Spearthrower wrote:"But if you're God," Sharrow said to Elson Roa, "why do you need the others?"

"What others?" Roa said.

Sharrow looked exasperated. "Oh, come on!"

Elson Roa shrugged. "My apparences? They are a sign that my will is not yet strong enough to support my existence without extraneous help. I am working on this."

Excerpt from Against a Dark Background, by Iain M Banks.

Frozenworld wrote:I am aware that I am talking to other people as though they exist but this is an exercise in faith, belief. It's not solid and grows shakier by the day. I believe other people exist and are reading this in the same way people believe in God.

The character in the above book was a tragic comedy character, pretending to have these persuasions but repeatedly showing that he intrinsically acknowledged the independent existence of other people.

Have you read this book, FW?

No?

Then how do you explain yourself knowing the content of a book you've never read?

Do you think if you go to the bookstore and buy this book, the content will just magically become the above in order for the universe you've solipsistically created to retain cohesion?

Or is it the somewhat more parsimonious explanation which should be abundantly apparent: that shit other than yourself exists, and does so independently of you?

If the former: why exactly are you ridiculing yourself? You are conjuring up a scenario in which a social group you manufactured considers your earnest position utterly absurd. Do you think you're teaching yourself something here? Are we all just marionettes to your ego performing a role you've unconsciously decided you need to witness?

The concept that this position of yours is becoming more tenable is so outlandish and overtly absurd that one has to question you ability to conceive even of that which you contend is your position, let alone the reasons why others reject it as stupidity.

I don't believe in Aslan Rona. Aslan is a fictional character and everyone knows Rona is a global conspiracy to impose a communist world government.

Spearthrower wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:"But if you're God," Sharrow said to Elson Roa, "why do you need the others?"

"What others?" Roa said.

Sharrow looked exasperated. "Oh, come on!"

Elson Roa shrugged. "My apparences? They are a sign that my will is not yet strong enough to support my existence without extraneous help. I am working on this."

Excerpt from Against a Dark Background, by Iain M Banks.

Frozenworld wrote:I am aware that I am talking to other people as though they exist but this is an exercise in faith, belief. It's not solid and grows shakier by the day. I believe other people exist and are reading this in the same way people believe in God.

The character in the above book was a tragic comedy character, pretending to have these persuasions but repeatedly showing that he intrinsically acknowledged the independent existence of other people.

Have you read this book, FW?

No?

Then how do you explain yourself knowing the content of a book you've never read?

Do you think if you go to the bookstore and buy this book, the content will just magically become the above in order for the universe you've solipsistically created to retain cohesion?

Or is it the somewhat more parsimonious explanation which should be abundantly apparent: that shit other than yourself exists, and does so independently of you?

If the former: why exactly are you ridiculing yourself? You are conjuring up a scenario in which a social group you manufactured considers your earnest position utterly absurd. Do you think you're teaching yourself something here? Are we all just marionettes to your ego performing a role you've unconsciously decided you need to witness?

The concept that this position of yours is becoming more tenable is so outlandish and overtly absurd that one has to question you ability to conceive even of that which you contend is your position, let alone the reasons why others reject it as stupidity.

That stuff other than me exists isn't parsimony. Solipsism is parsimony because I can really only verify my own existence.

Like I said, I don't want to buy into it but I have no reason to believe in external reality besides comfort. I run to it because I'm scared to be alone and lose all hope of connection with others. I'm afraid to not believe solipsism and then be wrong and having wasted my life by treating it as real when it was fake.

https://www.quora.com/What-is-collectiv ... ent_type=2

Frozenworld wrote: Solipsism is parsimony because I can really only verify my own existence.

You keep making this blind assertion when everyone knows that, according to the exact contentions and predicates of your own argumentation with respect to the supposed lack of ability to validate external existence, factually you can not verify your own existence.

This has been pointed out to you... oh, a dozen times or so... but you keep ignoring it and repeating the claim without addressing the challenge.

That's a very good indication of the transparency of your motivated thinking.

