeated

on fundamental matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind and ethics.

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Re: On Idealism, repeated

#41  Postby Frozenworld » Nov 29, 2020 11:13 pm

I dunno some people make some rather convincing arguments for solipsism:

https://www.shroomery.org/forums/showfl ... art/1/vc/1

And he seems rather convinced that he has refuted several claims against his views: https://www.bernardokastrup.com/p/policy.html

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.
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Re: On Idealism, repeated

#42  Postby laklak » Nov 29, 2020 11:24 pm

Smack him in the head with a 2x4. If he's right nothing will happen, If he's wrong his skull breaks. Binary choice.
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Re: On Idealism, repeated

#43  Postby Hermit » Nov 30, 2020 12:06 am

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

Do you expect me to read through 232 posts to find what you describe as some rather convincing arguments for solipsism?

Frozenworld wrote:And he seems rather convinced that he has refuted several claims against his views: https://www.bernardokastrup.com/p/policy.html

I got the impression that he felt convinced some time ago.

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, providing links to entire articles and discussions does not drive debates. Is there a chance that you will - using your own words or quoting someone else's - post what testable evidence you found any time soon? I'm beginning to fear you are wasting my time.
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Re: On Idealism, repeated

#44  Postby romansh » Nov 30, 2020 3:06 am

Frozenworld ... like you and solipsism/idealism I don't have very good (any) evidence for pixies under my garden shed. For the life of me I can't think of a way of disproving their existence. What do you think? I can show a picture of the garden shed if that helps?
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Re: On Idealism, repeated

#45  Postby Cito di Pense » Nov 30, 2020 9:05 am

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.


Your pretense of skepticism is wearing thin, Frozenworld. It's a rather hoary rhetorical device, and you're using it to publish links to crackpot websites. I called bullshit on you a week ago:

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.


Skepticism does not require entertaining and analyzing any or every claim that presents itself. Obvious crackpot pretending to be skeptical is obvious. Fuck off, already.
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Translation by Elbert Hubbard: Do not take life too seriously. You're not going to get out of it alive.
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Re: On Idealism, repeated

#46  Postby BlackBart » Nov 30, 2020 8:24 pm

Frozenworld wrote:I dunno some people make some rather convincing arguments for solipsism:

https://www.shroomery.org/forums/showfl ... art/1/vc/1



Convincing to who? You? So what? If he's so convincing, why don't you explain to us why solipsism is the most parsimonious explanation of the universe.

The OP presents some fallacious reasoning. The guy needs to learn what the burden of proof is. It's up to him to provide evidence that supports his claim, not for anyone else to provide evidence to the contrary.

To all those that are quick to negate the philosophy that nothing exists outside of one's own perception
Perception? What IS he perceiving? Where is the experience coming from?

And who is he addressing exactly? NPCs?
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Re: On Idealism, repeated

#47  Postby Frozenworld » Dec 01, 2020 2:44 am

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.
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Re: On Idealism, repeated

#48  Postby Thommo » Dec 01, 2020 2:51 am

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.
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Re: On Idealism, repeated

#49  Postby laklak » Dec 01, 2020 3:18 am

There's no bloody reason to get up and go to work on Monday morning.
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Re: On Idealism, repeated

#50  Postby Thommo » Dec 01, 2020 3:20 am

laklak wrote:There's no bloody reason to get up and go to work on Monday morning.


The problem there is that you've assumed Mondays and work. Clearly those are just products of mind and do not exist in reality.
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Re: On Idealism, repeated

#51  Postby Hermit » Dec 01, 2020 3:26 am

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.

Please underline what you regard as testable evidence. "The true source of solipsism springs from the fact that we never verify someone else's consciousness or thoughts as an actual experience" is not it. "we are only acting on our subjective emotional conviction" isn't either.

"All philosophies that assume others have consciousness, emotions or experience rely on leaps of faith, assumptions and emotional convictions" is a non-argument. All philosophies that assume there is nobody else rely on leaps of faith, assumptions and emotional convictions as well. Where is the testable evidence that you, the person I am replying to, exist only in my mind?

"...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?" Actually, there is no way of knowing either way, and Occam's razor makes nothing more logical. The metaphysical dispute between idealism/solipsism and realism is merely about where the college freshmen - and the entire universe for that matter - is located. For that you need testable evidence, none of which has been forthcoming.

That is the problem with metaphysics. Its assertions, be they in favour of idealism/solipsism or realism, are beyond the realm of testability. At best it's untestable speculation. More commonly it is a wankfest. I advise you once again: Ignore metaphysics. It is barren.
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Re: On Idealism, repeated

#52  Postby Thommo » Dec 01, 2020 3:32 am

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?


Just for the record: This is not an application of Ockham's razor.

