Solipsism?

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the discussion for sure is very interesting. im having a blast. i have to scrutinize a lot of what i took as a given due to its insightfulness (to me)

as it is quite late (and i am in need of finishing my stretching exercises and getting a shave) here, ill only post a few short fragments that came to mind:

language as infection: yeah, language sure does influence thinking - but not all thinking is language. i have just seen a robot nod in tv - i didnt think that he nods, as in that i recalled the language element of nodding, i just got it by loking at it. being in a mood to think about language, i drew the mental connection to language and became aware that what the robot did is called nodding in english.
language certainly is a well-working GUI for our mind.

and sure, prevalence of a concept in language ensures that we cope with them on a daily basis, thereby making the use of them become second nature.

as for the points and line thing: if someone was to tell me that a straight line blah blah blah..., id sure need language to understand what he was talking about, to decode the information on my side and think about it. what i was referring to was only the mental act. imagining nobody told us that there were the words "curved" and "straight" - wed still see different lines. maybe not linking them to terms, but able to tell them apart by what we see. (their gestalt, if you want)
or, imagine a symbol you dont know the name of, the meaning of and that you have never seen before. you still will see something and recognize it again.
its kinda hard imagining good examples... ill try to think of some.

the tribe without numbers sure is interesting. id still believe that they see the difference between one apple and two apples (like: they most likely notice the difference in their perceptions), although unable to name them (and they seem to be very untrained to think these ways. similar to how we may fail to think "in terms" of a different culture - i mean, it took the western world a few thousand years to come up with a thinker who came close to taoist thought).

Yes, definitely one of the more insightful discussions I´ve participated in since college.

Yes, I totally agree that there are things that operate on a level more fundamental than language. It seems that all cultures, and creatures in fact, have a way of greeting each other. Something beyond grammatical concepts. Wild animals are also able to pick up on friendly or threatening behavior, even through they do not know what "behavior" is.

But, the interesting question, is where is the line drawn? Each culture has insulting gestures, but they differ. Showing the sole of your shoes is an insult in some places in the middle east, but it means nothing in other places. What is extremely offensive in one culture means absolutely nothing in another. So, in some way, our fundamental "understandings" are linked, but are shaped through society and agreement.

So, surely even if you had never acquired langauge (I am thinking of cases of feral children here), you would have "recognized" in some fashion that a nod was a "friendly" gesture. But, just because we have these fundamental instincts in communication, does that mean that we have them in mathematics, and other areas?

Back to the straight line. I was thinking about this, and it seems like this is absolutely a statement that is trapped by grammer. By the very definition of the words "straight", "line", "shortest", and "between", it is impossible for any other conclusion to be reached other than "a straight line is the shortest distance between two points". Our grammer demands it.

What about the statement: "the two birds by the pond are black". Now, the very definition of the words "birds", "by", "pond", and "black" make it impossible for anything other than the two black birds by the pond to be the item in question. Yet, this does not make it something true due to its "content", does it? That probably was not the greatest example, but I think that you will get what I am trying to say.

Yes, we will still recognize a symbol if we see it again, but we do not recognize it like another person may. I can see the same chinese symbol twice and recognize it, but it means something totally different to me than to the chinese person. Just as a language that I am not familiar with will not force me a certain direction. I am sure that when a Japanese person is reading a Japanese book, they are compelled to read from back to front. Yet, should I have that same book in my hands, I will be compelled to read it from front to back. My experiences force me to have a certain impulse. Our familiarity and experiences force us in certain directions. And, it seems like a difficult (if not impossible) job to seperate where we operate on a pre-experience level, and where we operate due to experience.

I´m interested in your examples to better understand your point of view on this, so please post them later.

i think the chinese writing wasnt as bad an example as i thought: as you stated, someone fluent in chinese will associate a meaning with the perception, the "having the thing in my consciousness", whereas you just have it that way, without the meaning. you can assign a name to it, but that would be somehow unlikely, right? (i certainyl know i dont do this - i just reference the impression, the actual "having" of it in mind right now, not a given name or even a meaning.
with pre-language, i dont necessarily mean those very basic things our great^100-grandfathers in caves already had (probably) - i mean the impression, the actual having-in-the-head, way (relatively, were not talking a huge step, but a step nevertheless) before language kicks in. like: seeing, ordering, recognizing, putting name to it. you have to grasp the gestalt of a human before being able to recall that this impression is linked with the word "human" - and when he comes closer, you will need to grasp the impression of his face before you recall that this face is linked to the name "uncle joseph".

i am a bit unsure about the cultural gestures like showing soles of feet, extending middle finger and the like... they are symbols like language in a way too, arent they?

but i just got another idea: imagine you are struggling with words - you have the meaning of what you want to convey in your head but you have to search for the right grammatical figures and words to get it "translated" to language.