All aboard!

I'm afraid to not believe solipsism and then be wrong and having wasted my life by treating it as real when it was fake.

What a load of garbled and manufactured bollocks, chap.

You're working so hard just to contrive these irrational statements which don't even cohere semantically, let alone to any representational abstraction of reality.

Frozenworld wrote:That stuff other than me exists isn't parsimony. Solipsism is parsimony because I can really only verify my own existence.

So what you're saying is that you don't understand parsimony. Gotcha.

Don't feel bad. Although parsimony is extremely simple, some of its implications are not. For example, you might think that having only one universe (due semantic caveats here) is more parsimonious than a multiverse, you'd be wrong. The reason is that the existence of a universe is categorical evidence that a universe can exist. What would be required, then, for that universe to be the only one, is a barrier to other universes existing. Thus, in reality, while a naïve appraisal of parsimony might suggest only one, parsimony actually dictates multiples because, between the two scenarios, there is only one unjustified entity; the barrier.

Similarly, parsimony dictates that the most robust explanation for your experience of other entities is that they exist because, given your existence, the existence of other entities is more parsimonious than not.

You have t remember that, for the purposes of hypothesis selection (abductive reasoning, which is where parsimony is the critical component), your assumptions also qualify as entities. The assumption that other entities exist is justified by your existence and your experience of others. The assumption that you are all that exists is an unjustified assumption, and qualifies as multiplication of entities beyond necessity. And, of course, the reason I stated it in precisely this way is because the principle you're attempting to shoehorn your logically illiterate dreck into is worded in this way. 'You shall not multiply entities beyond necessity".

This is the proper statement of Occam's Razor, and you've failed it by trying to latch onto it without understanding it.

I get it, logic isn't as easy as it looks.

Like I said, I don't want to buy into it but I have no reason to believe in external reality besides comfort.

You've already bought into it, even without grasping the first thing about it.

I run to it because I'm scared to be alone and lose all hope of connection with others. I'm afraid to not believe solipsism and then be wrong and having wasted my life by treating it as real when it was fake.

This is a curious species of Pascal's Wager. Frankly, you're wasting enough of your life by paying this dreck any mind at all. Solipsism is a curio; something interesting to talk about in philosophy class, not because it's interesting in and of itself, but because of what it tells us about thinking. It isn't a serious suggestion or ever suggested by a serious person. No model of reality that rejects empirical evidence is anything but a waste of your life, unless you're a writer on philosophy working specifically to expose the thinking.

https://www.quora.com/What-is-collective-solipsism-in-an-individualist-society/answer/Larry-Lang-8?comment_id=218125367&comment_type=2

Like I said, no serious people.

This is actually hilarious. From your citation of an electrical engineer..:

Orwell’s real name was Winston

No, it wasn't, His name was Eric Arthur Blair.

And that's only the most obvious thing he was talking bollocks about.

And here's the best bit: He's not talking about what you are. What Orwell was driving at is that we tell these stories about ourselves as a society. Like 'Land of the Free' being the tagline for the country ranked number 53 in the world freedom rankings, or my current favourite because it's just been exposed for the sham many of us have always known it to be, namely the 'special relationship' between the US and UK, which has just been shown to be entirely one-sided in the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Collecive solipsism is nothing like the solipsism you're talking about, it's the warm blanket of delusion.

So yes, still wrong on just about every point.

The real problem is that you're looking for deductive conclusions from abductive reasoning. Solipsism isn't an ontology, it's an abduction designed to generate hypotheses for testing. It's like, rather than asking why water finds a level, what if water could be piled up? What would it mean for the universe if this were possible?

hackenslash wrote:

Frozenworld wrote:That stuff other than me exists isn't parsimony. Solipsism is parsimony because I can really only verify my own existence.

So what you're saying is that you don't understand parsimony. Gotcha.