Assuming that the college freshmen do not exist is not equivalent to assuming they do in explaining why we perceive them to say this.
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Re: On Idealism, repeated

#53  Postby romansh » Dec 01, 2020 4:29 am

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.

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Re: On Idealism, repeated

#54  Postby BlackBart » Dec 01, 2020 9:26 am

Wouldn't quantum mechanics be merely a property of the universe whether it exists independently of consciousness or not? The guy seems to be assuming QM is true 'outside' of his experience. So how can he conclude from that that solipsism is true?
Further the guy seems to be assuming that conscious agency is required for observation. Can he provide evidence of a conscious entity independently witnessing a quantum event rather than using a non-conscious detector? If not, how can he infer anything about consciousness using QM?
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Re: On Idealism, repeated

#55  Postby zoon » Dec 01, 2020 11:07 am

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.


I had better start with the disclaimer that I’m not an idealist, I think all the evidence is behind the conclusion that our brains follow the laws of physics, not the other way round. The evidence also supports the argument that our brains are the result of evolution, so that the mental traits of an individual are, on average, “designed” by natural selection to maximise the survival of that individual’s genes (rather than the survival of the individual or the group).

It’s fair to say that the scientific worldview has no place for consciousness, however real one’s own consciousness may feel, and this is distinctly counterintuitive. However, I think it’s something we can reasonably easily accept at least theoretically, in the same way that we accept while watching a sunrise that the earth is turning, even though all our direct senses are telling us that the earth is stationary and the sun is moving. (*1)

It’s also the case that the moral rules which underlie much of our social behaviour are intuitively assumed to be dependent on the other person being sentient. If science is correct and sentience is unreal, then it appears at first sight to follow that it would be OK to disregard other people’s feelings and to treat them as badly as we want. This is the trickier part, that the reality of the non-scientific consciousness of other people is assumed to be central to the way they “should” be treated in ordinary life, so it’s dangerous to jettison that belief. I think the key point here is that we need to treat other people in our group reasonably well if we want them to cooperate, whether or not they are “really” sentient. With that in mind, maintaining at least some moral rules makes sense (both normatively for ordinary life and descriptively for evolutionary theory). Our evolved tendency to ascribe sentience to other people enables us to predict how we need to treat them if we want the benefits of cooperation. (*2)

*1
We see people as conscious because we’ve evolved to use teleological guesswork to predict them. Guessing what another person wants, and then working backwards to what they may do about it, is still a much more effective way of predicting people in ordinary social life than the best of modern science. The guesses work because human brains are similar to each other. (Citing, as usual, Wikipedia on Theory of Mind here.) The predictions of science are not teleological, they are based on looking at what has happened in the past and assuming the same will happen in the future. Science has transformed our ability to predict many inanimate objects, but human brains, so far, are too complicated. Evolved guesswork still beats science in social life, and so we still see ourselves and others as conscious.

*2
Modern evolutionary theory emphasises that natural selection is primarily about the survival of an individual’s genes, not the survival of the individual or the group. Quoting from a 2011 article in Nature signed by 135 scientists here: “Natural selection explains the appearance of design in the living world, and inclusive fitness theory explains what this design is for. Specifically, natural selection leads organisms to become adapted as if to maximize their inclusive fitness.”
Traditionally, the “scientific” view of human nature, that natural selection would design us to be selfish, has been pitted against the “religious” view, that we should morally care as much about others as ourselves (at least within our own group). Modern evolutionary theory cuts across this dichotomy; we are not entirely selfish, nor can we be expected to be entirely altruistic.
Close and extensive cooperation between individuals of the same species in non-human animals is always based on close kinship. For example, the colonies of eusocial insects such as ants and bees consist of closely related individuals. Humans are unique in the extent to which we cooperate with effectively unrelated individuals of our own species, and it is this cooperation which has made humans more successful than any other species (until we blow ourselves up, which may yet happen).
The added ingredient in human cooperation is our ability to manage reciprocity, cooperation for the benefit of all parties, without being cheated, and this needs intelligence. This is at least partly still speculation, I’m going by the abstract of a 2018 article “The coevolution of cooperation and cognition in humans” 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.

As the authors of that paper point out in the discussion, the enhanced cooperation which intelligence makes possible doesn’t necessarily depend on punishment of cheats. That article doesn’t discuss collective punishment, but intelligently targeted collective punishment would presumably enhance cooperation still more.

Metaphysically speaking, it might very well be true that consciousness is not “real”, in that if we understood and could predict each other more effectively by scientific methods than by evolved Theory of Mind, then we would not see ourselves as conscious. This may happen in the future, but it hasn’t happened yet. Equally, it is metaphysically possible that my own consciousness is real and nobody else’s is, which is solipsism. It is also metaphysically possible that all space is filled with invisible pink unicorns. On any of these metaphysical hypotheses, we are still stuck with needing to cooperate with other people, and with the fact that so far our evolved brains manage this cooperation best by attributing consciousness to ourselves and others, whether or not it’s “real”.
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Re: On Idealism, repeated

#56  Postby Frozenworld » Dec 02, 2020 1:46 am

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 actually was not blocked on there some bug happened on my account.

