Am I really the only solipsist here?

[Prebe]

Just an elitist joke really, but it needed it's own thread to work. Sorry

[Holsety]

I guess the joke is you can't know whether other people exist, or whether they're solipsist?

I'm kind of bad at these things.

[Prebe]

By definition, alas, it makes no sense to answer your post. I will just be deluding myself further

(It's sort of a meta joke i think. Heh!)

[sgt.null]

no - i am fairly certain there exists at least one other solipsist. maybe more.

[Prebe]

Heh!

[Ur Dead]

There can only be one..

and it's the Highlander.

[rusmeister]

For all serious solipsists...

(It is criminal to cut out the chapter, and indeed, the book this is from, but even a lonely solipsist must start somewhere...) Critical points are highlighted for the time-impaired.

From "The Suicide of Thought":

It is only with one aspect of humility that we are here concerned. Humility was largely meant as a restraint upon the arrogance and infinity of the appetite of man. He was always outstripping his mercies with his own newly invented needs. His very power of enjoyment destroyed half his joys. By asking for pleasure, he lost the chief pleasure; for the chief pleasure is surprise. Hence it became evident that if a man would make his world large, he must be always making himself small. Even the haughty visions, the tall cities, and the toppling pinnacles are the creations of humility. Giants that tread down forests like grass are the creations of humility. Towers that vanish upwards above the loneliest star are the creations of humility. For towers are not tall unless we look up at them; and giants are not giants unless they are larger than we. All this gigantesque imagination, which is, perhaps, the mightiest of the pleasures of man, is at bottom entirely humble. It is impossible without humility to enjoy anything -- even pride.

But what we suffer from to-day is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction; where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt -- the Divine Reason. Huxley preached a humility content to learn from Nature. But the new sceptic is so humble that he doubts if he can even learn. Thus we should be wrong if we had said hastily that there is no humility typical of our time. The truth is that there is a real humility typical of our time; but it so happens that it is practically a more poisonous humility than the wildest prostrations of the ascetic. The old humility was a spur that prevented a man from stopping; not a nail in his boot that prevented him from going on. For the old humility made a man doubtful about his efforts, which might make him work harder. But the new humility makes a man doubtful about his aims, which will make him stop working altogether.

At any street corner we may meet a man who utters the frantic and blasphemous statement that he may be wrong. Every day one comes across somebody who says that of course his view may not be the right one. Of course his view must be the right one, or it is not his view. We are on the road to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table. We are in danger of seeing philosophers who doubt the law of gravity as being a mere fancy of their own. Scoffers of old time were too proud to be convinced; but these are too humble to be convinced. The meek do inherit the earth; but the modern sceptics are too meek even to claim their inheritance. It is exactly this intellectual helplessness which is our second problem.

The last chapter has been concerned only with a fact of observation: that what peril of morbidity there is for man comes rather from his reason than his imagination. It was not meant to attack the authority of reason; rather it is the ultimate purpose to defend it. For it needs defence. The whole modern world is at war with reason; and the tower already reels.

The sages, it is often said, can see no answer to the riddle of religion. But the trouble with our sages is not that they cannot see the answer; it is that they cannot even see the riddle. They are like children so stupid as to notice nothing paradoxical in the playful assertion that a door is not a door. The modern latitudinarians speak, for instance, about authority in religion not only as if there were no reason in it, but as if there had never been any reason for it. Apart from seeing its philosophical basis, they cannot even see its historical cause. Religious authority has often, doubtless, been oppressive or unreasonable; just as every legal system (and especially our present one) has been callous and full of a cruel apathy. It is rational to attack the police; nay, it is glorious. But the modern critics of religious authority are like men who should attack the police without ever having heard of burglars. For there is a great and possible peril to the human mind: a peril as practical as burglary. Against it religious authority was reared, rightly or wrongly, as a barrier. And against it something certainly must be reared as a barrier, if our race is to avoid ruin.

That peril is that the human intellect is free to destroy itself. Just as one generation could prevent the very existence of the next generation, by all entering a monastery or jumping into the sea, so one set of thinkers can in some degree prevent further thinking by teaching the next generation that there is no validity in any human thought. It is idle to talk always of the alternative of reason and faith. Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all. If you are merely a sceptic, you must sooner or later ask yourself the question, "Why should anything go right; even observation and deduction? Why should not good logic be as misleading as bad logic? They are both movements in the brain of a bewildered ape?" The young sceptic says, "I have a right to think for myself." But the old sceptic, the complete sceptic, says, "I have no right to think for myself. I have no right to think at all."

