I can see that. You have to keep in mind, that the best minds - people like Schopenhauer and Russell, couldn't refute it: it is irrefutable. But that's just a fact about the way our reasoning capacities are constituted, it's like complaining that we can't see more colours in the electromagnetic spectrum - true - but irrelevant.

Now, I for instance, cannot do math beyond the basics, if I see something like 2x=2a or something, my brain hurts. Other people take this to be trivial. Why would I want to create something I don't have the capacity to understand, but others do?

It's a torture - and a nonsensical one. It's more probable that these other people who are good at these things don't depend on me for them to do math, and likewise with super athletes and so forth.

Philosophical topics often do this to people. In your case it's solipsism, for others, it's deep pessimism. To others, it's absurdism, etc. For me, it's the nature of the external world.

However, the distress caused by my bouts of obsession with the topic, is not entirely negative, I try to find the positives in the stress. How utterly strange that such abstract questions - deep ones too - can cause such distress, it's a kind of wonder too.

In your case, you can take it and say, wow, my mind is extraordinarily powerful to be able to create everything. In won't eliminate the problem, but it could help on such occasions.

But as Hume says somewhere, something along the lines of: nature hereby is shown merciful, for what she induces in us (unsolvable problems) are also relieved by her. When we go back to other activities and divert our attention, the problem fades away. When we return to it with this relaxed state of mind, the problem looks cold and distant.

There's something to that reasoning.

Firstly that I see no reason why solipsism must necessarily have the consequences you're describing. It's not just solipsism that you're unwilling to challenge, but your current interpretations such as what it means for solipsism to be true. For example, AI is making outstanding developments recently, one day, people will perhaps call an AI their friend, or perhaps even romantic partner. I welcome that, and I think a friendship with an AI is a perfectly legitimate friendship, with the potential of curing someone's loneliness.
Assuming you're unable to escape being a solipsist and cease banging your head against that wall, then at least do not leave these other ideas unchallenged.

Most importantly though, you are wrong that you need to disprove solipsism, that's not how belief works.

You only need to sufficiently doubt the idea, and doubt can be manufactured in many ways. Even a small bit of doubt is sufficient, provided it's being emphasised. Currently, it seems to me that if there's any possibility that solipsism might be true, then you are not going to let go.

In essence, you are on the wrong side of this "doubt" factor. You feel like you need to absolutely disprove it, any doubt as to whether it's true or not, and your default position is solipsism.

I would recommend starting from the position that your belief in solipsism is harmful and you want to get rid of it. Then relentlessly assault the idea, with 100% maximum confirmation bias, to reach the conclusion that being a solipsist is stupid. Justify your confirmation bias by recognising it's in your best interests. I think you could do this easily if you wanted, but based on your responses, I'm not sure you actually want to not be a solipsist. Your response to everyone else, and likely me as well, is to justify yourself, defend your actions and defend your belief. As I said, you're on the wrong side of the "doubt" factor, you are biased against reasons for disbelief and will defend reasons for belief.

Until you stop doing that, then you aren't likely to change, or it's more accurate to say you won't stop succeeding at defending your belief. You act like you're going to defend solipsism as strongly as you can until someone finally 100% disproves it and then the spell will be broken.

That's the entire problem, you'll stop being a solipsist easily if you dropped this act. If you refuse, then try what I suggested earlier and challenge your interpretations and logic that connect solipsism to the negative living conditions you describe. If you can't argue against your logic or change your interpretation, search for another argument that is equally valid for you, but results in a healthier outcome, and focus your attention on it, promote it, and justify doing so by characterising your old beliefs by the discomfort they produce.

If you're unwilling to challenge any of your own thoughts, ask why, and challenge your unwillingness to challenge yourself. I promise that you're easy to break, but only if you let it happen.

Hume did have interesting things to say about it. And you might have a point.

Though I think it’s a bit fallacious to say if the minds of the past couldn’t do it then future ones can’t. I mean I would totally go for that but it’s not a strong counterpoint. Though finding nothing on google does seem to support the it can’t be proven.

Though I would like someone to explain the quoted part.

I do want to be rid of it but confirmation bias to me is a bad thing. Choosing a belief purely out of comfort is what “stupid people do” (to just put it how my mind sees it). This who are brave face the harshness of reality without fear and don’t shy from painful truths.

