Sooooo you're saying Quantum Mechanics essentially says solipsism is true?

The fact they link to experiments and science sites and I just have your word. Most like this just reference the Wigner's Friend experiment.

https://qr.ae/pveiQl

This stuff too:

https://qr.ae/pveiQo

I have to agree with I like sushi here - it’s not solipsism at all. An experience exists whether or not it’s deemed ‘real’, and absolutely CAN impact in a meaningful way. What looks like an apple is still the experience of an apple, even if it’s an hallucination, or a prediction error. We make mistakes all the time - we jump to conclusions, we react too soon, we dismiss ideas prematurely - all based on a consensus understanding of what is real, tangible, evident, etc. — Possibility

Well no. Color doesn't exist even though it is an "experience" in our heads. Phantom limb isn't a real experience and neither are hallucinations either. Which is why the terror from such things can be dismissed. What looks like an apple isn't an experience of an apple, especially if it's wax.

We use terms such as ‘really’ and ‘truly’ to make distinctions in a discussion between what we experience and what we accept. Have a go at rephrasing your argument without using these qualifiers. Dismissing what looks like an apple, or even a dream as ‘not an experience’ is an attempt to ignore/isolate/exclude aspects of what is based on how we define ‘reality’. — Possibility

But it's not a matter of what you accept, these things can be tested. That's how dreams can be known to not be real. Just because it's an experience doesn't make it real and if there is nothing behind the experience creating it then solipsism would have to be true.

You keep trying to get around it but Kant's logic flows there every time.

The links seem to say different. Even the first one I posted about useful fictions.

Though TBH referring to other people as a useful fiction scares me. It sounds...lonely.

How do you know? I from all the links I've gathered there seems to be something to there being no objective reality based on what that guy on Quora is saying.

But then again I know next to nothing about QM so.....

Whether the experience of an apple is a hallucination, dream or lucid and conscious does not really make the experience anything other than that of an apple. — I like sushi

Well no, if it's not real then it's not really an experience of an apple but just what looks like an apple. A dream wouldn't really be much of an experience either, especially since a dream doesn't quite feel like reality and nothing in there truly can affect you. So it's not an experience in the sense that it can impact you in any meaningful way.

Consciousness is ‘conscious of …’. Phenomenology is not bothered about whether there is or is not an apple it is only concerned with the experience of said apple.

The ‘of what?’ question you pose was dealt with by Kant. The ‘thing in itself’ is called noumenon. There is no ‘noumenon’ though in any Positive sense only in the Negative as a limiting boundary for knowledge. — I like sushi

Which again only makes sense if there is a corresponding thing of experience otherwise it's incoherent or leads to solipsism. If you want to argue there is "no thing" behind the experience then you fall into solipsism, that's it. So congrats Kant's logic slides into solipsism.

I think I started a thread in regards to whether Quantum mechanics has any affect on this, maybe that might have some insight.

But what you are describing is essentially solipsism or at the very least goes directly to it.

Additional food for thought:

https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/03/12/136684/a-quantum-experiment-suggests-theres-no-such-thing-as-objective-reality/

https://qr.ae/pvepzt

https://qr.ae/pvepjo

But experience of what? Experience only is coherent with a corresponding thing of experience.

Sounds like it does have a concern with real since experience is in the mix.

It sounds so much like it though.

Like I said I'm not that good at this sort of thinking let alone reading.

Suffering is what makes pleasure and joy mean something. Without that contrast they eventually dull.

Plus looking at all the different responses to suffering from people across history I'd say it's a rather complex issue.

How is that? I'm just asking because I didn't really follow what was being said.

Actually waaaaaayyyy at the bottom he makes it clear that this is NOT solipsism and explains the problems associated with going in that direction. Not that I understood it but just pointing it out.

I wouldn't say nothing exists.

You do have logical proof though and to a lesser extent empirical.

There is no seed, it's a non starter and not to mention not even related to the behind you question.