There is a thought that stops thought. That is the only thought that ought to be stopped. That is the ultimate evil against which all religious authority was aimed. It only appears at the end of decadent ages like our own: and already Mr. H. G. Wells has raised its ruinous banner; he has written a delicate piece of scepticism called "Doubts of the Instrument." In this he questions the brain itself, and endeavours to remove all reality from all his own assertions, past, present, and to come. But it was against this remote ruin that all the military systems in religion were originally ranked and ruled. The creeds and the crusades, the hierarchies and the horrible persecutions were not organized, as is ignorantly said, for the suppression of reason. They were organized for the difficult defence of reason. Man, by a blind instinct, knew that if once things were wildly questioned, reason could be questioned first. The authority of priests to absolve, the authority of popes to define the authority, even of inquisitors to terrify: these were all only dark defences erected round one central authority, more undemonstrable, more supernatural than all -- the authority of a man to think. We know now that this is so; we have no excuse for not knowing it. For we can hear scepticism crashing through the old ring of authorities, and at the same moment we can see reason swaying upon her throne. In so far as religion is gone, reason is going. For they are both of the same primary and authoritative kind. They are both methods of proof which cannot themselves be proved. And in the act of destroying the idea of Divine authority we have largely destroyed the idea of that human authority by which we do a long-division sum. With a long and sustained tug we have attempted to pull the mitre off pontifical man; and his head has come off with it.

Lest this should be called loose assertion, it is perhaps desirable, though dull, to run rapidly through the chief modern fashions of thought which have this effect of stopping thought itself. Materialism and the view of everything as a personal illusion have some such effect; for if the mind is mechanical, thought cannot be very exciting, and if the cosmos is unreal, there is nothing to think about. But in these cases the effect is indirect and doubtful. In some cases it is direct and clear; notably in the case of what is generally called evolution.

Evolution is a good example of that modern intelligence which, if it destroys anything, destroys itself. Evolution is either an innocent scientific description of how certain earthly things came about; or, if it is anything more than this, it is an attack upon thought itself. If evolution destroys anything, it does not destroy religion but rationalism. If evolution simply means that a positive thing called an ape turned very slowly into a positive thing called a man, then it is stingless for the most orthodox; for a personal God might just as well do things slowly as quickly, especially if, like the Christian God, he were outside time. But if it means anything more, it means that there is no such thing as an ape to change, and no such thing as a man for him to change into. It means that there is no such thing as a thing. At best, there is only one thing, and that is a flux of everything and anything. This is an attack not upon the faith, but upon the mind; you cannot think if there are no things to think about. You cannot think if you are not separate from the subject of thought. Descartes said, "I think; therefore I am." The philosophic evolutionist reverses and negatives the epigram. He says, "I am not; therefore I cannot think."

GKC, "Orthodoxy" www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/orthodoxy/

[Zarathustra]

Rus, I'm sure you recognize that this is a joke thread. It says it right there in the first post. Yet, you come back with an astonishingly serious response. There is no need to argue against solipsism. There are no real (or should I say "sane") solipsists.

A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed.

Meaning no offense, but that's exactly the kind of response I'd expect from a religious person: take a reasonable stance towards the world, and turn it on its head so that man always comes out as the problem, and your beliefs come out as Absolute, Undoubtable Truth. And then if I disagree with what you're saying, the problem is with me. "Truth" is defined as what you believe, and it is framed in a way that cannot be questioned. That's dogma. It doesn't matter how you dress it up, it's not pretty.

We are in danger of seeing philosophers who doubt the law of gravity as being a mere fancy of their own.

Which law of gravity? Newton's? Einstein's? Some future scientist who combines gravity with quantum mechanics? Of course they are inventions of our own. Science thrives and grows by its refusal to stop with one dogmatic truth. It would be impossible to revise itself and become better otherwise. This isn't a weakness, it is a strength. The only people who think it is a weakness are those who want everyone else to believe their particular dogmas.

For there is a great and possible peril to the human mind: a peril as practical as burglary. Against it religious authority was reared, rightly or wrongly, as a barrier. And against it something certainly must be reared as a barrier, if our race is to avoid ruin.
That peril is that the human intellect is free to destroy itself.

You really worry about this kind of thing? You actually think that any system of thought endangers human intellect itself? Do you see human intellect stagnating? Human knowledge and human thought is accelerating at a astronomical pace. There are more people studying more areas of this universe than ever before. The Internet is bringing instantaneous information to billions. Anyone who thinks that human intellect is going to be destroyed by skepticism or relativism just isn't looking at the world we live in. You might as well fear goblins and ghosts. It's just not reality.

Besides, if anything threatens rationality, it is unquestioning belief in supernatural dogmas.

