The irrefutability of solipsism and the recognition that consciousness is not physical

Is the mind the same as the body? What is consciousness? Can machines have it?

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gaffo
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Re:

Post by gaffo »

henry quirk wrote: Wed Nov 22, 2017 3:18 pm Solipsism is manure.
no so.

per Empiricism it is self evident.

you cannot prove anything beyond it via empiricism.

henry quirk wrote: Wed Nov 22, 2017 3:18 pm Here's why...

I know, as fact, I'm too friggin' dumb to imagine the world around me, so: 'sumthin' exists outside of me, independent of me.
lol.

and you (I) cannot be ALL since I (you = ME) also lack control of the universe and lack knowledge of all things and also fear death...................

well maybe being God does not work that way.

or "you" (me of course) are not God - and so Solipsism is an empirical true (which it is) rather than Truth...........others exists outside of me/blah blah blah..................PROVE IT!

you (I?) can't so stuff it.

therefore Solipsism is not "manure" it is the END POINT AND AS FAR AS YOU (which is ME?) can do..................WRT to PROVING.


I'm an Atheist - and so why I have no interest in you (me?) proving how Solipsism is dogshit..............for anything beyond that dogshit violates empiricism and requires Faith (like a Fundie). Descarte played that game after he
(me?) soldout his (mine?) own disscovery of Solipsism).




henry quirk wrote: Wed Nov 22, 2017 3:18 pm Solipsism: refuted, disproved, rendered into the fertilizer it always was.

lol.

whatever
gaffo
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Re: The irrefutability of solipsism and the recognition that consciousness is not physical

Post by gaffo »

OuterLimits wrote: Wed Nov 22, 2017 4:42 pm I don't know if I can assert that my consciousness is "non-physical" in origin. I can say that however thoroughly I examine the physical parts of another person, I will not find consciousness. Does that mean that their consciousness is real but not physical, or does it mean that their consciousness simply doesn't exist?
either.

one may be - i assume not both - which? cannot be determined in this realm of existence.

in the next? maybe, maybe not. requires a next existence.

how many angels sit on a pinhead?
gaffo
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Re: The irrefutability of solipsism and the recognition that consciousness is not physical

Post by gaffo »

OuterLimits wrote: Wed Nov 22, 2017 7:33 pm

You are not talking about other minds at all. I don't see how any of that is a response to what I said.
you cannot prove to me that you exist. Solipsism only knows that I EXIST.

"other minds" require Faith.

Solipsism only assumes those minds are manifestations of my own mind of course.

which they are - whether you actually exist outside of me or not since I have to have my own mind/eyesd/ears/etc......... to know of you (you being me or outside of me or not (not relivent actually)................

only relivance is that i only know I exist.

as for the rest of you (me?) - whichever.................either you exist within me or within and outside of me..................don't care because impossible to know which.


carry on.
gaffo
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Re: The irrefutability of solipsism and the recognition that consciousness is not physical

Post by gaffo »

RustyBert wrote: Wed Nov 22, 2017 7:51 pm How about this: If mine is the only mind, then I must have brought myself into existence. If I have that ability,

yes you (I?) am God.
RustyBert wrote: Wed Nov 22, 2017 7:51 pm I should be able to control all aspects of my existence. But clearly I can't (because if I could I wouldn't be here typing on this stupid keyboard, I'd be in Hawaii).
why do you assume you as God have control?

i know the argument - its a logical one - but offers no proof.

it also assumes the nature of God/s.

assumes to much for me.

RustyBert wrote: Wed Nov 22, 2017 7:51 pm Therefore I'm not the only mind,
yes you are - oh and you are not you mind, you are my mind - talking to myself on this forum.
gaffo
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Re: The irrefutability of solipsism and the recognition that consciousness is not physical

Post by gaffo »

Impenitent wrote: Thu Nov 23, 2017 11:16 pm the irony of making arguments (to other people) about the absolute impossibility of their existence is delicious...