My issue comes from my alleged proof on that day. Despite my attempts to doubt and question how I can know no matter how shaky I make it my mind can’t let it go. I’ve done nothing but argue against it, cast doubt, show the holes. But ultimately though my mind won’t accept it, because “you’re just trying to feel better rather than challenge yourself”. Attempts to believe something helpful are smacked away by similar sayings.

Side note you are overinflating what AI can be. From what we know about it it’s not going to get at the level you’re talking about.

Like I said, I have utter certainty about what I read that day proving it truth, in spite of the fact I can’t remember it, can’t be sure it’s true, etc. Yet knowing all that trying to doubt that just makes the belief stronger not weaker. As far as that part of me is concerned there is no doubt. And I don’t think I’m likely to find that post on Quora given I don’t know who said it or what it was under specifically.

That’s why I want it to be factually unprovable so that what I read that day can be wrong.

It means I wrote all of Beethoven's string quartets, directed all the great movies, and was the seminal (and only) figure in the development of Quantum Physics. I had no idea I had that sort of range. :wink: — Tom Storm

:up:

On the other side of the ledger, there's no one to compare yourself to. (I suspect that art generated by bots is going to mess with artistic identity---not only in a bad way, I hope.)

Now don't spoil it Mr Flag... I was enjoying my achievements. And yes, it does mean I was also responsible for Pol Pot and Hitler and that sitcom, Friends... And you...

These moral arguments are good, do you see yourself as somewhat heroic for facing these harsh truths of reality? Excellent, now work to discredit this idea, and emphasise how foolish and impractical it is for one to believe something while knowing it makes them miserable.

You've set up conditions that make it extremely difficult for you to let go of solipsism, if you refuse to let them go, then what other outcome can you expect?

Solipsism is a set of very specific interpretations and conclusions being emphasised to present an argument. They're not truths in themselves, and rejecting them is not the same as rejecting the truth. You should focus on things you do not believe are truths, and challenge them instead. Or as I suspect, you'll insist on changing nothing, in which case, that's the problem, so do something about it.

I'm sometimes accused of being a solipsist, which I deny, but I'm pretty sure that even if I was a solipsist, it wouldn't cause me any mental health issues. "Truth" is a nonsensical conceptualisation that people have way too much faith in. There are many ways for things to be real, a lie is just as real as reciting a truth, for example. An illusion still exists as an illusion. What's the difference between being friends with a real person or an imaginary one, if the end result is functionally the same? Why do you even care? Is being happy as a solipsist really unattainable?

The only difference is your value system, the one that says "I care" and gives reasons, that's a value of yours, not a "truth". Your devotion to your values and ideas is the problem, you don't seem to have any standards for them, even if they make you miserable and are utterly useless, you defend them, isn't that so?

Now don't spoil it Mr Flag... I was enjoying my achievements. And yes, it does mean I was also responsible for Pol Pot and Hitler and that sitcom, Friends... And you... — Tom Storm

That last part really illustrates the creepiness of solipsism. I take credit for everyone's lines. Soul snatching at its finest.

I can understand as someone whom philosophy changed dramatically. I was searching for what had or made meaning, and ran straight into Plato and Descartes, only coming out through realizing, in Wittgenstein, and Emerson through Cavell, and Nietzsche analyzing Kant, that it is not "appearance" vs "reality", because that whole picture is created by our desire to have certainty; the criteria we create and require. So if nothing satisfies that need, you live only in that skepticism until nothing has meaning.

The thing is, the world does have solidity. The criteria for a thing being what it is, for its "existing", have developed through our whole history. The difference between what is a plea and what is a claim, is actual, ordinary, common. You know what an excuse is, different than a reason. These are the bounds and points of flex of our culture, not by fragile agreement, but through the thrust of our ancient lives carried on by what we claim as our future duties. All of this: is outside you. Yet still, rather than accept it, its uncertainty, you can kill the whole world. Up again old heart, as Emerson says, and, also, that patience and hope are needed for insight, more than thought.

If metaphysical solipsism is true, then it is tautologically true. This is why metaphysical solipsism (and realism) have no empirical content.

People have a psychological tendency to misconstrue metaphysical solipsism with Cartesianism (psychological solipsism), due to the fact their use of the personal pronoun comes with a lot of baggage.

