How would you refute metaphysical solipsism?

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by Magical Realist, Jul 9, 2013.

  1. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    What proof or argument could you provide showing a solipist that he is wrong--that reality is not just all his own dream?
    Here's the view from HIS side:


    "Metaphysical solipsism is the variety of idealism which is based on the argument that no reality exists other than one's own mind or mental states, and that the individual mind is the whole of reality and the external world has no independent existence. It is expressed by the assertion "I myself only exist", in other words, no reality exists other than one's own mind. There are weaker versions of metaphysical solipsism, such as Caspar Hare's egocentric presentism (or perspectival realism), in which other persons are conscious but their experiences are simply not present.

    The argument in favor of Solipsism:

    (a) The only thing one has direct access to is the contents of one's own mind (one's mental states). What one knows most certainly are one's mental states - one's thoughts, experiences, emotions, and so on.

    (b) Just because one sees an object does not mean that the object exists. One could be dreaming or hallucinating. There is no direct conceptual or logically necessary link between the mental and the physical.

    (c) The experiences of a given person are necessarily private to that person. The contents of one's mind are the only things one has direct access to. One cannot get ‘outside’ of one's mind to encounter any other objects including other persons. Other minds are even more removed.

    The basic form of the argument:

    My mental states are the only things I have access to.

    I cannot conclude the existence of anything outside of my mental states. Therefore only my mental states exist.


    Similar philosophy is found in Hindu religion, namely drishti-srishti-vada.[1] In teachings of Ramana Maharshi there are too cues on solipsism:

    "Jiva is called so because he sees the world. A dreamer sees many jivas in a dream, but all of them are not real. The dreamer alone exists and he sees all. So it is with the individual and the world. There is the creed of only one Self, which is also called the creed of only one jiva. It says that the jiva is the only one who sees the whole world and the jivas therein."--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysical_solipsism

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  3. AlexG Like nailing Jello to a tree Valued Senior Member

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    You could shove them in front of a bus. If they survive, see if they believe they were hit by a bus, or was it all in their mind. If they don't survive, the question is moot.
     
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  5. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Haven't you ever been hurt in a dream? I have. Should we therefore conclude the dream is real?
     
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  7. AlexG Like nailing Jello to a tree Valued Senior Member

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    Not without waking up. Shove them in front of a bus and let them see if they wake up.
     
  8. arauca Banned Banned

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    He he you guys are learning new words , moot, solipsism, ----- very sophisticated
     
  9. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    I experience pain, hunger, thirst, sex, colors, tactile sensations, smells, flavors, hot and cold, music, and most all of the sensations of the body without waking up. Does that make my dream real? No..All these qualia are subjective experiences occurring inside the mind. And a solipsist could always argue that when he dies he IS waking up. Like Neo did inside the jar.
     
  10. arauca Banned Banned

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    Pardon my ignorance who is a solipsist, what does he do ?
     
  11. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    You can't read? I gave the definition already.
     
  12. gmilam Valued Senior Member

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    I met a guy in college that told me that everything was a figment of his imagination, and when he died theworld would cease to exist.

    I noticed that he still looked both ways before stepping off the sidewalk to see if those non-existant cars were coming.
     
  13. ananymousse Banned Banned

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    In solipsism our imaginations often forget to reveal the things headed right for us. Like someone else for instance.
     
  14. andy1033 Truth Seeker Valued Senior Member

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    The only way you can change someone like that is if they had a mate. Either if your male or female, one of the most important things govs want is for you to have a mate, so you bond. If you do not, you end up questioning this. They do not want you to think stuff like you wrote op. They want you locked in.

    Thats why they want you have a partner no matter what orientation you have.

    If you never have connected with anyone in life, you end up thinking in similar ways.

    So trying to push the idea to someone like that they are wrong, will not sway them. Thats why govs want you to have a partner, at least once in your life.

    By the way, no science will ever prove anything beyond whats in there brain, they cannot. Science has its place, but the fact that the human brain is limited means science will only work out whats in the humans brain.

    One of the reasons why mammals become sexually active, so the universe does not want you to feel that way, and will make you want to connect with someone.

    Like i said, if you have never connected with anyone, you may end up with these beliefs, as you have no real verification that anyone even exists.