-Imp
indeed.

always like talking to myself so its all good.
gaffo
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Re: The irrefutability of solipsism and the recognition that consciousness is not physical

Post by gaffo »

Conde Lucanor wrote: Thu Nov 30, 2017 3:04 am As Searle pointed out:
Searle is a hack - pin headed sophist.
Conde Lucanor wrote: Thu Nov 30, 2017 3:04 am solipsism refutes itself.
nope.

advice.

refute Searle who offers only a small mind.

Conde Lucanor wrote: Thu Nov 30, 2017 3:04 am If you're a solipsist, you don't believe this forum and its people actually exist.


you lack understanding (or maybe "you" is me and I'm just bored and arguing with myself here for fks sake)

Solipsism does not mandate that this forum and it people do not exist (it only mandates that their existance outside of me knowledge of them via my senses mandates FAITH (like all FUNDIES from Christian to Muslim to Hindu).


Solipsism affirms your existance via my senses..................what more do you DEMAND????????????? that you Exist outside of that!!!!!!!!!!???????????

take that up with your God.

not me.

stop wasting me time (I like playing with myself and wasting time obviously).
Conde Lucanor wrote: Thu Nov 30, 2017 3:04 am Expecting that a second solipsist shows up implies wanting solipsism to be proven false.
how about proving you acually exist - outside of me - that would be a miracle actually.

good luck.
Londoner
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Re: The irrefutability of solipsism and the recognition that consciousness is not physical

Post by Londoner »

Conde Lucanor wrote: Sun Dec 03, 2017 12:36 am
Me: How could we know there's a 'real' dog out there, except via our own consciousness?

I think we have gone through this already, haven't we? In that thread where you argued for the same point of view, but denied being a solipsist.
And I explained that philosophy is not like picking a football team to support, where you will accept any argument that supports your team, even if it is faulty. I think there are problems with solipsism, but that your own argument isn't one of them.
The likelihood of all these data about the dog coinciding in the same illusory perception is zero.

Even if one thought all is a clever scheme from one's own mind, in other words, a self-deception, a convincing explanation will have to be given as to how can this mind divide itself in multiple independent minds, each one having different recollections of perceived things, so that one mind doesn't know what the other thinks.
All the (assumed existence of) 'other minds' would achieve would be to say that humans report their experiences in the same way. But that is hardly surprising, since the language they use to report their experiences is common. I know that the word we use for the colour of grass and things like it is 'green'. You and I will therefore use that word 'green' to describe that colour. If I am having the internal experience of seeing 'green' as the colour you call 'red' I can never know it. We can both still look at actual grass, or pictures of grass, and both will continue to agree it is the colour 'green'.

But let us suppose that we could somehow know that all humans were experiencing the same internal sensations. That still would not prove that what we were experiencing was 'real'. For example, grass is not green. It is only green to me - and (perhaps) other people - because our perceptive equipment happens to work that way. I know that if I had a different brain, or different eyes, or no eyes at all, grass would not be green. So is the 'real' colour of grass green? Or is the green colour of grass an 'illusion'?

Solipsism accepts that the question; 'What is the real colour of grass?' is meaningless. Grass looks to me as it looks to me. I am never going to be able to 'see' grass except as a phenomena, i.e. through my own consciousness. There is no point in guessing what colour 'noumenal' grass might be - indeed the idea is absurd.
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Conde Lucanor
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Re: The irrefutability of solipsism and the recognition that consciousness is not physical

Post by Conde Lucanor »

Londoner wrote: Sun Dec 03, 2017 12:12 pm
Conde Lucanor wrote: Sun Dec 03, 2017 12:36 am
Me: How could we know there's a 'real' dog out there, except via our own consciousness?

