Meaning requires a plurality of things. Shared meaning requires a plurality of agents. A plurality refutes solipsism.

I repeat, how might Solipsism be falsified in principle? — tom

That is the principle of it. There is a possibility that Solipsism can be proven false and, given infinite time, any possibility becomes a certainty therefore Solipsism is falsifiable.

Any distinction you are making that claims this is not a fundamental truth is lost on me.

Higher dimension, mysteries? Probably — tom

Assuming you are not being sarcastic: if you admit this is a possibility then given the above principle you must admit Solipsism is falsifiable.

OK, so let's examine two claims, which are actually competing theories, which utilise identical equations:

1. Underlying reality does not exist. The equations are purely epistemic.

2. Underlying reality does exist. The equations correspond to elements of reality.

Here we have a genuine situation where your criterion of accuracy is both philosophically and scientifically useless.

And of course we have the age-old ideas:

1. Only my mind exists.

2. There exists a Reality independent of my mind.

Science can't help you with that one. — tom

Actually, infants have already solved this problem when they acquire Object Permanence.

If 1. is true, then you are saying that you only exist as words on a screen, as that is how you appear to me. Is that what you are saying? If 1. is true, I assure you that your mind doesn't exist and only mine does as I never experience another mind, only words on a screen. You, however would argue the opposite, so it seems that 1. defeats itself. Realism doesn't seem to have that problem.

Actually, infants have already solved this problem when they acquire Object Permanence. — Harry Hindu

I don't think infants have a clue about quantum mechanics let alone prefer epistemic or realist interpretations.

If 1. is true, then you are saying that you only exist as words on a screen, as that is how you appear to me. Is that what you are saying? If 1. is true, I assure you that your mind doesn't exist and only mine does as I never experience another mind, only words on a screen. You, however would argue the opposite, so it seems that 1. defeats itself. Realism doesn't seem to have that problem. — Harry Hindu

I thought you were going to provide a test so we can falsify solipsism.

My mind creates all phenomena

Ah, but I existed before I joined this group, so your mind did not create me.

Ah, but I existed before I joined this group, so your mind did not create me. — Mitchell

There are no empirical consequences of Solipsism that makes it distinguishable from realism. It is logically consistent. It is therefore impossible to apply the method of science, test, or falsify it. It is a philosophical question.

Is this so hard for people to grasp?

Solipsism proves that logic is not capable of encompassing reality we experience.

There exists a Reality independent of my mind. — tom

But we can't know that reality.
The phenomena is the result of understanding and perception of the noumena.

This epistemological idea of a reality thoroughly independent of our mind is a mistake, because fall down on of Hume's problems...
Kant had a good answer to Hume, and to everyone who was almost getting crazy with epistemological problems, but Kant's view was kinda rejected by his "successors", like Fichte, Hegel, etc, while positivism was getting the consensus of scientists and logical philosophers. However, even Wittgenstein abandoned logical positivism, and Godel's theorem helped to kill, dig a hole, and push positivism into it.

There's, in this forum, a wrong epistemological conception and a too much faith in what science can know or can't know, almost a scientificism

Ah, but I existed before I joined this group, so your mind did not create me. — Mitchell

Clearly, you do not understand what he is saying, and never even take a book of transcendental epistemology to read... Ah!!!
The Phenomena, not as it is in itself, but as it is to us, is a result of properties of second quality, id est, it is a process in which both the individual mind and the thing in it self (noumena) creates the Phenomena.
"Phenomena are the appearances, which constitute the our experience; noumena are the things themselves, which constitute reality"

you do not understand what he is saying, and never even take a book of transcendental epistemology to read

Does Husserl count? I have taken several graduate seminars just on Husserl and have used Cartesian Meditations in my own courses.

But if he is arguing for a transcendental position, rather than for solipsism, then maybe I misunderstood him. But based on his response, I think not.

Oh, I understand. Sorry, I did wrong.

I think that the point is being missed here.

The materialism in the scientific method is just an axiom or something like that assumed for the purpose of investigating the physical world. It is not, as I understand it, the same as the materialism/physicalism of philosophical/intellectual movements that deny the existence of free will, say that consciousness is nothing more than neurological activity in the physical brain, etc.

The materialism in the scientific method is just an axiom or something like that assumed for the purpose of investigating the physical world. It is not, as I understand it, the same as the materialism/physicalism of philosophical/intellectual movements that deny the existence of free will, say that consciousness is nothing more than neurological activity in the physical brain, etc. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

I think that Realism underlies the scientific method. The idea that whatever is amenable to empirical testing is actually there and exists. Also that the solutions that science proposes to the problems it encounters are couched in terms of this reality.

There is, of course, a risk of descending into circularity, but I think it safe to say that now (not so during the time of Newton) science has in fact honed in on the idea of the physical, and has adopted that metaphysics.

I think that Realism underlies the scientific method. The idea that whatever is amenable to empirical testing is actually there and exists. Also that the solutions that science proposes to the problems it encounters are couched in terms of this reality.

There is, of course, a risk of descending into circularity, but I think it safe to say that now (not so during the time of Newton) science has in fact honed in on the idea of the physical, and has adopted that metaphysics. — tom

But, as I understand it, that is not the same as the materialism/physicalism of a naturalist worldview. It is not the same thing from which determinism and similar ideas are derived. It's just a practical starting point for investigating the world, not a statement about existence, experience, reality vs. perception, etc.

But, as I understand it, that is not the same as the materialism/physicalism of a naturalist worldview. It is not the same thing from which determinism and similar ideas are derived. It's just a practical starting point for investigating the world, not a statement about existence, experience, reality vs. perception, etc. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Sure, science can start from anywhere. Its method tends to lead, through a series of tentative decisions towards better explanations, though there are no guarantees.

You cannot escape, however, the fact that our best theories are fully deterministic.

You cannot escape, however, the fact that our best theories are fully deterministic. — tom

I don't think the notions of either determinism or randomness amounts to anything meaningful when describing 'nature in itself', because the 'necessary' truths of any physical theory are only the logical truths that defined as being true according to linguistic convention, with the convention being arbitrarily chosen and perpetually subject to revision.

Consequently it is meaningless to distinguish necessary truths from contingent truths in any absolute sense.

I don't think the notions of either determinism or randomness amounts to anything meaningful when describing 'nature in itself', because the 'necessary' truths of any physical theory are only the logical truths that defined as being true according to linguistic convention, with the convention being arbitrarily chosen and perpetually subject to revision. — sime

Our best theories are deterministic. They work equally well forwards in time as backwards.

But, as I understand it, that is not the same as the materialism/physicalism of a naturalist worldview. It is not the same thing from which determinism and similar ideas are derived. It's just a practical starting point for investigating the world, not a statement about existence, experience, reality vs. perception, etc. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Exactly, but it's not as much fun to criticise them if you make them sound all pragmatic and mundane, you have to make them sound like raging fundamentalists to really get the pleasure out of beating them up about it in philosophy forums.