Suppose I win the powerball lottery with a single ticket. The odds of this are 1 in 292,201,338. If I win, isn't it more reasonable to doubt reality than to assume that I actually won the lottery against such enormous odds? — Josh

Unlikely things happen pretty regularly. Just think of all the events that had to go just so in order for you to be born at all. As a friend of mine explains: 'Just by being born, everybody is a lottery winner.'

You bring up an interesting point, but I don't think it sufficiently solves the philosophical problem I'm alluding to.

Yes, unlikely things happen ALL THE TIME. There is nothing remarkable about something unusual happening, since there are an infinite number of opportunities for unlikely events to occur. Also, I recognize that throughout any person's life span, many extremely unlikely "coincidences" will occur.

With that being said, our tendency is to use Occum's Razor to pick the hypothesis with the fewest and most believable assumptions.

Let me see if I can do a better job of explaining my point. Allow me to give you another, slightly different thought experiment.

Suppose you purchase a ticket to the Powerball lottery. The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 292,201,338. Now, imagine that you ask your trustworthy friend (let's call him Aleksey) to hold on to the ticket, wait for the results to come in, and inform you of the outcome of the drawing. A few days go by, and when the winning digits have been announced, Aleksey calls you and tells you that "you won the grand prize of $40 million." No matter how trustworthy Aleksey may be, as a result of human error, it is still possible for him to misread the numbers. In fact, it is considerably more likely that Aleksey is mistaken than that you won the jackpot with odds of only 1 in 292,201,338, thus, your first inclination is to doubt the results and believe that Aleksey is mistaken.

Just as the existence of a fake reality is generally considered unlikely, it is also unlikely that your trustworthy friend Aleksey would mislead you. Nevertheless, your first instinct might be to believe that Aleksey is mistaken, rather than to believe that you are a Powerball winner, since it is logical for you to favor the least unlikely explanation for the unlikely events that have occurred.

Although unusual things happen all the time, a Powerball winner could argue that the nonexistence of other minds is significantly more plausible than the existence of a world in which he is the sole winner of the Powerball lottery.

I posted my reply below.

As a friend of mine explains: 'Just by being born, everybody is a lottery winner.' — Mongrel

I recall Jostein Gaarder writing such a thing in one of his books.

With solipsism a paradoxical version of Occam's Razor applies that the simplest explanation is both correct and incorrect and, as a result, more often either extremely productive or counterproductive. In other words, they not only have to justify good luck, but bad luck as well.

Just as the existence of a fake reality is generally considered unlikely, it is also unlikely that your trustworthy friend Aleksey would mislead you. Nevertheless, your first instinct might be to believe that Aleksey is mistaken, rather than to believe that you are a Powerball winner, since it is logical for you to favor the least unlikely explanation for the unlikely events that have occurred. — Josh

I think I understand your point. But Good Luck tends to reinforce the ideology that existed at the time it happened. So, for instance, King David had a series of victories. A side-effect is that the Hebrew religion is invigorated. The Romans are transported over a period of 50 years from minor player on the world scene to the Last Superpower. They took it as a sign that they were on a divine mission. And I'm sure we could think of other examples of peoples who fell ass backwards into incredibly good luck and subsequently assumed that they must be loved by God Almighty. Um... I'm looking out the window... I think I know of one.

If you find yourself entertaining solipsism after winning the Powerball, I'll put it to you that you love yourself. Which is fucking awesome. Keep that up and never lose it. A person who has no self-love would have the opposite situation. Winning the Powerball would be proof that solipsism is wrong.. see what I mean?

I recall Jostein Gaarder writing such a thing in one of his books. — Michael

Cool. I got it from a german friend who I haven't seen in a long time. Maybe she got it from that book?

Interesting. Care to elaborate?

What's to elaborate on? If the self is all that there is to be known then both good luck and bad luck reflect ourselves and the simplest explanation is always the most attractive because it is both the simplest and our own.

But Good Luck tends to reinforce the ideology that existed at the time it happened. and subsequently assumed that they must be loved by God Almighty. — Mongrel

Good fucking point!

Winning the Powerball would be proof that solipsism is wrong.. see what I mean? — Mongrel

No I don't. He is sitting there all handsome and loath and then finds out he wins the lottery. He thinks "Oh that is just my one mind, my one experience creating something new". It doesn't invalidate his solipsism any less.