Whether you do or don't it won't change that there is something behind you. Though it does say something how philosophical musings don't change reality, sometimes it makes me question why even bother asking such questions.

I don't consider that possibility valid.

More like reality, no amount of philosophical musing will change that.

How do you know? You just do. Let's also not forget that there are dire consequences for doubting a behind you. Try breaking hard in traffic and see the legitimacy of such a doubt.

Pretty sure we do.

I'd question this desire for something more than survival instincts. Our attachment to life isn't "just" survival instinct, it's a complex of attachments and emotions and history and future and present and...

A complex, I think, is a good description -- leaving open what precisely makes us tick, while noting that it's not simple.

So coming to understand how or why we might come to desire death -- while still being alive! -- will also be complicated. — Moliere

It is some variation of survival instinct or another. Meaning is just another invention we make to trick ourselves into believing life is worthwhile.

No, it has to do with the belief that you are your body; and it has to do with the belief that when the body dies, "it's all over".

Note: These beliefs are dogmatic, axiomatic. We're not supposed to question them.

Yet every day, we also act in ways that show that we don't hold those beliefs consistently. — baker

Not really, so far they are facts not beliefs. Anything saying you are not the body hasn't held up very well

Yes I can. Science has very strong empirical evidence for The law of Conservation of Energy, which states that “Energy cannot be created or destroyed.” In other words, the total amount of energy in the universe never changes, it can only change from one form to another. It is actually quite unlikely that after you die, some of your disassembled subatomic particles will never be involved in any new combination events until the end of the universe. YOU will be recycled. — universeness

No, that's just a claim. There is nothing to say the world wouldn't end if I died. You make too many assumptions.

Some motives you can't choose. Like, do you like certain types of food? Do you like orgasm? Do you dislike being hungry? Do you dislike being cold? All of these are ordinary motives that drive our lives and they are wired in our bodies or minds and thus are part of us. And they drive us toward pleasant feelings that make life worthwhile and away from unpleasant feelings that make life miserable. Getting killed is unpleasant and the survival drive drives you away from that. — litewave

Yes, no, no, no. Getting killed being unpleasant is debatable and pleasant feelings don't make life worthwhile just tolerable. NEXT. Also it sounds horrifying to think that all these drives out of your control keep you here when you don't want to be.

You have no information regarding the legacy I will leave so you have no idea as to how long I will be remembered. Modern techniques store more and more information about our individual lives so future people will get to know a lot more about the lives of past people if they wish to. Future transhumanism has the potential to offer humans vastly improved robustness, ability and longevity. This will offer many new options. If you stick around you may witness its infancy. If you don't then there are many newborns to replace you. The global population has been increasing since we came out of the wilds. — universeness

This is, quite frankly, a delusion way of thinking to put it bluntly. If you think transhumanism is gonna do any of that you're quite wrong. Transhumanism is nothing but a pipe dream. Not to mention you're proving Ernest Becker's point about having death anxiety and being motivated by it. Transhumanism is literally death anxiety.

Only one small path leads out, but its trailhead can only be seen by casting one's gaze above shoulder height, and none have yet looked that high up. They've heard of this Path of Hope, but never having seen it, they scoff and shrug, looking at the ground, firmly denying it. — Hanover

Hope is little more than delusion that promises what it can't deliver.

As I have said many times, to me, the fundamental is a question of purpose. A universe devoid of life has no purpose that I can conceive of. Such pointlessness is far worse than any concept of undeserved harms human morality or human moralists can come up with. I vote for many more years of harms and suffering for humans, including those who some choose to label 'newborn innocents,' alongside the many many joys and wonders of life which also occur very regularly. I very much prefer this state, compared to the alternative of a lifeless, pointless universe. All good people will also, of course, continue to do exactly what you have suggested many times. We will continue to help alleviate and remove all forms of unjust and unnecessary suffering and even obtain far more control over the inevitability of death.

I would also ask this. Why is the survival instinct so strong in all species if purposeless nonexistence is the superior natural state? Something seems to me to be much better than nothing! — universeness

Why indeed but that's not really an argument to continue living.