    So the answer is that when they are young, make sure they connect with at least someone, if they do not, they will end up with this conclusions anyway.
     
  15. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    There is no proof or argument that could show a solpsist that he is wrong.
    Just as there is no proof regarding the externalities of the universe, there is nothing that can show a solipsist that there is more than his own mind.

    As for the arguments along the lines of "shove him in front of a bus..." or "he still looks both ways to check for non-existent cars..." etc, these fail to understand the solipsist view.
    In the person's mind these cars / buses do exist, and are capable of inflicting pain as real as a non-solipsist will experience from what they consider independently existing cars/buses.
    So, as I understand solipsism, such arguments do not cut it.

    Solipsism seems to be a "theory" (for want of a better term) that rests on the (a priori or otherwise) assumptions that only that which is experienced can be known to exist, and that if you can't prove or know it does exist independently then assume it doesn't.
    The rest of us don't make such an assumption (that it doesn't exist independently), although we can't prove it one way or the other. We live our lives at the practical level with the assumption that it does exist independently.

    The reason for this assumption (at least practically if not intellectually) is possibly because if it only exists within our mind (i.e. dependently) then we might think we should have greater control over it.
    Since we (practically) don't seem to be able to exert such control, we conclude that, from a practical standpoint, it exists independently.

    Perhaps the key to be able to conclude on solipsism as true is to be able to demonstrably exert the control we deem we should have if it were.

    Or something like that.

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  16. Arioch Valued Senior Member

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    I don't know about others here, but I can control my dreams. If I were a solipsist I would expect the bus to vanish before it hit me because that's what I would do in my dream. Having tried willing things out of existence many times(for many reasons), I have to conclude that these things exist beyond my control and therefore aren't any part of any dream of mine.
     
  17. Stryder Keeper of "good" ideas. Valued Senior Member

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    Some transhumanists have discussed the notion of "Uploading the human consciousness", the outcome could initially be perceived an entity in a solipsist environment, however problems do arise. You see a consciousness would only be loaded with the observations that it already knew (a good Scifi example of this would be "Vanilla Skies"), the problem there is a consciousness sealed in their own "bubble" might stagnate without external influence.

    If you didn't know how a car engine worked, then would a cars engine exist?, if a mechanic was to teach you about engines, would the parts for that engine already be there ready to be named and that engine still function the same way as when it wasn't understood?

    What was posed in the Transhumanist point of uploading consciousness was of a course a concept of a "Singularity", in this instance the meaning is uploading all consciousness's to the same framework so the artificial construct world is actually built by all consciousness's assigned to it. This of course would defeat Solipsism in an Egocentric perspective, as the universes existence and form is a many consciousness networked event.

    I guess the problem would be how to "trick" (manipulate, train, indoctrinate etc) everyone to think one particular way so that you could manipulate an effect, but even then it wouldn't be you alone, it requires everyone else.
     
  18. C C Consular Corps - "the backbone of diplomacy" Valued Senior Member

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    Transhumanist spin or not... It certainly jars some literary memories to the surface about an older approach for "prodding" the applicable conscious agents to receive updates for a new, common operating system. Tuning the population out over time from an ideologically incorrect world to their integration and co-constructing of a party approved one. Even the perishable individual "transcending" to an undying group template, with suffering providing the apotheosis. Ah bless you, Kim Jong-un, for keeping a dim shadow of those real and fictional 20th-century Frankenstein stories that mutated from ol' Karl's philosophy alive to this day.

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    1984; Part 3, Chapter 3: The first thing you must realize is that power is collective. [...] Alone -- free -- the human being is always defeated. It must be so, because every human being is doomed to die, which is the greatest of all failures. But if he can make complete, utter submission, if he can escape from his identity, if he can merge himself in the Party so that he is the Party, then he is all-powerful and immortal. The second thing for you to realize is that power is power over human beings. Over the body but, above all, over the mind. Power over matter -- external reality, as you would call it -- is not important. Already our control over matter is absolute.'
    [...]
    'But how can you control matter?' he [Winston] burst out. 'You don't even control the climate or the law of gravity. And there are disease, pain, death --'

    O'Brien silenced him by a movement of his hand. 'We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull. You will learn by degrees, Winston. There is nothing that we could not do. Invisibility, levitation -- anything. I could float off this floor like a soap bubble if I wish to. I do not wish to, because the Party does not wish it. You must get rid of those nineteenth-century ideas about the laws of Nature. We make the laws of Nature.'
    [...]
    'But the whole universe is outside us. Look at the stars! Some of them are a million light-years away. They are out of our reach for ever.'

