Solipsism (/ˈsɒlɪpsɪzəm/ ⓘ SOLL-ip-siz-əm; from Latin solus ‘alone’ and ipse ‘self’)[1] is the philosophical idea that only one’s mind is sure to exist. As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one’s own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist outside the mind. Now though I’m not a follower of this philosophy I find it intriguing as I think it comes from an interesting place of evolution. What are your takes?
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Perhaps it is true that my mind is the only thing that exists, but Occam’s Razor suggests otherwise.
Also, even if my mind is the only thing that exists, living my life and acting like nothing else is real would probably cause me to end up in a mental institution or prison, so solipsism doesn’t seem like it’s practical, useful, or convienient.
Thinking about solipsism has made me wonder if sociopaths feel this way about the Universe because of the faulty wiring in their brains.
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That sounds like someone would say if they were having a alien abduction.
I thought about it before but dont have a take on it.
It cant really be proven false.
Patrick hocksetter from the book IT by Stephen King, i think it states that he had this philosophy combined with being what the book stated as being a sociopath or maybe it was psychopath.
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Sociopathy is generally framed as a deficit of empathy, caused by insufficient, absent or malfunctioning mirror neurons – the brain’s way of enabling us to imagine how others feel or experience things (as well as imagining how our future selves might feel when experiencing the consequences of present actions – the basis for delayed gratifications of various kinds). Because sociopaths seem not to notice or care how others feel, AND tend to have impulse control problems.
But this deficit would be one way that could lead to being unable to relate to anything but one’s own mind or inner experiences I suppose. It is a different angle to come from to understand sociopathy that I hadn’t considered. I still think a deficit of empathy has more expressive power as a cause, but solipsism could well be the inner experience of someone who has little to no perception of anything outside the mind, and due to no empathy, has little emotional experience of the outside world.
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Easy. Send me all your money to my bank account. I can pm you the details upon acceptance here. If I’m not real then neither is my bank account so it will simply bounce. I’ll take your refusal to do this as certainty on your part that I do actually exist. Check and mate.
No, the existence of a bank account proves absolutely nothing about the existence of a person.
There are bank accounts created by and for companies, and there are bank accounts created by fraudsters and criminals for nonexisting persons, or for persons that don’t know anything about it.
Nor does the existence of a bank account prove the identity of a person.
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Well whilst this is objective evidence, it is not beyond dispute of course, objectively speaking it is possible to set up a fake account using fake details, and of course if one were positing that all reality might be illusory, then this could easily be premised as an unfalsifiable idea.
Of course one can withhold belief from unfalsifiable ideas, what one cannot do is falsify them, obviously.
I would start pretty simply with existence, as it is defined as “the fact or state of living or having objective reality”. So whilst I would not use the word prove, I certainly could offer compelling objective evidence that I am alive. From there establishing my identity would involve layers of objective evidence, establishing my parenthood would be child’s play with DNA, and my lineage for example. Matching these objective facts to identity records would then become more compelling etc etc…
Not its own no, so I concur…beat me to it.
Sure, I’ll just walk by and slap you in the face as hard as I can. Then tell me if you’re convinced if I’m real or not. 