We seem to mostly rely on our sense of vision to interpret our surroundings; our sense of touch only provides information on objects beside us that we can feel. Light is deemed more fundamental than matter because it travels faster. If anything we’d expect light to be more familiar and ordinary as it’s our primary sense; it’d actually be the nature of tactile matter that’s mysterious. What if we thought of it the other way round; like matter was the hidden external reality that we share while sight was merely our own internal representation of the world? This would mean that our sense of touch is operating “outside” our sense of vision. What would that imply? It might be that nothing in our vision could actually be said to contain mass. Tactile mass would only physically appear and affect us when we happen to touch the specific object. For example, the objects shown in 2D photographs don’t have any mass whatsoever even though its colours outline where the mass was located. Through this comparison it would seem that our sightseeing perception is made at bottom of light. The objective matter we can touch is the concealed shared external world that represents the tantalising unreachable limit of our subjective perception. — Michael McMahon

The way I look at it is that the objects I see have a concrete existence in my consciousness alone and the things that you see have a concrete existence for just you. But I can’t see the same objects you see so your whole existence is abstract relative to my own perspective. This applies vice versa where my experience is abstract from your point of view. So I can’t concretely see your mind but I could interpret it to be just like an abstract object. I can’t feel your emotions but I can still relate to it by comparing your description with its abstract language and then trying to apply it to my own experiences. — Michael McMahon

I can’t directly see what it’s like to be someone else but we can obviously still infer each other’s sentient existence through the other person’s corporeal body and brain. — Michael McMahon

One way of thinking about it is that we’ve a shared physical, spatial reality but we occupy different timelines. — Michael McMahon

Maybe time and space are subjectively completely separate dimensions. “Spacetime” (the simultaneous experience of both space and time) would then be unique to each observer. I can more easily imagine time existing without space than I can think of space existing without time. So I think time is intrinsically more associated with pure consciousness while the coordinates and dimensions of space are more physical in nature. — Michael McMahon

I would agree that we may have reached a point of stasis today in the visual arts. And I think you’re also right: what’s the point of making art if it’s just rehashing existing firms? Which is why art seems to have found itself in places like therapy. If that’s it’s purpose then it’s now nothing more than moving paint around on a surface for peace of mind. — Brett

Art, specifically the viewing experience is much more than (forgive me for using this word but) "simple qualia." It is often a deep, philosophical, transporting, even transformational experience. Someone once said "the power of art is its ability to take something that no one thought was beautiful before and transfiguring it into something that is." Or something like that. Another said "it [art] brings affirmation in joy and consolation in sorrow.", essentially it has a redeeming quality. Take "American Gothic", it's just two people standing in front of a house. Or so it seems. Not quite willing to write out the meta/context but you could interpret/imagine a great more than what is displayed. — Outlander

Yes art can be called creative, but not necessarily original. — Brett

Dear friend, thank you for sharing. Which has no bearing on the fact that mass has no mass and has no aequivalent energy respectively, iow can NOT be detected let alone be observed, and energy has NO energy and NO aequivalent mass, respectively, hence cannot be detected let alone observed. Properties exist but as an abstract object on the paper - where they are correlated, corresponded. Energy is corresponded to mass and velocity, as every pupil learns in the school. Feel free to share this, too! IF you even share the original text, which I can coarsely verify by the displayed growth / number of views on my posting. Kind regards from GERMANY!

You can share all day long but nobody has, does, will observe mass (no-thing) or energy (no-thing). All that anybody observes is some-thing that HAS mass and aequivalent energy respevtively, dear friend.

"I don't think that solipsism states that nothing exists besides our consciousness, it merely states that we can never know anything about what exists outside our consciousness because we will never experience anything other than our consciousness. which means there is no reason to believe other people are actually other minds, or to believe that the external world's contents will 'continue to exist' when we are not experiencing them. — Darkneos

"Western philosophy from Descartes up through Kant seemed to be going in a direction of increasing solipsism. Subject and object became further and further separated, and philosophers became more and more convinced that there was no way of knowing anything outside of them. In the 20th century, Heidegger rejected this notion as silly, noting that consciousness is defined by its being-in-the-world -- its utter dependence on outer objects to have any experience at all. Yet this concept of mind as social relations has, over the 20th century, led to a kind of different solipsism -- one of language. Wittgenstein really paved the way for this with his posthumously published Philosophical Investigations(in many ways a rebuttal of his earlier work, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus). Post-modernists and post-structuralists explored how language and shared meaning don't describe reality so much as they create it. There was an emerging sense that the individual is nothing but a series of social relations -- a cultural construct with no real identity of their own. In this sense, it was a bit of an antithesis to solipsism. Rather than wondering if others are real, the more pertinent question becomes whether oneself is real. But if there's one thing I know from Hegel, it's that whenever there's a thesis and an antithesis, there's got to be a synthesis."

This will be a short post, because this is fairly simple to explain…well, it is now, after boiling down a very long hand-written post to its salient and self-evident points.

Cause and effect are mutually exclusive ideas…that is, what is the cause cannot also, simultaneously, be the effect; and what is effect cannot also be the cause.

Each notion has an absolute definition which must remain consistent in order for “cause and effect” to have any meaning in the first place.

At the same time each notion depends on the other for its value and relevancy.

What this means is that the cause is not actually a cause without an effect.

There is no such thing as a cause with no effect, by definition; and the converse is also true.

So, in other words, each notion obtains its value and meaning as a direct function of the other.

For instance, a cause is only able to be defined as a cause and observed as a cause via the effect, which makes the cause merely a direct extension of the effect, which I have already explained must be absolute (i.e. the effect is absolutely and utterly the effect…it cannot simultaneously be a cause).