I think we have gone through this already, haven't we? In that thread where you argued for the same point of view, but denied being a solipsist.
And I explained that philosophy is not like picking a football team to support, where you will accept any argument that supports your team, even if it is faulty. I think there are problems with solipsism, but that your own argument isn't one of them.
Note that while in the other topic it was being discussed whether there was any grounds to support skepticism of the objective existence of things (which is obviously the stance of solipsism, but that was not the main subject in question), in this one we are discussing solipsism in itself. Thus, in this thread the skepticism is a given and I'm arguing that whoever calls him/herself a solipsist, cannot expect to find anything independent of their own consciousness, otherwise they will be contradicting themselves, since solipsism implies the negation of anything independent of one's own consciousness.
Londoner wrote: Sun Dec 03, 2017 12:12 pm
The likelihood of all these data about the dog coinciding in the same illusory perception is zero.

Even if one thought all is a clever scheme from one's own mind, in other words, a self-deception, a convincing explanation will have to be given as to how can this mind divide itself in multiple independent minds, each one having different recollections of perceived things, so that one mind doesn't know what the other thinks.
All the (assumed existence of) 'other minds' would achieve would be to say that humans report their experiences in the same way. But that is hardly surprising, since the language they use to report their experiences is common. I know that the word we use for the colour of grass and things like it is 'green'. You and I will therefore use that word 'green' to describe that colour. If I am having the internal experience of seeing 'green' as the colour you call 'red' I can never know it. We can both still look at actual grass, or pictures of grass, and both will continue to agree it is the colour 'green'.

But let us suppose that we could somehow know that all humans were experiencing the same internal sensations. That still would not prove that what we were experiencing was 'real'. For example, grass is not green. It is only green to me - and (perhaps) other people - because our perceptive equipment happens to work that way. I know that if I had a different brain, or different eyes, or no eyes at all, grass would not be green. So is the 'real' colour of grass green? Or is the green colour of grass an 'illusion'?

Solipsism accepts that the question; 'What is the real colour of grass?' is meaningless. Grass looks to me as it looks to me. I am never going to be able to 'see' grass except as a phenomena, i.e. through my own consciousness. There is no point in guessing what colour 'noumenal' grass might be - indeed the idea is absurd.
You are going over the same argument about color again. I submit you to that other forum, where you can deal with the arguments against it, if you want. As I said, the deal here is that an advocate of solipsism is looking for validation of other solipsists, which is a contradiction of his own stance.
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Conde Lucanor
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Re: The irrefutability of solipsism and the recognition that consciousness is not physical

Post by Conde Lucanor »

gaffo wrote: Sun Dec 03, 2017 2:13 am
Conde Lucanor wrote: Thu Nov 30, 2017 3:04 am As Searle pointed out:
Searle is a hack - pin headed sophist.
Searle could be anything, but that doesn't mean he got it wrong when describing solipsism.
gaffo wrote: Sun Dec 03, 2017 2:13 am
Conde Lucanor wrote: Thu Nov 30, 2017 3:04 am solipsism refutes itself.
nope.

advice.

refute Searle who offers only a small mind.
I'd rather wait someone refutes the argument.
gaffo wrote: Sun Dec 03, 2017 2:13 am
Conde Lucanor wrote: Thu Nov 30, 2017 3:04 am If you're a solipsist, you don't believe this forum and its people actually exist.


Solipsism does not mandate that this forum and it people do not exist (it only mandates that their existance outside of me knowledge of them via my senses mandates FAITH

Solipsism affirms your existance via my senses..................what more do you DEMAND????????????? that you Exist outside of that!!!!!!!!!!???????????

Solipsism asserts that the only thing that can be affirmed is one's own consciousness. And it asserts that because it denies any possibility of grabbing the objective existence of anything. Therefore, any solipsist looking for validation of his/her solipsism (of his faith, if you want) from another independent party, is looking for his/her solipsism to be refuted (or playing the fool to themselves and wasting their time).
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Post by henry quirk »

"other minds" require Faith.

No, not faith, just the brutal self- understanding that, as I say up-thread, the average schmo (me, for example) is too friggin' stupid to be imagining 'the World'.

If I'm too friggin' stupid to imagine the World, then the World must exist (separate from me, independent of me).

