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?