Frozenworld wrote: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……
You are saying there is no evidence that other people’s thoughts are real?
For the purposes of this thread, I shall take a model to represent “reality” if that model generates predictions which turn out to be accurate, or at least better than the predictions from any competing model.
For example, if I have a mentalistic model of the thermostat in my house as “wanting” to keep the temperature the same, that model does work much of the time, but overall that mentalistic model is far less accurate than the scientific model of substances operating according to the laws of physics. Accordingly, I take the thermostat’s desires to be “unreal”, and its law-abiding constituents to be “real”.
Scientifically speaking, all the evidence suggests the desires of a human are in the end no more real than the desires of a thermostat. Our brains consist of atoms which follow the non-teleological laws of physics, not the intentions of gods, souls, or thoughts. This scientific view of human beings does not support solipsism, because it holds for myself as well as everybody else. Science has the potential to predict me more accurately than I can predict myself. If a scientist of the future were to predict everything I said and did more accurately than I could, then I would rightly feel my sense of myself had been seriously compromised. My present feeling that my sense of self is unquestionable stems at least in part from the fact that I can predict what I say and do far more accurately than anybody else can. But in the end, from the scientific point of view, it’s just a vivid illusion.
If a model gives us the best predictions for the time being, but is likely to be superseded in future by another, then the first model may perhaps be said to represent a temporary “reality”. At the moment, humans can best predict each other using the mentalistic model: it’s evolved guesswork, but it’s so far much more effective than science; current science can predict thermostats but not brains. On that basis, for current practical purposes, I can reasonably regard both my thoughts and other people’s as “real”. Again, this version of “reality” does not support solipsism, because all the evidence shows that modelling other people as having thoughts, beliefs and intentions provides us with the best available predictions. Another person’s consciousness is “real” enough until science catches up with evolved mindreading.
If we are using the scientific model, then everyone’s thoughts, including my own, become “unreal”. If we use the evolved, mentalistic model, then everyone’s thoughts, including other people’s, become “real”. For predicting people, the mentalistic model is currently much better, but the scientific model has the potential to outperform the mentalistic one. Neither model supports solipsism.