Solipsism is for crap (and you're all makin' too much of a a very small thing).
Londoner
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Re: The irrefutability of solipsism and the recognition that consciousness is not physical

Post by Londoner »

Conde Lucanor wrote: Sun Dec 03, 2017 9:29 pm Note that while in the other topic it was being discussed whether there was any grounds to support skepticism of the objective existence of things (which is obviously the stance of solipsism, but that was not the main subject in question), in this one we are discussing solipsism in itself. Thus, in this thread the skepticism is a given and I'm arguing that whoever calls him/herself a solipsist, cannot expect to find anything independent of their own consciousness, otherwise they will be contradicting themselves, since solipsism implies the negation of anything independent of one's own consciousness.
Solipsism is that the only thing we can be certain of is ourselves. It doesn't say there is nothing independent of our own consciousness. If the solipsist claimed to know that either there was, or there wasn't - then they would be contradicting themselves.
You are going over the same argument about color again. I submit you to that other forum, where you can deal with the arguments against it, if you want. As I said, the deal here is that an advocate of solipsism is looking for validation of other solipsists, which is a contradiction of his own stance.
Why would they be doing that?

The point about colour is that we cannot understand it as descriptive of 'the objective existence of things'. The same would be true of all our other sensations. So if we talk about the objective existence of things, how does that objective existence differ from how they appear to us as subjects, i.e as they are within consciousness?

Since we cannot jump outside our own consciousness and have a look, we cannot say, so any claims we make about the objective existence of things are empty of content.

We are free to construct metaphysical theories about what things might be if seen from outside consciousness, but since we cannot know then any claim is as good as any other i.e. equally uncertain. That is the stance of solipsism.

The post I originally responded to was:
As Searle pointed out: solipsism refutes itself. If you're a solipsist, you don't believe this forum and its people actually exist. Expecting that a second solipsist shows up implies wanting solipsism to be proven false.
That is not what a solipsist believes. To say I cannot have certainty whether X is true is not the same as saying that I am certain that X is false.
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Re:

Post by monktastic »

henry quirk wrote: Mon Dec 04, 2017 4:10 pm "other minds" require Faith.

No, not faith, just the brutal self- understanding that, as I say up-thread, the average schmo (me, for example) is too friggin' stupid to be imagining 'the World'.

If I'm too friggin' stupid to imagine the World, then the World must exist (separate from me, independent of me).

Solipsism is for crap (and you're all makin' too much of a a very small thing).
As mentioned earlier, the dream character is generally too stupid to generate the dream. And yet your mind in a dream is indeed the same mind as (or perhaps you could say a subset of) the mind that is dreaming the whole reality. Your dream character just doesn't have access to much of it (until becoming lucid, perhaps).

Once this criticism is addressed, there is another criticism about the stability and internal dynamics. And we could chase those on forever, but it's just not interesting.

There's no way to know with certainty that something like the conscious experience you're having here is also happening elsewhere, and that's all we need for our present purposes of "solipsism."
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Re: The irrefutability of solipsism and the recognition that consciousness is not physical

Post by Conde Lucanor »

Londoner wrote: Solipsism is that the only thing we can be certain of is ourselves. It doesn't say there is nothing independent of our own consciousness.

For the solipsist, the self in the "ourselves" is constituted by pure consciousness. It's the only thing known to exist and nothing independent of it is justified. Since the solipsist can only rely on his/her own individual consciousness, they are restricted to believe that there's only one solipsist in the universe.
Londoner wrote: The point about colour is that we cannot understand it as descriptive of 'the objective existence of things'. The same would be true of all our other sensations. So if we talk about the objective existence of things, how does that objective existence differ from how they appear to us as subjects, i.e as they are within consciousness?
You have submitted the same argument before and it keeps being false. I dealt extensively with it in that other thread.
Londoner wrote: We are free to construct metaphysical theories about what things might be if seen from outside consciousness, but since we cannot know then any claim is as good as any other i.e. equally uncertain. That is the stance of solipsism.
For a solipsist, there's no justification to theorize something to be "outside consciousness", while consciousness itself is certain.
Londoner wrote: The post I originally responded to was:
As Searle pointed out: solipsism refutes itself. If you're a solipsist, you don't believe this forum and its people actually exist. Expecting that a second solipsist shows up implies wanting solipsism to be proven false.
That is not what a solipsist believes. To say I cannot have certainty whether X is true is not the same as saying that I am certain that X is false.
For solipsists, to say that there's a possibility to know that X is true, would imply that there's a possibility to know something independent of their consciousness, which of course they can't do without stopping being solipsists. For them, any inquiry about X is bound to fail. So, Searle's point is well made.
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Re: The irrefutability of solipsism and the recognition that consciousness is not physical