Just as one generation could prevent the very existence of the next generation, by all entering a monastery or jumping into the sea, so one set of thinkers can in some degree prevent further thinking by teaching the next generation that there is no validity in any human thought.

I'm sure that the future isn't imperiled by an army of philosophy undergraduates taking over society. No need for such alarmism.

It is idle to talk always of the alternative of reason and faith. Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all.

Now who is the skeptic? It is NOT an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have relation to reality. Faith is not necessary when you have evidence before you. Now, the relationship of our language to the world is a complex one, but there is no doubt that our language relates to the phenomena of our existence. Intentionality is a constituent, necessary feature of thought. This "relation to reality" is embedded in what it means to have thoughts about the world at all. I don't need faith to make the connection. My transcendence of myself to the world might be paradoxical, and not finitely analyzable, but that doesn't mean I have faith in its truth. To call my knowledge of my own being-in-the-world "faith" only blurs the vast, gaping difference between this knowledge and religious faith in supernatural mythology. (This, I believe, is the reason why religious people are so fond of finding faith everywhere--in science, in math, in our relationship to reality--because if they can convince you that you can't take a single step into the world without making a leap of faith, then it's no far stretch to convince you to leap out of the world entirely and into the realm of mythology. This kind of faith is more insidious than any skepticism. And, ironically, it has its roots in the very same thing that's being criticized here: doubting the rational basis for one's connection to reality. That IS solipsism, except the author has simply added a supernatural escape hatch to his bubble of ignorance.)

The young sceptic says, "I have a right to think for myself." But the old sceptic, the complete sceptic, says, "I have no right to think for myself. I have no right to think at all."

No one thinks this way. It's a boogeyman made of straw.

There are plenty of reasons to doubt previous "certain" truths. We have experienced a plethora of absolutes being rendered into relative "truths." Noneuclidean geometry. Heliocentric astronomy. Einstein's relativity. Godel's Theorem. Kuhn's paradigm revolutions. But this process of examining and questioning our accepted "truths" is just the opposite of endangering the intellect. Belief is the death of intelligence. Once you believe in something, you stop questioning it.


Our relationship to the world, as it is untiringly enunciated within us, is not a thing which can be any further clarified by analysis; philosophy can only place it once more before our eyes and present it for our ratification.

M.M.Ponty—Phenomenology of Perception

[DukkhaWaynhim]

[DW sez "Skip a bit, brother"] But this process of examining and questioning our accepted "truths" is just the opposite of endangering the intellect. Belief is the death of intelligence. Once you believe in something, you stop questioning it.

Wow... need to think about that one before I stick my foot in my mouth. More later...

dw

[Holsety]

Rus, I'm sure you recognize that this is a joke thread. It says it right there in the first post. Yet, you come back with an astonishingly serious response. There is no need to argue against solipsism. There are no real (or should I say "sane") solipsists.

HEY!

Having read Descartes and some other rationalists, I was utterly convinced beyond the slightest shadow of a doubt that I am a thinking thing and whatnot. The only thing I am absolutely 100% sure of are my own thoughts. I was pretty much unconvinced by the arguments he, Spinoza, and Leibniz made about the existence of god etc.

Of course I'm open to the idea there are other philosophers who prove with absolute certainty the world around them, but I simply haven't gotten around to them yet.

Now, that doesn't mean that I go around looking at people, wondering "whoa, is that real? Maybe that guy in front of me is actually a pink elephant! Does a chair have any existence besides its ideal existence, the idea of chair?" All it means is that I can't be absolutely certain of mostly anything, but since there's such an important coordination between all the stuff that seems completely real and my own mind thus far, it would be stupid to live my life . The important question for me isn't whether anything besides myself exists because, really, does it even matter that I can't be certain? Descartes was trying to close the gap between 99.999999999% and 100% as I saw it, for me that gap isn't a big deal, esp since I am at least 100% sure as far as myself goes.

Once you believe in something, you stop questioning it.

Erm, not so sure I agree with you there, I would even say that questioning can be considered essential to belief. The story of Job, for instance, is a very clear example of someone questioning his belief in an almighty and perfectly good god in the face of (what appears to be) evil.

To some, at least, belief could be considered an internal knowledge or certainty of somethings existence/truth, not formed from (and thus not reliant on) rational observations.

Meh.

Just as one generation could prevent the very existence of the next generation, by all entering a monastery or jumping into the sea, so one set of thinkers can in some degree prevent further thinking by teaching the next generation that there is no validity in any human thought.

No set of teachings has been absolutely successful among every person so I seriously doubt that a continuation of intellectual thought could seriously be prevented. The problem is every member has to accept the truth of these teachings permanently, while in the case of some mass suicide it only needs to happen once for each person.