Don't feel bad. Although parsimony is extremely simple, some of its implications are not. For example, you might think that having only one universe (due semantic caveats here) is more parsimonious than a multiverse, you'd be wrong. The reason is that the existence of a universe is categorical evidence that a universe can exist. What would be required, then, for that universe to be the only one, is a barrier to other universes existing. Thus, in reality, while a naïve appraisal of parsimony might suggest only one, parsimony actually dictates multiples because, between the two scenarios, there is only one unjustified entity; the barrier.

Similarly, parsimony dictates that the most robust explanation for your experience of other entities is that they exist because, given your existence, the existence of other entities is more parsimonious than not.

You have t remember that, for the purposes of hypothesis selection (abductive reasoning, which is where parsimony is the critical component), your assumptions also qualify as entities. The assumption that other entities exist is justified by your existence and your experience of others. The assumption that you are all that exists is an unjustified assumption, and qualifies as multiplication of entities beyond necessity. And, of course, the reason I stated it in precisely this way is because the principle you're attempting to shoehorn your logically illiterate dreck into is worded in this way. 'You shall not multiply entities beyond necessity".

This is the proper statement of Occam's Razor, and you've failed it by trying to latch onto it without understanding it.

I get it, logic isn't as easy as it looks.

Like I said, I don't want to buy into it but I have no reason to believe in external reality besides comfort.

You've already bought into it, even without grasping the first thing about it.

I run to it because I'm scared to be alone and lose all hope of connection with others. I'm afraid to not believe solipsism and then be wrong and having wasted my life by treating it as real when it was fake.

This is a curious species of Pascal's Wager. Frankly, you're wasting enough of your life by paying this dreck any mind at all. Solipsism is a curio; something interesting to talk about in philosophy class, not because it's interesting in and of itself, but because of what it tells us about thinking. It isn't a serious suggestion or ever suggested by a serious person. No model of reality that rejects empirical evidence is anything but a waste of your life, unless you're a writer on philosophy working specifically to expose the thinking.

https://www.quora.com/What-is-collective-solipsism-in-an-individualist-society/answer/Larry-Lang-8?comment_id=218125367&comment_type=2

Like I said, no serious people.

This is actually hilarious. From your citation of an electrical engineer..:

Orwell’s real name was Winston

No, it wasn't, His name was Eric Arthur Blair.

And that's only the most obvious thing he was talking bollocks about.

And here's the best bit: He's not talking about what you are. What Orwell was driving at is that we tell these stories about ourselves as a society. Like 'Land of the Free' being the tagline for the country ranked number 53 in the world freedom rankings, or my current favourite because it's just been exposed for the sham many of us have always known it to be, namely the 'special relationship' between the US and UK, which has just been shown to be entirely one-sided in the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Collecive solipsism is nothing like the solipsism you're talking about, it's the warm blanket of delusion.

So yes, still wrong on just about every point.

The real problem is that you're looking for deductive conclusions from abductive reasoning. Solipsism isn't an ontology, it's an abduction designed to generate hypotheses for testing. It's like, rather than asking why water finds a level, what if water could be piled up? What would it mean for the universe if this were possible?

https://askaphilosopher.org/2019/10/20/ ... solipsism/

Well apparently that is not the case.

You have t remember that, for the purposes of hypothesis selection (abductive reasoning, which is where parsimony is the critical component), your assumptions also qualify as entities. The assumption that other entities exist is justified by your existence and your experience of others. The assumption that you are all that exists is an unjustified assumption, and qualifies as multiplication of entities beyond necessity. And, of course, the reason I stated it in precisely this way is because the principle you're attempting to shoehorn your logically illiterate dreck into is worded in this way. 'You shall not multiply entities beyond necessity".

Actually no. My existence doesn't justify the existence of other entities. My experience of the is not proof of their existence. Otherwise that would mean the people in my dreams exist and they do not. The assumption that I am all that exists isn't unjustified, it's the only thing I can verify. That I exist in some form or capacity is about the only thing that I can be sure about. It's not multiplying entities beyond necessity, that would be assuming others exist.

Spearthrower wrote:

I'm afraid to not believe solipsism and then be wrong and having wasted my life by treating it as real when it was fake.

