Proven? Are you certain? — Banno

In the realm of science. Or at least the books we read.

Don't tell me you're planning to bring solipsism (a philosophy) into science or court ("your honor, reality is subjective and deceitful, hence the crime didn't happen").

Do you understand that? — Outlander

Yes. Newton believed light wasn't a wave. He was proven wrong. I can be proven wrong. But from my equations, I'm pretty solid on my conclusion.

Might get a Nobel in math and then 200 years later someone proves me wrong and the Nobel committee is left feeling like a twat.

It happens.

you tell us that we don't count for anything — Banno

That sounds like a charge without evidence.

Supposing that all you need is a definition. — Banno

To see what you mean. Perhaps you meant your way of thinking?

poor thinking — Banno

define it

You love it. You keep coming back for more. — Banno

I go to the grocery store to get fruits. Do I need to marry the cashier for that?

What's wrong with self-serving social interactions?

Looks like @Banno has a personal vendetta for me being a radical individualist while him being a communitarian.

So, nothing went wrong, it's just, it didn't seem to "catch" or what have you, in the sense of throwing things at a wall and seeing what sticks. — Outlander

Looks like papers won't cut it. Need a book to cover everything.

Impossible = not possible.

Theoretically (practically unattainable) = possible. (albeit unlikely) — Outlander

I don't think I quite caught what you meant.

But you probably will not get that reference. — Banno

No, I don't.

If you start with the wrong question, you will get the wrong answer. — Banno

Where was my question wrong?

But for you, that's all there is... — Banno

Yes, to myself. I wrote and sang a song for you by myself. You're free to give feedback.

you are, like it or not, a part of a community, a member of a group — Banno

Yes, I'm forced to accept the social contract involuntarily, and I don't live in a utopian individualistic planet, so yes, I happen to live in a community.

But still we could arrange a separate bedroom for each member despite sharing the same house, instead of putting everyone in the common room floor (which communitarians do).

Just because we eat, play, and dance in the same house doesn't mean we'd have to sleep together.
Just because we coexist and transact monetary and other values in a society doesn't mean we'd have to be socially bonded (to a point where the collective interest supercedes the individual's).

I'm not in the mood for trolling, so I'd ask you politely to either get serious or find a different discussion.

To put it bluntly, your views, your limitations perhaps, weakness even, are yours and yours alone. Even if in principle they are shared by every person you've ever met or ever will meet, there's more than enough people (7 billion+) to warrant the belief that perhaps your way of looking at life, or rather, how your mind is forced to process life, isn't the only way to do so.

Does that make sense? — Outlander

ISN'T THAT WHAT PHILOSOPHY IS? Unless we're talking math (or science), my arguments don't have to be universally accepted. Philosophy is a higher form of art, which is a subjective expression of oneself.

Well, this is one person's opinion. Your assurance, your worldview, the way you were raised and so live your life. Surely you don't think out of the billions people alive and who were once alive, it's impossible not one person could have thought differently than how you do in a way that laughs in the face of the way you perceive life must be lived? — Outlander

(a+b)^2 might have been a2+2.0045ab+b2 in some corner of the universe, but from our observation (practicality) or mathematical equations (theory), we derive that it's impossible to happen.

separate the self from what is not self — Paine

That's not the point. We're not separating anyone. I just said humans are programmed to be selfish. If some physical properties manage to be selfless, it's not humans.

Your version of solipsism is not the one I follow. Something like anarchism vs libertarianism vs liberalism. Close, but different.
— Copernicus
It's not my version - I don't exist. It's the reality of your realisation that you are the only mind, closing in on you.

So you are certain that you are never certain about anything. Cool. I'd say that problem was with coherence rather than certainty.

What I argued was that you can't betray your self
— Copernicus
You are betraying yourself, by writing as if we were here. We don't exist. There is only what you have in your head. — Banno

You're now swimming in solipsism. I don't see any point in arguing if you'd deviate from the OP.

Agnostics are skeptical about God; Solipsists are skeptical about Reality.

No accepting, no denying. Just skeptical.

You seem very certain bout that. — Banno

Don't remember when I ever was.

Yeah, it is. All those threads about not caring for anyone else - that's all part of your realisation that you are alone. — Banno

No. What I argued was that you can't betray your self. Nothing more. Solipsism isn't even involved in this.

If you are taking letters coming through a screen, then there exist letters and a screen. But no, you are a solipsist. There is only your mind, so the stuff I write here is somehow just part of that. — Banno

Your version of solipsism is not the one I follow. Something like anarchism vs libertarianism vs liberalism. Close, but different.

It's all in your head — Banno

I never know FOR SURE. That's the idea. No accepting, no denying.

Most people are selfish — Outlander

From my argumentative conclusion, all people are, and it's impossible not to be.

With the right fine-tuning and your own personal chaperoning and stewardship can turn into something readable and thought-provoking. I feel you've yet to take that step, however. Pardon me for saying. — Outlander

I'd like to know where it went wrong.

Again, people, this argument (OP) is not based on solipsism. Don't get distracted.

See that "we"? There is no "we" in solipsism. — Banno

That's the general way of arguing. (Like, "you can't see a young lady and lose your composure."..."you" doesn't mean you in specific.)

something from "outside your head"? — Banno

Nope. I'm intaking these letters coming through a screen and interpreting it according to my subjective perception and giving it back, creating a communication. What someone from other universe or dimension sees me taking and giving is unknowable to me.