Unlikely things happen pretty regularly. Just think of all the events that had to go just so in order for you to be born at all. As a friend of mine explains: 'Just by being born, everybody is a lottery winner.' — Mongrel

I dunno about that, all sperm are created equal and have no consciousness. That is like saying one grain of sand is luckier than another. Unlikely things do happen but are you sure it was by chance? Where is your proof chance exists? There is non like there is no proof against gods existence either. We can rationally decide either way.

Does being extremely lucky justify metaphysical solipsism?

Suppose I win the powerball lottery with a single ticket. The odds of this are 1 in 292,201,338. If I win, isn't it more reasonable to doubt reality than to assume that I actually won the lottery against such enormous odds?

Why do the most successful people not have serious doubts about the existence of other minds? If I am Bill Gates, why wouldn't I find it more reasonable that other minds don't exist than that I have actually succeeded at earning more money than every other person in the U.S.?

Isn't it more reasonable to assume that reality and other people don't exist than to imagine that I actually won the powerball jackpot?

Is there any philosophical work that grapples with this question? I know that solipsism has been discussed in great length by many philosophers, but has this specific question ever been dealt with? If so, I would love to read about it.

Thanks. — Josh

I am partially a solipsist but am still unconfirmed on the nature of physical reality yet to just subscribe my self to a 100% belief pattern like foolish atheists and christians do. I keep an open mind. I see myself as the universe, which is in totally one thing. Such a statement isn't far from solipsism.

However what you say directly relates to how I view my unfortunate instances with chance occurences. Whenever I had an accident in the past, the accident could always seem to be correlated with something I had done, will do or was thinking about doing...and by the fact the it was so unlikely to happen it almost looks as if it is the product of intelligent design. This isn't just seeing correlations where there isn't any, I am aware of this and stay away from it.

So in the same way you suggest the unlikeliness of winning the lottery validates a belief in solipsism, for me the unlikelihood of bizarre circumstances of bad fortune (and good fortune) seem to confirm to me that something else is afoot although I can not say what. Foolish people just deny it, mainly because they can't see how they could prove such a thing and find logical positivism, naive realism and atheism the easiest belief systems to work with.

So I don't think you can say for sure it means solipsism exists. But if you are inclined to already believe it already exists, it will confirm your beliefs even more as Mongrel was saying.

If I won the lottery, I would be looking to see why. How would I find out? I already have a history to which I can draw correlations from and I also have the rest of my life to see how it pans out, what happens with the money etc. and draw correlations from both.

It is too easy to just say "what ya'll on about? you win the lottery caus ya'll got lucky on that's all, nothin more." You should try and get them to describe what luck is and then prove it. haha.

The odds of this are 1 in 292,201,338. If I win, isn't it more reasonable to doubt reality than to assume that I actually won the lottery against such enormous odds? — Josh

The most reasonable thing would be to doubt that odds of that sort imply that one can't win.

The most reasonable thing would be to doubt that odds of that sort imply that one can't win. — Terrapin Station

Is that a hyperbole? Because there is a chance but a slim one.

What would be the case though if you constantly kept encountering scenarios where you found yourself being the 1 in 300,000,000 every single day? IE. You go skydiving and your shoot fails, then the next day you get yourself in to a car accident, then the next day you get attacked by a crocodile, then you win the lottery etc.

Would that then prove solipsism MORE than just one instance of being the 1 in 300,000,000?

It seems empiricists and rationalists would find no justification no matter how many weird events you encountered. It is like even if God appeared with miracles before their very eyes they would just say something like "weeellllllllll, for certain it is odd.... buuuuuut it's just a coincidence... it's nothing spooky, it's just random chance". Such comments are worthy of a slap in the face! How can you even fricken say that! Can you elaborate on this Terrapin and try clarify what I am trying to say in this paragraph with better wording/terminology?

Is that a hyperbole? Because there is a chance but a slim one. — intrapersona

No, it's not hyperbole. Odds such as 1 in 292,201,338 do not mean that something can't happen.

Aside from that, I'd say that what you should be skeptical of is the odds given, especially when they're Bayesian rather than frequentist. But even when they're frequentist, it's worth being skeptical of an interpretation that just because something happened with a particular frequency previously, it will happen with that frequency in the future. The situation is a bit different when we're talking about something that's supposedly random, as is ideally the case with lotteries, but most things are not supposedly random, if anything really is.