What a load of garbled and manufactured bollocks, chap.

You're working so hard just to contrive these irrational statements which don't even cohere semantically, let alone to any representational abstraction of reality.

Not at all, that is my deep fear about solipsism being true.

Spearthrower wrote:

Frozenworld wrote: Solipsism is parsimony because I can really only verify my own existence.

You keep making this blind assertion when everyone knows that, according to the exact contentions and predicates of your own argumentation with respect to the supposed lack of ability to validate external existence, factually you can not verify your own existence.

This has been pointed out to you... oh, a dozen times or so... but you keep ignoring it and repeating the claim without addressing the challenge.

That's a very good indication of the transparency of your motivated thinking.

All aboard!

As I have corrected you many times, YES IT IS. My existence is the only thing I can verify and you have been wrong each time with your counter points because you don't understand solipsism.

The assumption that I am all that exists isn't unjustified, it's the only thing I can verify.

The assumption, “I am all that exists.”, cannot be verified*. It’s not even close to a Gödel statement like, “I am unprovable.” Instead, it’s a nonsense statement with no supporting evidence. Do you know what is done with such? They are dismissed without further consideration.

*Feel free to try though. Here, I’ll start you off:

The assumption that I am all that exists is verified by - insert your verification here but it might begin something like - me posting words using the constructs and rules of the English language (mostly) into an internet chat box in the following way:

Humpty Dumpty shat on us all ...

As I have corrected you many times, YES IT IS. My existence is the only thing I can verify and you have been wrong each time with your counter points because you don't understand solipsism.

All mouth, no trousers.

At no point have you ever substantiated this assertion: your belief you exist is pure faith.

You've shown over and over a pathetically transparent 'skepticism' of the existence of everything else, but then keep simply declaring that you know you exist.

We can do this as many times as you like, but the answer is going to remain the same as 16 pages back. Repetition's getting you nowhere, just exposing that your thoughts are either shallow or false.

The assumption that I am all that exists isn't unjustified, it's the only thing I can verify. That I exist in some form or capacity is about the only thing that I can be sure about.

It absolutely has not been justified.

You have never attempted to verify it.

The exact same 'reasoning' you've used in this thread to pretend like the entire universe's existence is frightfully under-substantiated applies just as much to your belief that you exist.

This is a clown show, FW. Do you really think you're doing philosophy here?

Whatever the case: you've clearly not fooled anyone here with your wibble, so either try something new (rather than just keep repeating the same dense errors) or run along and play with other wooists.

Although we all seem capable of stringing together words in a way that he can comprehend to some extent, and we all seem capable of disagreeing with him, and we all seem capable of making more complex arguments than him, and we all seem capable of phrasing those arguments in manners distinct from one another as well as distinct from him, and we all seem capable of possessing knowledge of things he doesn't, and we all exhibit every conceivable sign of being wholely distinct entities capable of functioning despite him, it's clearly too much to assume that we're all distinct rational actors.

Much more likely is, instead, that we're all philosophical zombies that simply show every sign of being distinct rational actors without actually being distinct rational actors, and that, despite his inability to grasp the points being put to him, and despite his lack of knowledge concerning things we seem to be aware of, we're all just the products of his own mind.

Frozenworld wrote:exist

What does this mean, Frozen? I'm confused; were I talking to anyone else, such as Spearthrower, I could reasonably come to some understanding as to this word and its application. We might come to the conclusion that the state of existing is variable and in reference to the distinct reality in which we've found ourselves. Spearthrower and I exist in tangible reality. My grandchildren don't exist, as I don't even have children to speak of. Frodo Baggins exists insofar as the media of which he is a character exists; however Frodo himself isn't a person that exists in tangible reality in the same way that Spearthrower and myself are. You, however, seem to reject the framing in which this understanding of the term possesses any degree of utility, and so I'm left to wonder what it is to exist in the absence of existence. If you're all that exists, then are you yourself the basis by which one determines existence? Is this purely tautological, then? Is the statement "I exist" no different for you then the statement "I I", or "I", or "Exist exist", or "Exist", and so on? That actually brings me to another question, though...