Why would the kind of solipsist you seem to fear (the one who is CERTAIN that there is no validity in human thought, as opposed to one who is simply uncertain) be so driven to make sure other humans were sure of this? Anyway, one cannot believe there is no validity in human thought, by thinking such a thing one concludes that humans do not have the potential to assess the validity of their own thoughts, and thus the validity of humans minds having no validity cannot be assessed either. One can be uncertain of one's competence, but you can't be absolutely certain of your own absolute incompetence because by being certain of your incompetence you are unable to actually know who is competent and who is not.

So anyone teaching that no human thought is ever valid would be laughed away by philosophers anywhere.

If evolution simply means that a positive thing called an ape turned very slowly into a positive thing called a man, then it is stingless for the most orthodox; for a personal God might just as well do things slowly as quickly, especially if, like the Christian God, he were outside time. But if it means anything more, it means that there is no such thing as an ape to change, and no such thing as a man for him to change into. It means that there is no such thing as a thing. At best, there is only one thing, and that is a flux of everything and anything. This is an attack not upon the faith, but upon the mind; you cannot think if there are no things to think about. You cannot think if you are not separate from the subject of thought. Descartes said, "I think; therefore I am." The philosophic evolutionist reverses and negatives the epigram. He says, "I am not; therefore I cannot think."

I was somewhat confused by what was going on here When science talks about "homo sapiens" it is talking about a category into which all humans (individual things) fit. It doesn't mean that there's no such thing as a thing...

"Homo sapiens" is a group of organisms capable of having sex with other homo sapiens and producing viable offspring. In other words, homo sapiens is a label used to describe many things with certain similarities in genetic material.

If that was badly worded or blatantly incorrect I am open to corrections.

Interesting stuff all in all, even if it was supposed to be a joke topic, so I hope no one minds.

[Avatar]

I used to be a solipsist. I used to think I'd invented the concept, so was a bit upset to discover that other people had thought of it too, and that it had a name.

It's not so much that I don't know other people exist as that I just can't readily comprehend it.

Intellectually, I know that everybody and everything is "real." Emotionally though, I can't get over the feeling that I'm the only real person, or that everything ceases to exist when I stop looking at it.

The feeling colours my thoughts to such an extent that I've been forced to develop a strict personal morality to prevent me from treating people as objects. Because I know they're not, even if it feels like it.

Or rather, all people are objects, including myself, and if I am, the rest should be treated as I'd want to be treated.

Or something like that. The upshot of it all is that I know y'all are real, even if I don't like to think about it and wish it wasn't so.

--A

[Prebe]

*Sigh*

"Sic transit humor jokeii"

[danlo]

Many solipsists have been cured by a good crack on the jaw.

[Prebe]

Heh! Thanks for re-railing the thread Danlo.

[Avatar]

You're all figments of my imagination, so I'll soliloquise if I damn well want to!



--A

[Menolly]

The upshot of it all is that I know y'all are real, even if I don't like to think about it and wish it wasn't so.

Now...

Go explain that to Cagliostro...

[unicorngirl]

Yes, you are.
So I'm sure you won't mind if I take all your stuff.
It's not really happening, because I don't exist.

[rusmeister]

Don't you (the only person in your little universe) pay any attention to this! It's just imaginary voices the 'you' that doesn't really exist anyway probably are making up...

Having read Descartes and some other rationalists, I was utterly convinced beyond the slightest shadow of a doubt that I am a thinking thing and whatnot. The only thing I am absolutely 100% sure of are my own thoughts. I was pretty much unconvinced by the arguments he, Spinoza, and Leibniz made about the existence of god etc.

Of course I'm open to the idea there are other philosophers who prove with absolute certainty the world around them, but I simply haven't gotten around to them yet.

Now, that doesn't mean that I go around looking at people, wondering "whoa, is that real? Maybe that guy in front of me is actually a pink elephant! Does a chair have any existence besides its ideal existence, the idea of chair?" All it means is that I can't be absolutely certain of mostly anything, but since there's such an important coordination between all the stuff that seems completely real and my own mind thus far, it would be stupid to live my life . The important question for me isn't whether anything besides myself exists because, really, does it even matter that I can't be certain? Descartes was trying to close the gap between 99.999999999% and 100% as I saw it, for me that gap isn't a big deal, esp since I am at least 100% sure as far as myself goes.

It could be that you're imagining a difference that isn't there - what you call 99.999% I may call 100% - the only point being that I dismiss your .000001% out of hand and dogmatically.