Also "unjust", "unnecessary"? That's casting an awful lot of assumptions onto existence.

Then when get to the flaw of purpose, since a universe with life is just as purposeless as one without it. There is no ultimately point to existence, it simply persists.

But you're in the wrong here. I universe without life sounds amazing. I would like to "live" in it, ironic I know, to bask in the absolute silence of it all. For however long I last, and then know with my death extinction of all life would at last occur.

Well, you're helping my argument, not hurting it. We are humans after all. So, yes, we use rationalization like animals use instinct. Courage consists of going against our tendency towards hopelessness. We use rationalization, of course. But there are enzymes and chemicals in our body at our disposal. — L'éléphant

Not really no, there is not courage to living when its the default. If anything courage is killing yourself when evolution and society say to keep going.

If you think it's great to be an orphan who has no memory about his or her biological parents, I have to disagree. Do you really think that is better? — ssu

Actually yes since it's less painful

This topic always gives me a headache.

I have no suggestions if one finds life undesirable. Imagination is good, but living at the moment requires courage. That's it. Courage to face the mundane and the ordinary. Escapism has flourished over the last last decade or so. You've seen a lot of them in vlogs. Cottage fairies is one example. Another, is living a life in the 18th century, complete with costume and oil lamps and lack of modern technology. There's also the shopping addiction. Acquiring things to fill a void. Or just simply using drugs and alcohol to enter the state of stupor and mindlessness. — L'éléphant

Living does not require courage, that's just rationalization to avoid having to reckon with death, same with calling death boring.

But I know that looking at the determination of animals in the wilderness, that's what I call living. They have enough energy pent up inside them that when they spring into action, all those energy is released like superpowers. Relatively, they live a short life -- when you always give your all and use all your energy to bag a prey, you're bound to have a shorter life. The wear and tear you sustain makes you powerful, but also short-lived. — L'éléphant

That's sort of ignorance about what nature is like. Animals survive because they know nothing else. They aren't brave and I wouldn't call that living.

If I die tomorrow, at least I'll be happy that my children are now so old that they will remember me. It would really suck to die when your children are so young that they won't remember anything. But at least I had them and a loving wife, so one notch to the "successful human/animal life"-table. — ssu

I think it would be better to die when they don't remember anything, it's less painful. Your reply sounds pretty self centered.

Death just means you disassemble back into the spare subatomic parts you were made from. You dissipate back into the universal mix, all of what you were will be used again in new variations and new combinations. Nothing to be afraid of. The little life variation you were is gone forever but you will not be forgotten if you leave a respectable legacy and future transhumanism may offer many more options. — universeness

Well you can't really be sure about that. Once I die it is blackness, I cannot verify past that. Also your point about disassembling is what Ernest Becker would call inventing stories to assuage death anxiety, in your case becoming part of something greater and eternal.

Also you will be forgotten, transhumanism ain't gonna fix that. I mean granted it's not gonna fix anything IMO.

I assume anti-lifers struggle when nice things happen to them and to others around them as feeling good must be painful for them. — universeness

Nah, it's just another blip in experience.

Motive implies I choose it and it is part of me, but it isn't. It's just a force more or less that prevents me from doing stuff. I don't really want to live but I sort of have to.

If one has followed the inquiry thus far and is seeing the true context of death as simplyan ending, which it is, which you wish to postpone for as long as you can since you lack a backbone,

then one puts a reasonable question, if i know there is biological death always lurking around the corner and all your BS is gonna leave you with nothing but sh## in your hands, then why doesn't the human end (psychological death) its weasel-ly-ness. Right.

To end it now! Because that's what biological death will do/does. You won't have a chance to negotiate/weasel out of, as much as want to. So the question then becomes, what is it to die. For example, to all your fears, to your prejudices, to your nonsense. — skyblack

That's what I'm saying. The only reason people IMO live is survival instinct because to me death just makes more logical sense. Never having to do good things, or worry about bad things, it all ends. So why put it off?