Frozenworld wrote:self

What does this mean, Frozen? What exactly are you? See, if I were to talk to hack about it, we could probably sort that one out. A person similar to us, name, hobbies, place of employment, bit of a dullard, weighs this much and is however many feet tall. Yet, all that works, again, off a frame of reference that you seem to reject. Am I you, Frozen? Spearthrower has taken to referring to us as apparences, though perhaps that's slightly off? After all, perhaps it's wrong to say that you've conceived of shadows on walls when you're both the shadow and the wall, so am I just you, then? So are you also you? Do you hold two entirely contradictory opinions simultaneously? Is it possible for you to be aware and unaware of an idea at the same time? Are you capable of convincing yourself of a given idea? Are you merely a collection of disparate ideas? If you do manage to convince yourself of something, will you effectively cease to be you, or will you carry on? Are you even capable of change, or perhaps you yourself are change?

See, the rest of us just consider this really dumb. Come back to the real world, Frozen, where we can talk about things that aren't merely public masturbation.

Self: in the way FW argues, everything in the universe is self. The same universe he also tells us can never be shown to exist. But yet he's completely confident that his self exists, even while all the remainder of the universe is some kind of illusion.

It's pretty clear he hasn't thought any of this through at all. Public masturbation indeed.

And Descartes called: he wants the 17th century back.

Spearthrower wrote:Self: in the way FW argues, everything in the universe is self.

I must admit, I don't see FW's argument that way.
For me it is more like he can't be absolutely positive there is a reality beyond his perception.

It is an assumption I happily make everyday, and to me it seems the most parsimonious.

Frozen World's argument while not incorrect is absolutely useless, other than making me a tiny bit more cautious about making absolute statements.

romansh wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:Self: in the way FW argues, everything in the universe is self.

I must admit, I don't see FW's argument that way.

First, I'd like to clarify that FW doesn't actually have an argument. He has a position which he has stated several times, and has shown unwilling to address rational challenges to. My sense is that this is precisely the problem: he is quite unable to provide an argument for his position, which is why he keeps repeating the same irrelevances.

However, it is certainly justifiable to contend that what I wrote above arises from his position, at least in the context of what he's written in this thread, rather than just picking a sentence out of one single post.

romansh wrote:For me it is more like he can't be absolutely positive there is a reality beyond his perception.

Then it necessarily is not 'perception' at all. Else, what is it that's being 'perceived'? An external reality? Or is the sole perceiver not just conjuring an external reality, but also convincing itself that it perceives too? It's turtles all the way down. I don't quite see why it's our job to supply further Testudines on his behalf?

Further, there has never been even an attempt to substantiate how we might rationally consider the existence of all others thing an 'assumption', singular, and were such an argument made, it would be irremediably flawed.

To recapitulate one's entire life and every single experience therein as one point - a singular assumption - which is then either unwittingly acquiesced to as true or not is unjustified, and I should think, unjustifiable.

Of course, even then, there are still further hurdles to cross if one were making such an argument, such as how those numerous experiences necessarily constitute a kind of proof which thereby obviates the notion of the term 'assumption'.

I would recommend against filling in holes in FW's position with your own arguments. Steel manning is commendable, but there has to actually be an argument there first to then best represent, whereas we've had no such substance at all.

romansh wrote:It is an assumption I happily make everyday, and to me it seems the most parsimonious.

It would necessarily be a never-ending stream of assumptions you are making, even subconscious assumptions that motivate in you actions you're not even aware of. I wouldn't accept the idea here that the experience of a living, thinking being's encounter with the outside all the moments of its life could be so reduced - the experiences are simply too diverse for this to be acceptable without a lot more work done on justifying it.

romansh wrote:Frozen World's argument while not incorrect is absolutely useless, other than making me a tiny bit more cautious about making absolute statements.

In what world is it 'correct'?

Pink logs hop think on.