But to the topic at hand:

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.


Granted though there is no evidence for solipsism either since it is a leap of faith to assume you are it and nothing else. I mean if nothing else exists then how does one explain this reality that I don't control (not like a dream anyway) and "people" that look and behave like me.

To posit p-zombies seems stupid to me. Also I did see the part about QM but tests show that consciousness is not required for a quantum system as observation means any sort of interference with a system, even one that is unconscious like a sensor (this is shown to be true). Also I'm pretty sure observation is a contested term as it does not mean consciousness but any interaction with a system. So he's got that wrong. His argument is also an argument from ignorance as well as it's essentially "I don't know therefor solipsism".

The Buddhist notion of oneness is not literal from what I see. We are all one in terms of our fundamental natural or made of the same stuff, not that we are all one individual. None of those lines support solipsism because there is no "we" in solipsism and certainly no individual in Buddhism.

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.
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Re: On Idealism, repeated

#57  Postby Frozenworld » Dec 02, 2020 4:08 am

I also wanted to add another thread that argues for it being the default position:

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.


https://www.shroomery.org/forums/showfl ... 1#14562023

As well as a second thread where it is argued that there is no reason to believe otherwise:

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.


https://www.shroomery.org/forums/showfl ... /1#9320860

And on the same page an interesting take on it:

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.
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Re: On Idealism, repeated

#58  Postby romansh » Dec 02, 2020 7:57 pm

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.

Just stop there. There is no way to disprove that my perception of the environment is either just my imagination or created by my perception.

So what?

I want some help from YOU on how to disprove the pixies under my garden shed. Please have a go at this.
It is the same problem as trying to disprove solipsism. You are a product of my horrible imagination; and no matter how much you protest as having an argument you don't.
"That's right!" shouted Vroomfondel, "we demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!"
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Re: On Idealism, repeated

#59  Postby zoon » Dec 03, 2020 11:26 am

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.

I think this approach makes sense, predictions based on the laws of physics are far more accurate than predictions based on the idealist, mental model (with an exception discussed below), and so idealism can safely be ignored for most practical purposes. This approach does not deny the provisional nature of scientific laws: they may be modified as more evidence comes in, and there is no need to claim they represent the fundamental and eternal truth.

The complicating factor is that mental, teleological modelling is still far more effective than science when predicting other people in ordinary life. We’ve evolved to predict other people by guessing what they want, this works because human brains are very similar to each other, and we automatically see ourselves and others as centres of consciousness driven by future-oriented desires. Neuroscience has the potential to model people more accurately than evolved guesswork, so we see science as the more fundamental truth about ourselves, but so far it’s the evolved guesswork that does the job of everyday prediction.

Idealism, which makes the mental model fundamental, and its variants such as solipsism or belief in an omnipotent god, still have appeal because the scientific view of ourselves is thoroughly metaphysically* unsettling. Before the rise of modern science, all human cultures around the world assumed that the mental model was the one underlying the universe at large, while the common-sense laws of physics were secondary. Spirits or gods or concepts like Tao or karma were taken as the underlying nature of reality, and our view of ourselves as centres of consciousness driven teleologically by desires fitted in comfortably.

We still automatically see ourselves as teleologically driven conscious beings, but this now feels at odds with the scientific model, even when we accept that the scientific model applies to ourselves as well as everything else. It’s not too difficult to accept at some level that consciousness is almost certainly an illusion created by social evolution, and so has only a secondary reality as a feature of the way our brains function, but I still find there’s a mismatch when I try to think of myself in non-teleological terms, my intentions feel central to what I am.

This is not an attempt to show that idealism is or might be correct, it’s an attempt to show why variants of idealism remain attractive in the face of the overwhelming evidence for science.

*The scientific, provisional, approach which Thommo was using does not make metaphysical assumptions, it’s rather that our evolved brains trying to cope with everyday life tend to use sweeping assumptions about reality as a starting point when modelling the world.
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Re: On Idealism, repeated

#60  Postby Frozenworld » Dec 03, 2020 8:48 pm

So...humans want to be special?

That aside it still bugs me as the quote I listed above says that there is no evidence to suggest other people are other minds.

Though I guess that is better than the original version of solipsism:

https://qr.ae/pNUkcv

"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."


However there are other posts on Quora about it just being plain uncertainty:
https://www.quora.com/Do-solipsists-buy ... s/16471893
https://www.quora.com/How-can-I-prove-t ... s/16505949
https://www.quora.com/Is-this-a-good-ar ... s/16508209
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