Solipsisim is entirely an epistemological issue: how we can acquire knowledge and the limitations of any such methodologies. I can't know if other minds exist (true solipsism) but that's not to say other minds don't exist (false solipsism).

the solution to solipsism is empathy, i.e. the realisation that all beings are the same as you.

The ultimate solution to the problem of solipsism is watching your teeth rot.

Well according to this dude solipsism is true and we are solipsists in superposition. I don't know how right his argument is.

↪TerraHalcyon
the solution to solipsism is empathy, i.e. the realisation that all beings are the same as you. — Wayfarer

This caught my attention. Can one really experience solipsism? Or will solipsism remain just an interesting philosophical topic.

Can one really experience solipsism? — Caldwell

I think that psychopathic personalities exhibit something near to solipsism. For them, others don't exist, or aren't real. That is why psychopathic killers can exhibit such coldness. But then, psychopathology is a diseased state. I think the normal mind intuitively realises that 'others are like myself.'

I often think that all of these arguments about solipsism come from a particular reading of Descartes' 'cogito'. It is taking that argument to say that all I can know for certain is my own being. In a way, that is true, but it still takes a considerable effort to imagine that, on this basis, other beings are merely figments or projections of my imagination.

So in practice, empathy - which is 'the ability to understand and share the feelings of another' - is an obvious antidote to solipsism, and suggestive also of a philosophical answer to the challenge.

So in practice, empathy - which is 'the ability to understand and share the feelings of another' - is an obvious antidote to solipsism, and suggestive also of a philosophical answer to the challenge. — Wayfarer

While I do not disagree, somehow it leaves me a feeling of dissatisfaction from the understanding that we are shifting the philosophical nature of solipsism (as a matter of principle) to a psychological one. Not that I disagree with talking about solipsism in the psychological sense. But that I find that we can't even justify talking about it philosophically even if we try. Does this make sense?

Some clarification: empathy is a subject of psychology. Or please enlighten me what philosopher has used empathy to argue about the nature of reality or perception.

Philosophically, I am a solipsist and a panpsychist.

....says the Quora poster (from Opening Post in this thread).

If yours is the only mind, then I am not writing this post. I am writing this post. So yours is not the only mind. If mine is the only mind, then you are not reading this post. You are reading this post. Therefore mine is not the only mind. That makes two of us. Wonder if there are any more?

As for panpsychism and the idea that we are all really one person with one mind, that's ok too until it comes to splitting the bill in the restaurant or defending plagiarism in your college essays. That is, it's ok for playful whimsy in online forums but it's not fit for use in human life and it's not coherent thinking.

Some clarification: empathy is a subject of psychology. Or please enlighten me what philosopher has used empathy to argue about the nature of reality or perception. — Caldwell

Empathy and the Philosophical Problem of Other Minds — SEP

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/empathy/

So in practice, empathy - which is 'the ability to understand and share the feelings of another' - is an obvious antidote to solipsism, and suggestive also of a philosophical answer to the challenge. — Wayfarer

:up: Well said!

I know I exist. I know how I am to other people is exactly how they are to me. Yet, there's the possibility that other people are figments of my imagination i.e. they may appear to me as I appear to them but that doesn't imply they have a mind.

Interesting! As per solipsisim p-zombies are possible. Were they not, solipsisim has no leg to stand on.

But what I am trying to get at is this though, is the argument the guy posted right or was I correct in my questioning of it. Philosophy is my weak point but even I could see the rest of his post isn't consistent with solipsism.

I also don't understand what Irrealism is from the wayback article but it's mostly argued by this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Westerhoff
http://www.janwesterhoff.net/

All of this has my head spinning a bit as I don't have an answer for much of it except the Quora guy.

You don't need to engage in an argument about this. What Bert is saying is that he can only experience his own consciousness and his own feelings, but not yours.

Here are a few examples:

• Different people have different tolerance to spicy food. Let's say you cannot handle anything spicy but Bert is highly tolerant. You are at a restaurant and you've ordered the same dish. Bert eats it and feels nothing, but you take a bite and your mouth is on fire! This experience of yours is inaccessible to Bert. You can describe your experience to Bert, and he'll probably understand it, but you cannot transfer your experience directly to Bert. Your experience is yours, and his experience is his.
• Let's say Bert is colour blind but you can see colours just fine. You can probably convince Bert that you can see things that he can't. But there is no way you can make Bert experience colour the way you do. Even worse, let's say Bert isn't colour blind. You both look at a red apple and you agree that it's red. But what if Bert's experience of red is closer to your experience of blue than your experience of red? What if in your minds you see different colours, but you don't realise the difference? You see red and you say "It's red", but Bert sees blue and he says "It's red", because that's the name he associates with the colour. It is a possibility that is easy to reject but impossible to disprove. You could only disprove it if you could transfer experiences between minds. The purpose of solipsism is to emphasise that experiences aren't transferable.

In other words, solipsism is a standpoint that you can embrace and try to understand, and it would teach you something without taking anything from you.

As per solipsisim p-zombies are possible. Were they not, solipsisim has no leg to stand on. — Agent Smith

If solipsism is true, then it is an idea that cannot be communicated because there is nobody to communicate it to. So, given solipsism, if you wrote the above post, you did not communicate anything.

If you can get the idea of solipsism across to anyone or if anyone agrees with you or if anyone disagrees with you, it's false. If you understand what I've written here, or even if you don't, then it's false - because there is one to write and one to read, which is no longer solipsism.

That's the leglessness of solipsism.

The guy isn't a solipsist. He contends that you and I are solipsist too, so there is still some reasonableness left. He sees all 7 billion people on Earth as solipsists seeing each other as p-zombies. This basically denies his position as a solipsist.