Out of the billions (perhaps more) persons who have lived, there is absolutely no way to know at least one person never lived a life doing exactly that. Sure, it's likely it ended prematurely, perhaps violently, and the person died an unknown and was never heard of or spoken of. But that doesn't matter as far as the premise of your OP is concerned. — Outlander

I answered it here:

That makes selflessness theoretically (of course, practically) unattainable. — Copernicus

You enlist La Rochefoucauld for your purposes — Paine

As a reference or background intro music.

Reductions to a pure set of external inputs is not the foundation for solipsism. — Paine

This argument isn't based on solipsism. Don't get distracted.

I see solipsism as the idea that we know nothing outside our heads, which creates the outside experience for us.

Whether my yellow is your yellow, or whether you're real or an imagination or an NPC is unknowable; that's all. Not that we know the objective truth about your existence.

For him, we don't exist, so you already have left him to it. — Banno

That's just one aspect of solipsism. I take it as an initial chamber. Which leads to the understanding that no matter what the truth is, you would never know it because it's outside your head and you're stuck inside your head.

The only selfless act would be when you deny yourself gratification, gain, achievement, everything, including your decision to deny self-interest to achieve the gratification of having the liberty of denying self-interest or to serve your adventurous desire to test yourself, and the idea of doing it all in your head by serving yourself an intellectual ride.

That makes selflessness theoretically (of course, practically) unattainable.

Reality is subjective, dependent upon stimulus reception and intellectual perception.

You're a bit of a dill, arn't you. — Banno

Depends on perspective.

You miss the point where the distinction arises. If your vision is of peace and justice for everyone, it is altruistic. If your vision is of your own well-being and prosperity alone, it is selfish. — Ludwig V

No, and no.

You only read part of what I said. You will surely not see what you choose not to look for. — Ludwig V

I'm selfish. (P.S. I did read)

How would you know? — Ludwig V

As a solipsist, that's the core of my worldview.

Great post, just that one line sticks out to me as something that others might gloss over thus prematurely proving the OP's premise as valid.
— Outlander
Thanks for that.

But they're still your children.
— Outlander
There's a case for considering generosity to one's children is a kind of selfishness. But that just reveals that what counts as selfishness is not necessarily obvious. What do we make of the virtue of looking after one's family? In the context of wider society, it can look like selfishness. In the context of traditional individualism, it is altruism.
Think of benefactors of your town or city or of art rather than homelessness.

I could spend my money and time on my personal pleasures and leave the kids without. Would that not be selfish? Is helping out my friends and neighbours not generous, because they are my friends and neighbours? Yet, I agree that exclusive attention to my kids, neglecting my partner, would be wrong.

It benefits your family and existence directly to have happy children who live productive lives, possibly earning lots of money, holding you in high regard, esteem, and favor, and then taking care of you when you're enfeebled.
— Outlander
Yes, but the point is that I consider those happy children to be a benefit and not a drag. The rest of it is far from guaranteed. However, if my generosity to them was predicated on those happy outcomes. that would undermine my claim to generosity. — Ludwig V

@Outlander was right. You seem to fail to grasp it.

It makes La Rochefoucauld's observations useless — Paine

I fail to see where that's my problem.

Solipsists don't usually let themselves out for weekends on the town. — Paine

I do.

those is at least a candidates for a selfless action — Ludwig V

No.

There's nothing wrong with personal satisfaction, emotional fulfilment and existential meaning in themselves. — Ludwig V

Exactly. Everything is about that one way or another.

Where does the meaning, the discipline, the other come from? — Ludwig V

The self.

The difference between someone who gets pleasure from the pleasure of others is different in important ways from the person who gets pleasure from the pain of others. — Ludwig V

Not.

if you can recognize that solipsism is a cage, there is some hope for you. — Ludwig V

No one escapes it.

say some sort of hypothetical secret act to make the world a better place, by someone without children or family, who therefore has nothing to gain from making said world a better place? :chin: — Outlander

You serve your vision of a better world.

The problem with your bubble is that the generality of the explanation renders any particular instance useless for inquiry. Distinctions without a difference. — Paine

Care to elaborate?

Since I never said the intangible characteristics are direct elements of the physical universe, and that they're rather products or byproducts of physical properties, they should be called physical properties. Just like me, a human, a substance of flesh and blood, carrying a sperm, the sperm is also a human; these intangible, abstract properties are physical properties as well.

But perhaps I can use or coin a word that would underscore this nuance.

Too ambiguous.

What would your proposed word be?

I desire to eat but I want a six pack set of abominals. I want to have the high from exercise but don't want to put in the time. I crave sugar but I'm diabetic. In what sense can the "self" be against itself? — Nils Loc

Whatever you choose ultimately serves your self. You choose which is the higher calling for you (eating—desire, packs—health).

And each of the options serves the self. The idea itself serves your purpose. Eating serves happiness, exercising or dieting serves good health.

If you wish to harm yourself, you serve your sadism. If you wish to prevent that, you serve your well-being. If you remain undecided, you serve your procrastination.

Selfishness is self-interest (serving the self, whether by violating other selves or not, or whether putting others above, below, or at equal level or not).

The self is caged in the solipsistic bubble and can only act from within.

I'm simply assuming that if the definitions are true, can it be logically claims that a transman is a man? No. — Philosophim

If he has XY chromosomes, yes.