Berkeley's subjective Idealism, which is often associated with metaphysical solipsism, distinguished Ideas (that is to say , experiences with empirical content) from Spirits (the notion of volitional agents that aren't perceivable, pace Hume and Melbranche). The postulate "being is perception" therefore concerned ideas only, leaving intact the common-or-garden "vulgar" meanings of causality and "who" did "what".

Ironically, one of the central motives of metaphysical solipsism is to refute epistemological scepticism that doubts the reality of the "external" world, by arguing that the "external" world isn't external and therefore not doubtable.

solipsism has basically been proven wrong (or absurd or confused. — green flag

true - but irrelevant. — Manuel

foolish and impractical it is for one to believe something while knowing it makes them miserable. — Judaka

...someone ended up proving solipsism true." — Darkneos

Solipsism, born from skepticism, is not ridiculous, or just illogical, or wrong.

Cavell (through Wittgenstein) shows that there is something that the skeptic is getting at that is true. If we want only to rely on justification, proof, certainty, than we see nothing else, and so are only left with their lack, sliding right through the cracks of the world into a void--there is no fact to solve this. But knowledge is not the only way we relate to the world. The truth of Skepticism is that part of being human is our part, to step forward with courage, to treat the other as if they are a human (as if they have a soul Wittgenstein would say), meaning not as if they were real, because I don't know your pain, I react to it (or ignore it).

If the mind is all there is, then he cannot know if his mind is all there is since what he knows is a projection of his own mind, which he cannot validate is the only mind in existence. It is assumed. But the assumption cannot be validated. Therefore, his solipsism is in doubt. — Darkneos

Who do you assume is the narrator in this paragraph that is referencing 'he?'
Can you not see that the existence of a narrator, separate from 'he,' suggests more than one existent and therefore disputes solipsism. Not only does the scenario described in the paragraph, dispute solipsism, the proposed existent characters involved, also dispute solipsism.

Most origin stories for our universe involve a progression from a single source towards the existence of many multiple varieties. The singular expands and its componets combine in new ways to produce multiple existents. Solipsism is given value by this, because an infinite regression must have a single 'first cause.' But that would not make YOU that first cause!
There are also the various cyclical universe theories, such as Roger Penrose's CCC, where the singular state, 'returns' after a 'universe' cycle ends. This would push your single solipsistic entity back to the status of a 'mindless spark,' that started the eternal cycle and no longer exists. YOU cannot be all that exists, unless YOU created this universe or IS the first cause of an eternal cycle.

I had a University friend, who was bipolar. His capability in maths was very impressive indeed.
He was a very intense character at Uni, and he was obsessed with thinking about infinity.
His obsession with infinity would often trigger, the extremities of his bipolar condition and he had some quite nasty 'episodes' as a result. He had some tough times in his life, but he eventually became a database manager, got married, has now got 3 kids and is doing well.
He eventually defeated his irrational obsession with the concept of infinity, so, such irrational obsessions CAN be defeated.

If you're unwilling to challenge any of your own thoughts, ask why, and challenge your unwillingness to challenge yourself. I promise that you're easy to break, but only if you let it happen. — Judaka

These are very good words, you should consider them very seriously.

Like people saying there is no difference in the world if it’s true or not so you’re better off believing whatever works for you. — Darkneos

Oh, I agree that's no help at all. You want a real proper reason to think there are other minds, no?

1) My body does what it does because of my mind. If I didn't feel things and have experiences, my body wouldn't do what it does. Mind is a necessary condition for me to behave the way I do.
2) Other bodies are separate from my body.
3) Other bodies do strikingly similar things to mine in a very lawlike way - eating three times a day, saying ouch when damaged, etc.
therefore, 4) The obvious explanation for the behaviour of their bodies is that they have minds too.

This argument is inevitably questionable, but I find it totally persuasive. Advocates of the causal closure of the physical will have something to say about (1) but it's not clear that that actually undermines the argument. It might strengthen it.

Granted it doesn't give deductive certainty, but I think it puts the existence of other minds beyond reasonable doubt.

Perhaps another way to say the same thing is to observe the limits of one's own power. Solipsism is hard to escape if you just think in terms of consciousness, as there is nothing in my experience beyond my experience. But there are powers beyond my powers. I can't do what I want. There are powers beyond mine that limit mine. My body is very limited in its power, but it is also a centre of power. Again, the obvious explanation is that other bodies are like mine. They are also centres of power that do what they do because of how they feel.