He is a panpsychist who sees us all as collapsing forms of consciousness. All part of the universal consciousness. He denies the reality of material processes. That's the irrealism reffered to. The realism of the immaterial. The irrealism of the material.

All in all, his picture is coherent and he at least admits other solipsists. In fact, all 7 billion of them!

But there is no point to argue against it. You can only prove to your opponent that you cannot see — pfirefry

If anyone proves anything to anyone else, then solipsism is false.

If anyone proves anything to anyone else, then solipsism is false. — Cuthbert

That’s not 100% fair to solipsism. Would you keep posting in this thread if you learned that all participants were just AI driven bots? Some AI bots can generate pretty realistic comments nowadays. You cannot always assume that every thing that you meaningfully interact with has a mind. This will become even trickier in the future, as the AI technology advances. I generally agree with your argument, but it should also be taken with a grain of salt.

Ok, pfirefry, if solipsism is true, then either you're a bot or I am. I'm not. How 'bout you? And when you complain of unfairness on behalf of solipsism, who do you imagine you're complaining to?

And welcome to the Forums, by the way.

.

Ok, pfirefry, if solipsism is true, then either you're a bot or I am. I'm not. How 'bout you? — Cuthbert

If solipsism is true, you cannot obtain 100% evidence to confirm that I’m not a bot. This seems accurate to me. But I’m a man (or bot) of faith. I don’t need 100% evidence about things, so it doesn’t bother me :grin:

I'm afraid you're confusing true solipsism from false solipsism. We can't know if other minds exist and not that we know other minds don't exist - enough room in there to have a meaningful conversation or some semblance of it, no?

Thanks for the link.

And just as I've suspected, it remains problematic to use empathy as a counter argument for the existence of other minds, especially outside psychology. Note that the article never once mentioned "metaphysics" and "ontology". Rather, there is this inter subjectivity loophole we could use to argue, helplessly, that we could connect with other minds by way of analogy or mirroring.

Empathy cannot be used as a evidence-gathering against solipsism by the very fact that solipsism cannot recognize analogy, let alone, other minds.

We can't know if other minds exist and not that we know other minds don't exist. ........enough room in there to have a meaningful conversation or some semblance of it, no — Agent Smith

If there is room for a meaningful conversation, then solipsism is false. If this is merely a semblance of a conversation then it is a person's train of thought. But whose? It can't be mine, if you posted. And if I posted, it can't be yours.

Ok, I'm putting the wrecking ball away for a bit and unpicking the point.

We can doubt whether, for example, a webchat with a company is with a person or a bot - and as bots get more sophisticated we might be completely uncertain and make the wrong call. But this doubt is predicated on our being able usually to make a distinction between bots and persons. When this possibility is presumed irretrievably absent and logically inaccessible, then both doubt and certainty are out of the question. We may only be ignorant of things that could be known if we only knew them.

The first sentence of your post is false.

But what I am trying to get at is this though, is the argument the guy posted right or was I correct in my questioning of it. Philosophy is my weak point but even I could see the rest of his post isn't consistent with solipsism. — TerraHalcyon

He's bending solipsism a bit toward participatory realism. It's right in the sense it's his particular view on the matter. You are correct in saying that he's putting forward solipsism in a novel way. There's a form of solipsism that's fun to think about and a good framework for learning to develop arguments for things. What's more attractive than a seemingly obvious truth that you are surrounded by a world with things and at the same time if some one doubted it you might be pressed to prove it.

However there is also the result of combining 2 things most people poorly understand like the Copenhagen interpretation of QM and the moment of consciousness experience often adding some agreeable assumptions and trying to derive something coherent to say about it. I don't like signing into Quora so I can't comment beyond the initial statement.

It's an interesting question you raise; what is the "right" way to consider the most subjective thing.

To settle the other matter; odds are our technology has outpaced our evolution to the point we are receiving "good" information that surpasses our minds experience of the world. Ergo, it doesn't make sense.

Except that isn't what his is putting forth.

What you are talking about is subjectivism in which I can admit. But that isn't what he's getting at. IF you take a look at the comments you see that he says everyone else is a p-zombie and that his mind made them all (im paraphrasing I think), because he insists that consciousness is primary just because Max Plank made some remark about it being so (and according to him "lots of bright people") and I said that doesn't mean anything.

In his scenario there is no communicating to others. I think you might want to read it again, as well as the follow ups he makes in the comments. He mentions anti-realism as well.

I eventually gave up because I found that there was no reasoning with him. Trying to get him to explain just resulted in him saying I didn't get it.

But I do know what he is saying isn't solipsism. He even tried to work superposition into it.

I just need someone to tell me if I was in the right with the points that I made against him in the thread because philosophy isn't my strong suit.

Like...would superposition have anything to do with it?

But there cannot be 7 billion solipsists, by definition.

But there cannot be 7 billion solipsists, by definition. — TerraHalcyon

Exactly. That's why he is not a true solipsist. A true s denies other s.

Well according to him (and in the long series of replies) he is because we all exist in superposition, to which I said that isn't how superposition is used and the fact that there are other minds (even IN superposition) means it's not solipsism.

It honestly sounded like a VERY roundabout view of realism, or a version of it.

It honestly sounded like a VERY roundabout view of realism, or a version of it. — TerraHalcyon

Exactly. He sees his way of being and his superposition states as reality. We are not only superpositions though. I think he is a very strict follower of the foundation fathers of QM. Only if an observer measures a quantum state, the wavefunction will collapse, be it yours or an electron's spin. Regardless what you feel. Maybe that's solipsistic, but clinging strictly to the quantum rules, you cannot conclude differently. That's why hidden variables seem more realistic.