...And this renders any actual distinction between cause and effect impossible.

The distinction is purely conceptual; a product of the human capacity to conceptualize what he or she observes.

The converse, naturally, would also be true.

An effect is only able to be defined and observed and identified as an effect via the cause; its value and relevancy a function of the cause, therefore making the effect merely a direct extension of the cause; and the cause must be absolute (i.e. a cause cannot simultaneously be an effect).

This renders any actual distinction between cause and effect impossible.

Such a distinction can only be made conceptually, as a product of the human conceptualizing brain, which is uniquely able to organize the environment in such a way.

And from here you can see why the title of this article makes sense. “Cause” and “effect” are both everything (i.e. absolutes, which must possess a consistent and ineluctable definition at any given moment) and nothing (i.e. each one deriving its value and relevancy as a direct function of the other, rendering each one a direct extension of the other, thereby making moot both concepts altogether).

Everything and nothing are mutually exclusive, which means that everything and nothing cannot possibly be the existential state of any object or force in question.

To write the equation mathematically, everything is 1, and nothing is zero. 1 x 0 = 0. The product of both “cause” and “effect” separately is zero. And thus when you couple them together as “cause and effect”, or rather, cause plus effect, in order to complete the notion, you get, presented abstractly, 0 + 0. Which of course equals zero.

The point is to show that cause and effect is not an actuality…is not a causal force which somehow, outside of man’s conceptualizing brain and therefore his life, exists as some actual, tangible, efficacious objective reality and causal power. But rather, the material universe is what it is, and it is a singularity, not ruled by “laws of nature” or other forces which are in reality human-derived concepts, much like “cause and effect”, and another one of my favorite punching bags, “chance” (which we will look at later).

The material universe, being an infinite singularity, makes all objects within it likewise infinite singularities, parsed and given meaning and relevancy and truth by those who possess observation coupled with an innate ability to make a conceptual distinction between SELF and OTHER (whatever object or objects are observed to be NOT SELF). And thus, truth is a function of the truly self-aware agent.

He who is able to know and define SELF as SELF is the Standard of Truth for all which is observed; and is likewise he who gives value to everything in the universe, and is the most valuable.

Reason thus demands that all castes and hierarchies, and distinctions of all sorts, must inevitably crumble under the weight of infinite individual human worth.

Because these castes and hierarchies and distinctions are not actual, they are conceptual.

Therefore all human beings can only be judged according two things: their own self-ascribed values, and how they wish to freely exchange those values as a function of their individual attributes and desires (excepting, of course, the decidedly irrational desire to exploit and violate a fellow human being, or supposed gods, etc.).

In this sense, then, one having “judged”, has not been in the least judgmental.

"I don't think that solipsism states that nothing exists besides our consciousness, it merely states that we can never know anything about what exists outside our consciousness because we will never experience anything other than our consciousness. which means there is no reason to believe other people are actually other minds, or to believe that the external world's contents will 'continue to exist' when we are not experiencing them. — Darkneos

"I don't think that solipsism states that nothing exists besides our consciousness, it merely states that we can never know anything about what exists outside our consciousness because we will never experience anything other than our consciousness. which means there is no reason to believe other people are actually other minds, or to believe that the external world's contents will 'continue to exist' when we are not experiencing them. — Darkneos

So in this conceptualization of existence wherein we awaken to a waking dream, the “mind” addressed in effect encapsulates all the sources of awareness and intention that interact (both human and non-human). Thereby not pertaining to any one source of awareness and intention. Thereby constituting one interpretation of a non-physicalist existential reality that, all the same, is constituted of multiple selves which all pertain to a common mind—for instance, a common effete mind as C.S. Peirce would say.

For the solipsist, there is an insistent equivocation between “me”, a source of awareness and intention, and “my mind” which is not “me” but instead belongs to “me”—such that both “me” and “my mind” are illogically affirmed to be identical. This is as equally true of mind (in whichever ontology) that is composed of both conscious awareness and sub- or unconscious awareness—such that both are conflated into “me” as conscious awareness—as it is in regard to the notion of mind as that which constitutes reality as a waking dream—wherein all others are irrationally deemed to be “figments of my imagination as a conscious awareness”.... Or, else, "my mind's figments of imagination" which, again, is conflated with the "me" that is one source of awareness and intention. — javra

Solipsism is fucking rubbish!


Solipsism is a philosophical position.
All philosophical positions require language use.
All language use requires shared meaning.
All shared meaning requires a plurality of creatures.
If solipsism is true there is no such plurality of creatures.
If solipsism is true there is no shared meaning.
If solipsism is true there is no language use.
If solipsism is true there are no philosophical positions.
Solipsism is a philosophical position.

Draw your own conclusion. — creativesoul

Solipsism refutes itself as even a solipsist would distinct between himself and others/things. This makes it unsound - if there was only himself he could not speak of other things: there would be nothing to experience — Heiko

And, it is the existing subject's relation to existence, not the nature of existence, but the relation that causes despair and makes a tragedy. As an existing subject, one is effectively "It", and this is the case regardless of whether solipsism is true or not.

If solipsism is untrue and there are other subjects like me, I still cannot directly access their subjective immediacy as I do my own. In this way I am unique and separate. Whether there are others like me or not, I am (as a subject) alone as it were. I think alone, dream alone, shit alone, die alone...this is what existence as a subject entails, even if you are incessantly surrounded by crowds imitating your every move. This senario seems to me to be even more dreadful and tragic than that of solipsism.

Just remember, when in solitude, everyone is effectively a solipsist, or maybe not, who knows? — Merkwurdichliebe