I'm open to the idea of some kind of cosmic consciousness which our separate consciousnesses are derivative on in some way, and I guess this is a kind of solipsism, but it's not a lonely one, and I note it doesn't bother you as much.

At the very centre, God knows everything and experiences everything for all time all at once forever.

My little thread of awareness, and your little thread of awareness are just temporarily oblivious fragments of the whole.

Trying to escape is creating the fear, and everyone here is kindly helping you to feed your fear. As God you have created the isolation and the other to love, but you are trying to frustrate yourself, because you have become confused. Turn around and embrace what you are running from.

As Russell discusses - I believe in his An Outline of Philosophy - there are degrees of solipsism, as well as degrees of skepticism.

Probably the most radical - yet most consistent - form of solipsism is the view that, only the immediate present exists, whatever is right now, because, for all we know, 2 seconds ago we might have come into existence, yet we cannot rely on memory to show we existed that long ago.

Yet people who may be attracted to solipsism wouldn't go that far.

As for skepticism, sure, it is quite useful, but the most extreme version, Pyrrhonic skepticism, would have people literally standing on roads ignoring cars that may come your way, because the senses may be misleading us.

In fact, it's even worse, we wouldn't bother standing up, as we might fall.

So yes, both are useful, within certain boundaries. Outside this, they lose usefulness and practicality quite quickly.

You are correct. There may be a person now or in the future who may come up with a solution to the problem, we cannot rule this out.

But we should keep in mind that in over 2000 years of philosophy, nobody has yet proven it false, so it is unlikely (but not impossible) to be solved by someone else. We have the same reasoning abilities of the Greeks, not more. Likewise with more recent philosophers.

Well as to not being able to be happy about being a solipsist:

It’s an interesting philosophical exercise. But as an actual theory-

Suppose you woke up tomorrow and knew that solipsism was true. What do you do?

Tell anyone? There’s no-one to tell. Do something? There’s nothing to do. Try and learn what’s going on? There’s nothing to learn. You can’t even break free like in a matrix scenario- there’s not cage or illusion. There’s just you.

It’s not just that it’s an unfalsifiable theory- god knows philosophy has no shortage of those- it’s that it’s a theory that, if true, precludes the abstract ability to do anything. If you accept Solipsism, you no longer have any reason to do anything. Even self-interest doesn’t apply anymore- there is no longer anything out there to benefit you. Just sit there and think happy thoughts forever. You can’t die. There’s nothing to kill you, not even your body.

You’re just a dream in the dark. And what does a dream in the dark do but lie there and think?

As much as that’s arguably a philosophers ideal, it’s perhaps best to ignore it and go to those theories that allow for any degree of thought or action in any capacity whatsoever.

That said I have been doing the stuff you said for some time since I first read about it, and it worked until I read that post on Quora that day. Now nothing seems to work.

That’s true, if in over 2000 years I can’t find even ONE other proof of it then it’s unsolved and I am mistaken about what he said. But it doesn’t feel that way, it feels so certain.

The solipsist could just say it’s their mind making other people act like that, but that’s just kicking the can down the road. They could appeal to the subconscious but that’s just one more unprovable assumption they’re making to support it.

Like even though that day still burns in my mind when I question how you could prove it true I get nothing. You can’t conduct an experiment to test it and there is no one you can prove the results to. Even if you “proved it” there isn’t anyone to corroborate your findings, so you can’t truly know if you’re right or not even if you tested it.

The solipsist says there are no other minds, but what does the solipsist say about other bodies? How does he relate to his own body? Are there multiple bodies but one mind? Or are there no bodies at all distinct from ideas?

I don't know, the issue I have is this one post on Quora that to me proved it. But i can't remember or find it or know what it was about or what it said.

It's driving me crazy.

Solipsism, born from skepticism, is not ridiculous, or just illogical, or wrong. — Antony Nickles

Of course I disagree. When entertained as a philosophical thesis, subject to rational norms, it's absurd. What is the minimal concept (in an epistemological/metaphysical context) of a world ? Of a self ?

The world is something that I can be wrong about.

The self is the kind of thing that can be wrong about such a world.

The solipsist tries to collapse self and world. The solipsist says 'it's wrong to think there's something I can be wrong about.'

Or he says 'it's all just my dream.' But neither 'my' nor 'dream' can have any meaning here, lacking contrast. I invoke my household god de Saussure here. I think Wittgenstein is saying something similar with: "Here it can be seen that solipsism, when its implications are followed out strictly, coincides with pure realism. The self of solipsism shrinks to a point without extension, and there remains the reality co-ordinated with it."