hehe... you know, this whole thing made me realize something i didnt understand until now: husserls (the founder of phenomenology, which is concerned almost exclusively with just perceptions and likewise "experiencing" moments) battklecry was "to the things themselves!" - and i never got whats so special about it. now i think i know: there seem to be a lot of people (not meant in an insulting manner) who seem to think about the words and names of things, rather than the things. thining about things directly seems to come naturally to me, so i never figured out what was the big deal about that famous sentence.

maths example: no, dont think about the grammatical structure of "a straight line is the closest distance between two points" - try to think about actual lines and points. if it helps, picture them in your mind... try to see the content of the sentence, not its actual "acting out", its concrete happening in the world (in the categories of vocabulary and grammar).
i realize this is a bit wonky, as we need language to transmit the information - but its about the mind judging the facts of points and lines, regardless what names. i mean, a point is still a point in my head, even if i dont know other people call it a point, right? (autodidactics would be really hard to achieve, if all learning worked only with the simultaneous acquisition of mental impression and its name)

From a long thread on intpcentral.com: (these are all mine.)

Solipsism has had me tangled in it's web for a long time. I am never able to rid myself if it and thinking it through (my normal defense for those all encompassing thoughts) always makes it worse.

"While the theoretical egoism (solipsism) can never be proved false... as a serious conviction, it could only be found in a madhouse and as such would not need so much a refutation as a cure." - Arthur Schopenhauer

Now to really cook your brain, try to refute this: Note: I do not believe in god in any shape for form.

God is a solipsist and I am God.

Unless I came to that conclusion myself, allowing my thoughts, or should I say great philosophers, to eventually think up the concept of Solipsism. Of course I would consider it implausible and attempt to discard the idea as it is silly but the idea is still there, completely unfalsifiable.

It can't be true logically, but it still is true.

Also note that using the brain in the vat is a bad way to describe Solipsism, as it's conjures too physical of an image.

Playing devil's advocate, why do I have to go further? Because it's not useful to continue? Define useful.

By the way I think the original question you are trying for instead of "how do you know anything?" is "How do I know any of my knowledge is based on a real world?".

I can answer "how do you know anything?" quite readily by saying something like "Apples are red.". After all, false knowledge is still knowledge. However the question "How do I know any of my knowledge is based on a real world?", in Solipsism is impossible to solve if there are such things as apples or even red for that matter.


How can you prove it's not of yourself? Because it is a foreign idea, or the feeling is something you wouldn't feel?


To refute this I will setup a thought experiment.

Think of three universes. They are all solipsist in nature. Adam owns the first, Beth the second, and Charlie the third. Neither Adam nor Beth know that they control each universe, however Charlie does know he is the master of his. None of the universes have limits, as if you place limits on a solipsist existence it is not solipsist in nature.

Adam's universe is one where everything his intelligence needs just appears before him. His "understanding" of his universe quickly evolves where he basically has, for all intensive purposes has the power of the christian god through technology. Which depending on the personality of Adam could be instantly boring or nearly infinitely fascinating. Think of the Architect's speech in the Matrix II, it would be the equivalent of the Matrix's first version.

Beth's universe is one where everything her intelligence needs must be gained by some manner. Her "understanding" of the universe crawls along. Think of a universe much like the current one. The problem of becoming a "god" is not encountered until certain imposed "rules" are put down about the universe. Which means she cannot become "god" without breaking those self-imposed rules.

Charlie's universe is very much like Adam's but the transformation from "person" to "god" happens instantly and takes place without needing to learn about it. There is also absolutely no rules and again it can be instantly boring or nearly infinitely fascinating.

As you can see it really has nothing to do with taking a course of action or not, or as the old addage goes "Sometimes the journey is better then the destination". Sometimes it's better to struggle through action.

(As a postscript, what is scary/cool is this universe is becoming more like Adam's then Beth's)


I think we are discussing different types of Solipisim. I have been talking about the [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysical_solipsism"]metaphysical type[/url].


People have been known to experience limbs as "separate from themselves", or even in cases where the corpus callosum (the left/right hemisphere connector) has been severed due to severe epilepsy where the (now) separate right hemisphere is experienced as "separate from themselves".

Now in those two cases I stated above there have been things removed from their consciousness, what about things added to their consciousness? Does this mean the schizophrenic that thinks anything in his hand is a part of him is not crazy and is actually experiencing more of Charlie's universe then Beth's?

I don't know, but I bet nobody else does either.

i definitely dont have classical autism but i am becoming solipsist. i have iq of around 150 and i keep thinking of others being philosophical zombies. =/ It is fun thinking I could be only conscious person in the entire cosmos.

Tell me, how do I know that you exist and are not just a figment of my imagination?

I don't really identify with solipsists though I think that in terms of probabilities, there's a way higher chance that we're living in a Matrix-like structure than how religions describe the world.

To be perfectly honest, the strong solipsism amongst other people on the spectrum, aside from LFA folks whose cases I can appreciate, this type of dominant perception "me, me, me" and saying we are just helpless in it irritates me. I mean, come on. We may have a hard time gauging everything but we have to be cognizant that other states of mind and ones who perceive them exist, especially if we are dependent upon people.