I feel like everything used to justify the will to keep going is more just our survival instinct trying to rationalize things.

I think you are making the same incorrect assumptions about me that everyone else is, not to mention showing me that you haven't read my posts.

It’s hard and unreliable to kill yourself? I really can’t see how that’s true, but OK.

As for the survival instinct — yes, true. But supposedly you long for death. If the drive to continue living is greater— then you really don’t want it. If you did you’d be dead already— provided that there are means to do so and, as I already mentioned, there are plenty of ways to do so.

People who consider suicide very often don’t truly want to die — they’re either without meaning and joy or are clinically depressed.

Do you consider yourself depressed? It sounds that way to me. In which case: there are ways out. — Xtrix

Again making the mistake in thinking there is something wrong.

I've done the research and found out most suicide attempts end in failure, that there really isn't a "surefire way" to do it and those who survive end up in worse shape than before. You'd think it'd be easy and I do too. Trust me when I say I've googled painless ways to die, but you have to wade through a lot of the "therapy" nonsense.

The OP is confused. There is no peace in death. There is nothing. What the OP wants is peace in life. To get to a moment where they feel peace. You have to live to feel peace. They would prefer a life where they feel peace then a life where they feel pain. Death does not give peace. It gives nothing. There is no chance to find peace. There is no beating the pain. If you die in pain, its the last thing you will ever feel.

To believe that absence of your existence can be preferable to pain is true in some circumstances. Have all of your limbs cut off, your eyes blown out, your brain half blown to bits and you're surviving purely by modern science? Yeah, pull that plug. It does not sound like those are the circumstances of the OP. It sounds like someone who is in pain, and instead of dealing with that pain, looks to invent some fantasy to avoid the work needed to make the pain go away. The OP needs to deal with their pain. They can one day find peace if they work for it. They will not if they keep sticking to this romantic fantasy of death. — Philosophim

Ahh, again you misunderstand. This has nothing to do with peace in life, it's about the cessation of all things. Death does afford a peace, in a sense, even if you can't feel it. You can rest knowing the pain will pass and you won't have to do anything anymore. I think you are giving death less than it is.

Why deal with one's pain when they can just quit? You're still missing the point here trying to find something "Wrong" and that's the mistake you make as much as anyone else does. Nothing in life IMO is worth working for when one doesn't have to live. If society had a different mind they'd see that and allow people to exit if they choose.

You still aren't getting it.

It's not always about rationalisation; it's about the variegated nature of preferences and perspectives. I am aware of Becker's ideas. Part of the reason why people fear death is because they appreciate the goods of life. These goods could be complex, such as the relationships one has and could lose, to more basic ones, such as death resulting in some sort of horrible black void that takes away the positive state of we were in. I do think that there is a sort of paternalism when it comes to giving people the right to a graceful exit. Personally, I don't think that one's love for life should justify making someone else endure a valueless existence. Toxic positivity is a significant problem. — DA671

I think you're missing the point. In death there is no need for such things, it all ends. So there's no need to seek the good stuff. They don't fear death because of the goods of life, they fear the end when really they should not for it can be pretty great.

But this doesn't affect my logic that choosing nothingness is just as meaningful/pointless as seeking happiness and valuing life is. Many people believe that the precious joys of life are worth cherishing instead of focusing on a valueless void. — DA671

It does though. My main point about the good things in life is that you don't need any of that in death so they aren't reasons to really stick around. In short if you don't HAVE to live then there is no reason to do so. Such good things make life tolerable and seeking them out only makes sense if one HAS to live, which seems to be my case since seeking the end is inordinately difficult. Not only because society pretty much forbids it but apparently a lot of suicide attempts end in failure and leave you in a worse off state, not really how I prefer to spend my remaining days...locked in a hospital with people trying to "fix" me.

I guess people only rationalize living by stating "precious joys are worth cherishing" is due to death anxiety, as Ernest Becker put it. We tend to fear death and much of our lives are ruled by this fact, at least according to him.

