Solipsism

[DrKrettin]

But you have to start somewhere - think axioms - and how you start may send you in the wrong direction and with the wrong mental approach. It is the art of thinking how to think. Just my opinion.

 

 

Oh, I agree, there has to be a branch of thought which involves asking unanswerable questions. But I've seen what too much of it does to people.

[dimreepr]

But you had said believing in solipsism is oxymoron..

And if it is true how are we talking and sharing ideas?

 

 

Solipsism:

noun

1. the view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist.

   • the quality of being self-centred or selfish.

Just so were on the same page.

You don't have to believe, it's true, just accept that and assume the world will spin on regardless and a bacon sandwich smells much better than it tastes to almost all people.

We are automatically selfish, even a selfless act feels good.

 

 

 

The point is, the only contact we have with the world around us is via our senses and we have no way to be certain they are accurate; we are solipsistic in both senses (belief not required) but that doesn't mean we can't live a selfless life.

[DrKrettin]

 

 

The point is, the only contact we have with the world around us is via our senses

 

I'm not familiar with the argument, but please tell me if there is a philosophical distinction here: 1) sight used to perceive objects around us and 2) sight used to read a book which transmits the ideas written by another person.

[StringJunky]

 

 

Oh, I agree, there has to be a branch of thought which involves asking unanswerable questions. But I've seen what too much of it does to people.

Verbal diarrhoea is common.

[DrKrettin]

Is anyone else here solipsistic, or is it only me?

 

(this is supposed to be an intellectual joke)

[Acme]

If a solipsist falls in the forest...

[dimreepr]

 

I'm not familiar with the argument, but please tell me if there is a philosophical distinction here: 1) sight used to perceive objects around us and 2) sight used to read a book which transmits the ideas written by another person.

 

 

What part of the argument statement is this supposed to challenge? Sight is sight, a process that involves photons hitting light sensitive sensors and then processed in the brain, and subject to mistakes like optical illusions

Are you not familiar with Descartes?

Edited August 10, 2016 by dimreepr

[DrKrettin]

 

 

What part of the argument statement is this supposed to challenge? Sight is sight, a process that involves photons hitting light sensitive sensors and then processed in the brain, and subject to mistakes like optical illusions

 

Yes, thank you for that. I am not challenging anything, other than having a question which I now find impossible to formulate. It involves the issue of knowledge, and the connection between it and the senses.

[dimreepr]

All I can say is, knowledge doesn't always lead to understanding.

[disarray]

Typically, solipsism refers to either the notion that we can’t know for certain that other people have consciousness, as opposed perhaps, to just being figments of our imagination or automatons (which is a logically airtight contention, but ridiculous even from a scientific standpoint), or that we can’t know for certain that things exist when we are not conscious of them.

 

The latter problem was addressed by Berkeley who suggested that things are sustained by the consciousness of God when we are, for example, asleep. From a scientific standpoint, this is not a satisfactory answer.

 

Indeed, just whether and how things exist when we are not aware of them, other than in some vague state of probability, was a major bone of contention between Einstein and Bohr, and thus between a rather classical understanding of causality and a quantum one (cf Copenhagen Interpretation).

 

To be flippant, it would be silly to ask this question and believed that you were the only person with consciousness. In all practicality, though, the term “subjectivism” has taken over in modern use, suggesting that other people’s minds do exist, but that we cannot escape our own perspective, complete with its prejudices, social background, personality, instincts, emotions, etc.

Edited August 11, 2016 by disarray