Just as one generation could prevent the very existence of the next generation, by all entering a monastery or jumping into the sea, so one set of thinkers can in some degree prevent further thinking by teaching the next generation that there is no validity in any human thought.

No set of teachings has been absolutely successful among every person so I seriously doubt that a continuation of intellectual thought could seriously be prevented. The problem is every member has to accept the truth of these teachings permanently, while in the case of some mass suicide it only needs to happen once for each person.

Why would the kind of solipsist you seem to fear (the one who is CERTAIN that there is no validity in human thought, as opposed to one who is simply uncertain) be so driven to make sure other humans were sure of this? Anyway, one cannot believe there is no validity in human thought, by thinking such a thing one concludes that humans do not have the potential to assess the validity of their own thoughts, and thus the validity of humans minds having no validity cannot be assessed either. One can be uncertain of one's competence, but you can't be absolutely certain of your own absolute incompetence because by being certain of your incompetence you are unable to actually know who is competent and who is not.

So anyone teaching that no human thought is ever valid would be laughed away by philosophers anywhere.

I think it is only fair to GKC to point out that he said "in some degree", whichj to me seems fairly obvious that he means some people, and the kind of thinking that leaves your .000001% as something to seriously consider. He's talking about the logical conclusions of such thinking, so in any event it doesn't really matter how many people actually think it - otherwise you are acknowledging an absolute reality outside of the sphere of your reason in which case it is still shown to be fallacy.

If evolution simply means that a positive thing called an ape turned very slowly into a positive thing called a man, then it is stingless for the most orthodox; for a personal God might just as well do things slowly as quickly, especially if, like the Christian God, he were outside time. But if it means anything more, it means that there is no such thing as an ape to change, and no such thing as a man for him to change into. It means that there is no such thing as a thing. At best, there is only one thing, and that is a flux of everything and anything. This is an attack not upon the faith, but upon the mind; you cannot think if there are no things to think about. You cannot think if you are not separate from the subject of thought. Descartes said, "I think; therefore I am." The philosophic evolutionist reverses and negatives the epigram. He says, "I am not; therefore I cannot think."

I was somewhat confused by what was going on here When science talks about "homo sapiens" it is talking about a category into which all humans (individual things) fit. It doesn't mean that there's no such thing as a thing...

"Homo sapiens" is a group of organisms capable of having sex with other homo sapiens and producing viable offspring. In other words, homo sapiens is a label used to describe many things with certain similarities in genetic material.

If that was badly worded or blatantly incorrect I am open to corrections.

Interesting stuff all in all, even if it was supposed to be a joke topic, so I hope no one minds.

On this last one, he's saying that if evolution means change, we can't ultimately define 'man', 'homo sapiens' or even 'good', because all of these categories become subjective. If homo sapiens is constantly changing, that means that in the next millenium he will have 2 heads and wings and evolve, a la Kohlinar, into a critter without feelings or whatever and will have ceased natural reproduction, etc etc. It won't be recognizable as homo sapiens as we define it today. Point is, we could evolve out of the labels and definitions.

Does that help explain it? (Don't feel bad. Chesterton was what we would consider a certified genius, he's wordy and doesn't go in straight lines like, say, C.S. Lewis does. When I first read him a couple of years ago it was at a crawl. Now that I've gotten his drift, he's much, much easier to follow.) It may not have much to do with the price of tea in China, but I'm reading the electronic version of his biography by Maisie Ward, and just reading the letters between GKC, GB Shaw and HG Wells (who were all friends, oddly enough) leaves me shaking my head as to how people could have not heard of this guy.

[Avatar]

Oh God of Earth and Altar
Bow down, and hear our cry.
Our earthly rulers falter, our people drift and die.
The walls of gold entomb us,
the swords of scorn divine.
Take not Thy thunder from us,
But take away our pride.

Sorry, that's the only Chesterton quote I know. (I'm pretty sure its Chesterton anyway. )

On this last one, he's saying that if evolution means change, we can't ultimately define 'man', 'homo sapiens' or even 'good', because all of these categories become subjective. If homo sapiens is constantly changing, that means that in the next millenium he will have 2 heads and wings and evolve, a la Kohlinar, into a critter without feelings or whatever and will have ceased natural reproduction, etc etc. It won't be recognizable as homo sapiens as we define it today. Point is, we could evolve out of the labels and definitions.

I absolutely agree with him there though. While we probably won't get 2 heads and wings, eventually we'll be unrecognisable by our current standards, either physically, psychologically or socially. (Or any combination of all three.) Assuming we live that long.

Pretty awesome actually.

--A

[Prebe]

Assuming we live that long.

Who's "we", sucker?