So after all, even for you life is preferable to death. Which is normal, after millions or billions of years of evolution have geared our motivations toward survival.

I think death becomes preferable to life when suffering exceeds happiness so much that it beats the survival drive. If the survival drive is strong as usual, this must be a singularly terrible situation but unfortunately it can happen too. — litewave

Well no it's not. I wouldn't call the survival drive "me" it's just an obstacle that I can't surmount. Life is not preferable to me, however that doesn't mean my continued existence is a testament to preferring life.

Because getting there, as I already stated, is hard and unreliable as things stand and a failure will result in further attempts to prevent me from it (institutionalized, etc).

People underestimate just how strong the survival drive is and that it's not easy to overcome.

You do enjoy life. Now it may not be roses and "the best", but you do, because you live. You actually do enjoy to some extent talking to other people. Making your voice known. People who really don't enjoy life at all don't talk. They don't write. They hate and despise everything about their very existence. You would loath eating, breathing, and doing anything. You obviously do not.

So no, you don't prefer death to living. You still live. You still eat. You still interact. Perhaps you wish life were better than it is. Perhaps you want peace and a release from pain, and confuse that for a desire for death. Many people do. But if you're talking about death as it is, an unromantic end that you won't get any feelings about or be around to experience, no you don't. — Philosophim

That would be wrong to say. I talk to others because, well what else is there? I mentioned the goal was to make life tolerable until the end. Just because I talk to people doesn't mean I enjoy it, I don't hate it either.

I do prefer death to living, to not have to do any of this anymore, but I must live as I have no other option at the moment.

It's like you read nothing I said.

If we should not be afraid of/averse to non-existence because we cannot be deprived of something when we don't exist, we should also not chase/worship the void, since the absence of suffering has no value for an inexistent being. You're not going to be in some better/more satisfied state due to the lack of harms. In view of this, non-existence has no value/disvalue. What one does with their life, therefore, becomes a highly individualised affair that differs from person-to-person and what action/emotion brings them happiness when they exist. Lastly, I wouldn't say there's something "wrong" with you. I am not a fan of blind optimism. All I would say is that, considering that value only lies in existence, I think that it can be rational to try our best to discover a source of joy that can provide us happiness for as long as possible instead of seeking cessation which is necessarily limited in its capacity to provide fulfilment. — DA671

Value may only lie in existence, yes, so that is why I can see value in not having to perform the song and dance anymore. The same goes for the absence of suffering, your logic doesn't really follow for not chasing the void as the entire point is the end, the cessation of it all. Non existence has greater value as people view the end goal of utter oblivion to be preferable to anything life can offer.

It's really not.

As someone said the chair would still exist, but our concept of it won't. Without the concept of the chair it's not as though it will just evaporate, not literally though the guy I quoted might say so.

It doesn't really make sense to say there was nothing because nothing is an abstraction that depends on existence to mean anything. When we say something doesn't exist we are referring to it's absence from a given set that does exist. It is "not" by being the opposite of what "is". So for someone to say a world without concepts nothing would exist would be an illogical statement. Nonexistence would be negated as soon as you take away existence.

Not really, the fact that you said there can't be consciousness without existence pretty much cements the primacy of existence, the reverse would just be absurd and not follow for if consciousness were primary we'd essentially be in a void of reality.

If you want to suggest existence without consciousness, you would have to suggest an object that possesses existence. In this example, we used a chair. But you can't do that. You have to use something that did not require consciousness at some point for that thing to exist. It's stalemate the other way as well, because you could suggest something like "A Rock". This rock is the sole existent in this possible world. That might work, but when we turn around , we're faced with the fact that we just used our consciousness to imagine this possible world where only a rock existed. — Watchmaker

This doesn't follow. You don't need any other parameters to suggest an existence without consciousness, it would just be the same as the current one without people there to experience it. Everything would go on.

People keep trying to attach some kind of importance or magic to consciousness when it's nothing more than just taking in information.