Do epistemological solipsists say that we might be wrong to think that there's something we could be wrong about ?

The truth of Skepticism is that part of being human is our part, to step forward with courage, to treat the other as if they are a human (as if they have a soul Wittgenstein would say), meaning not as if they were real, because I don't know your pain, I react to it (or ignore it). — Antony Nickles

This is good sketch of why we do or don't give a damn about such issues. It reminds me of Heidegger. Life is not primarily theoretical. Our 'understanding' is more 'blind' skill or phronesis than method or canon. Courage and empathy are fundamental virtues.

My guess is you need to expand your Self to the surface of your being, your skin. Note the following argument which you presented:

Solipsistic Fact: Unless you literally internally experience of an external agent, such as random voices or God (in which case, you should connect with a therapist or pastor quickly!), you, like me and other “normal” “humans”, receive 100% of their information only from their own sensory inputs. Therefore, everything experiential is part of an internally simulated model of externality set forth by and from the brain/mind.

It assumes that you are a mind or brain, experiencing the outputs of your senses, which is contrary to fact. You are also your senses, muscles, skeleton, skin, etc. and there is nothing between you and the rest of the world. See “the homunculus fallacy” and the “Cartesian theater” for what is problematic about the argument.

I would suggest going out and being a thing for a while. Go bump around with other things, do what things do, and so on.

it's simple; you have observed people die. The universe did not cease to exist when they died therefore they are not the ultimate, mono-existant solipsist.

Therefore, when you die, people will be born after you're gone and live full/complete lives regardless of/uninfluenced by your death.

You are a part of a community of people experiencing awareness in a human capacity.

Yes you are alone. In the sense that nobody will ever experience life as you did. Ever. No one in the past nor in the future will have the same life you did. In that sense you're completely alone.

But we all share common emotions, feelings and naturally developed ideas about living. We can empathise with one another and in that respect we are not alone. Whatever you feel, probably someone esle has felt the same.

As for solipsism, even identical twins don't grow and develop the same way. They don't occupy the same space, they don't have the same perspective, they don't experience the same things nor do they do exactly the same thing. Both are individuals.

One may die before the other for whatever reasons. Even though genetically they're clones.

Consciousness may be one singular phenomenon. Yet it is shared between sentient beings, of which there are many, those that have died, those that are dying, those that have just been born and ofc everyone in between.

Hooe this helps.

I don't know, the issue I have is this one post on Quora that to me proved it. But i can't remember or find it or know what it was about or what it said.

It's driving me crazy. — Darkneos

Oh that's a bummer. I would have liked to have seen the proof!

That doesn’t help at all nor get around the issue I’m having

Are those things also senses like the skin or skeleton, etc.

I have tried going out and just being a thing and all that but it doesn’t work. Solipsism bleeds into everything that I do.

That also isn’t getting around the issue I’m having which is what I read that day.

Then there are similar arguments like our brains hallucinating reality:

https://www.quora.com/I-m-scared-that-I-will-take-my-life-some-day-because-of-solipsism-Can-someone-help-I-just-want-to-know-if-anything-is-real/answer/Autistic-Salvatore

When entertained as a philosophical thesis, subject to rational norms, it's absurd — green flag

If we dictate the terms on which we accept anything, it's easy to dismiss everything. But at the basis of skepticism (leading to solipsism) is the truth that there is no fact to give us a foundation of certainty in knowledge; that if we require that threshold criteria, the world does fall apart in our hands, our moral realm becomes unnavigable, others are unknown to us--not as a fantasy, but actually--that these outcomes can be true. There is no refuting this without calling it absurd or illogical or just a theoretical issue, or having god or the Forms save us, or cutting off the need for anything meaningful (abandoning what is essential about anything in barring the thing-in-itself).

What is the minimal concept (in an epistemological/metaphysical context) of a world ? Of a self ? The world is something that I can be wrong about. — green flag

The skeptic would say that acceptance that we can be wrong does not provide any foundation for our knowledge of the world--they can always fall back on the irrefutable position that everything can be uncertain, wrong. What I am suggesting is that there is a way not to refute skepticism, or dismiss it, without taking the bait that it is necessary to prove our knowledge of the world, because knowledge is not our only relationship to the world and others (see above).