That statement also is not 'incorrect' - it's just hopelessly unintelligible and has no business being taken seriously in any context.

FW has spent less effort on supporting his position than you. I don't think that's an irrelevant aside.

Greg the Grouper wrote:Although we all seem capable of stringing together words in a way that he can comprehend to some extent, and we all seem capable of disagreeing with him, and we all seem capable of making more complex arguments than him, and we all seem capable of phrasing those arguments in manners distinct from one another as well as distinct from him, and we all seem capable of possessing knowledge of things he doesn't, and we all exhibit every conceivable sign of being wholely distinct entities capable of functioning despite him, it's clearly too much to assume that we're all distinct rational actors.

Well, he does have a singular imagination. Top of his class of 1, frankly.

Spearthrower wrote:Well, he does have a singular imagination. Top of his class of 1, frankly.

It's rather uncharitable for him to refuse to give himself credit for his own arguments. He sure does hope to resolve this internal conflict.

Actually, I'm curious as to what justifies himself in the first place. Is it the sensation of himself, the experience of himself? Then why wouldn't that also justify the existence of external reality? Isn't it unreasonable to assume yourself based on something that doesn't actually justify the existence of something? Or perhaps there's some unaccounted for barrier that allows experience and sensation to justify the self, but not the external? But I guess that just goes to parsimony, and we already don't grasp that concept.

Spearthrower wrote:

romansh wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:Self: in the way FW argues, everything in the universe is self.

I must admit, I don't see FW's argument that way.

First, I'd like to clarify that FW doesn't actually have an argument. He has a position which he has stated several times, and has shown unwilling to address rational challenges to. My sense is that this is precisely the problem: he is quite unable to provide an argument for his position, which is why he keeps repeating the same irrelevances.

However, it is certainly justifiable to contend that what I wrote above arises from his position, at least in the context of what he's written in this thread, rather than just picking a sentence out of one single post.

romansh wrote:For me it is more like he can't be absolutely positive there is a reality beyond his perception.

Then it necessarily is not 'perception' at all. Else, what is it that's being 'perceived'? An external reality? Or is the sole perceiver not just conjuring an external reality, but also convincing itself that it perceives too? It's turtles all the way down. I don't quite see why it's our job to supply further Testudines on his behalf?

Further, there has never been even an attempt to substantiate how we might rationally consider the existence of all others thing an 'assumption', singular, and were such an argument made, it would be irremediably flawed.

To recapitulate one's entire life and every single experience therein as one point - a singular assumption - which is then either unwittingly acquiesced to as true or not is unjustified, and I should think, unjustifiable.

Of course, even then, there are still further hurdles to cross if one were making such an argument, such as how those numerous experiences necessarily constitute a kind of proof which thereby obviates the notion of the term 'assumption'.

I would recommend against filling in holes in FW's position with your own arguments. Steel manning is commendable, but there has to actually be an argument there first to then best represent, whereas we've had no such substance at all.

romansh wrote:It is an assumption I happily make everyday, and to me it seems the most parsimonious.

It would necessarily be a never-ending stream of assumptions you are making, even subconscious assumptions that motivate in you actions you're not even aware of. I wouldn't accept the idea here that the experience of a living, thinking being's encounter with the outside all the moments of its life could be so reduced - the experiences are simply too diverse for this to be acceptable without a lot more work done on justifying it.

romansh wrote:Frozen World's argument while not incorrect is absolutely useless, other than making me a tiny bit more cautious about making absolute statements.

In what world is it 'correct'?

Pink logs hop think on.

That statement also is not 'incorrect' - it's just hopelessly unintelligible and has no business being taken seriously in any context.

FW has spent less effort on supporting his position than you. I don't think that's an irrelevant aside.

Because you haven't made rational challenges to it. There is nothing you can say that can lead to the conclusion that external entities are more likely than just figments. It's far from parsimony, and so far your only argument is that it's nonsense which doesn't cut it.

A few links to prove that point:

https://petesbookmarks.quora.com/?sort=recent
https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-of- ... Pete-Ashly