    'What are the stars?' said O'Brien indifferently. 'They are bits of fire a few kilometres away. We could reach them if we wanted to. Or we could blot them out. The earth is the centre of the universe. The sun and the stars go round it.'

    Winston made another convulsive movement. This time he did not say anything. O'Brien continued as though answering a spoken objection:

    'For certain purposes, of course, that is not true. When we navigate the ocean, or when we predict an eclipse, we often find it convenient to assume that the earth goes round the sun and that the stars are millions upon millions of kilometres away. But what of it? Do you suppose it is beyond us to produce a dual system of astronomy? The stars can be near or distant, according as we need them. Do you suppose our mathematicians are unequal to that? Have you forgotten doublethink?'
    [...]
    Winston shrank back upon the bed. Whatever he said, the swift answer crushed him like a bludgeon. And yet he knew, he knew, that he was in the right. The belief that nothing exists outside your own mind -- surely there must be some way of demonstrating that it was false? Had it not been exposed long ago as a fallacy? There was even a name for it, which he had forgotten. A faint smile twitched the corners of O'Brien's mouth as he looked down at him.

    'I told you, Winston,' he said, 'that metaphysics is not your strong point. The word you are trying to think of is solipsism. But you are mistaken. This is not solipsism. Collective solipsism, if you like. But that is a different thing: in fact, the opposite thing. All this is a digression,' he added in a different tone. 'The real power, the power we have to fight for night and day, is not power over things, but over men.' He paused, and for a moment assumed again his air of a schoolmaster questioning a promising pupil: 'How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?'

    Winston thought. 'By making him suffer,' he said.

    'Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. [...] But always -- do not forget this, Winston -- always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler.
    --Orwell
     
  19. absols Registered Member

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    the thing, is what infinite superiority is actually freedom, which is the existence truth ends

    since truth exist then any and all can b sort out easily as objectively through free superiority

    then any existing relative sense is free, then its end is to realize itself superiority for positive freedom reality constancy with everything else superiority and mayb others free stands

    so this is the setting reason, why any seem to b alone

    since freedom is what exist then another is impossible to see unless theorically a full realisation of oneself from both sides, so the fredoms could face each others by objective relations

    which realistically is impossible since freedom by definition cant b fully objective that is how it exists definitly

    the only way to see anything is then the truth

    which goes back to what truth was and still, infinite superiority

    the only way possible always

    evolution betterment clarification positive plus ...all those notions are to possible always superiority


    so by realizing objective superiority through any concept reality of value, the result would b immediate else existence obvious

    the realisator would get a new free sense lighter while objective would b clearly moving alone about smthg else that the original freedom never meant nor mean

    here the freedom would realize else being the principal way of true existence

    while u cant mean else but through objective values, when superiority is the only possible free way

    in conclusion

    bc freedom is truth ends, so true, then else exist for sure
    then reality of any with else is always alive, freedom free
    but also reality could b adjusted in truth according to objective superiority rights so everything become more clear in truth
     
  20. turk Registered Member

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    To a solipsist, I'd say, "Quit talking to yourself, you egomaniac!"
     
  21. absols Registered Member

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    it is not about egos it is about almost everyone, u dont have free motivations for true superiority drives

    while true superiority is the only sense to realize

    u have the objective excuse that all is evil, mayb if everything was to truth then u could b alone moved for objective superiority rights freely, in a sense where u would admit by urself how superiority rights deserve a lot of considerations for being the reason to a positive free real being urself end

    while now everyone mean superiority for an end, which is absurd

    superiority by definition cant b even seen present, it is only a concept of right individual moves out of nothing

    so when there is no motivation for free superiority drives then there is no existence sense, then individual freedom dont move, so always alone, then it would become crazy in taking itself for smeone else
    since even nothing change from being affected to superior sources
     

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