Post by Londoner »

Conde Lucanor wrote: Sun Dec 10, 2017 2:55 am
For the solipsist, the self in the "ourselves" is constituted by pure consciousness. It's the only thing known to exist and nothing independent of it is justified. Since the solipsist can only rely on his/her own individual consciousness, they are restricted to believe that there's only one solipsist in the universe.
I do not think that is true. The solipsist does not propose a metaphysical theory, that there is some substance; 'consciousness', that 'exists' and of which their own consciousness is a part.

Nor does the solipsist think they can 'rely' on their own individual consciousness. We could only come to 'rely' on our consciousness if we could somehow compare our consciousness to something outside our consciousness, such that we could see that the two 'reliably' corresponded.
For a solipsist, there's no justification to theorize something to be "outside consciousness", while consciousness itself is certain.
What is it 'certain' about? If there is nothing outside consciousness - or nothing we can possibly access because we are trapped within our consciousness - then what would being 'certain' mean?

To be certain of something is to think that our beliefs correspond to something exterior to our beliefs. If we consider that what is exterior to our mind (if anything) is unknowable, then (for a solipsist) consciousness is not 'certain', it is simply all we have.
The post I originally responded to was:

As Searle pointed out: solipsism refutes itself. If you're a solipsist, you don't believe this forum and its people actually exist. Expecting that a second solipsist shows up implies wanting solipsism to be proven false.

That is not what a solipsist believes. To say I cannot have certainty whether X is true is not the same as saying that I am certain that X is false.

For solipsists, to say that there's a possibility to know that X is true, would imply that there's a possibility to know something independent of their consciousness, which of course they can't do without stopping being solipsists. For them, any inquiry about X is bound to fail. So, Searle's point is well made.
Solipsists do not say 'there's a possibility to know that X is true'. They say that all our ideas about what might be 'true' or 'false' must be ultimately grounded in our own consciousness. Therefore, for me to say 'X is true' is ultimately to refer to my own consciousness.

So, if a solipsist says 'this forum exists', they consider they are describing their own state of mind. The 'inquiry about X (that is) is bound to fail' is one which seeks a criteria for 'existence' that isn't dependent on our own minds - something metaphysical, like a 'God's-eye view' or whatever.

Maybe there is a God, maybe he 'sees' things as they really are, but since we have no access to his view then it makes no sense for us to base an understanding of the meaning of words like 'real' or 'true' on something we can know nothing about.

Searle (if he is being accurately represented) is saying that if a solipsist claims to have a metaphysical idea of 'real' and 'true' and 'exist' etc. they would not be a solipsist. That would be right...however they don't.
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Re: The irrefutability of solipsism and the recognition that consciousness is not physical

Post by Conde Lucanor »

It goes against my principles, but given that you definitely have not grasped what the term solipsism refers to, I'm forced to appeal to external references for you to get updated and be able to sustain a discussion:

http://www.iep.utm.edu/solipsis/
"Solipsism is sometimes expressed as the view that "I am the only mind which exists," or "My mental states are the only mental states." ...Solipsism is therefore more properly regarded as the doctrine that, in principle, "existence" means for me my existence and that of my mental states. Existence is everything that I experience -- physical objects, other people, events and processes -- anything that would commonly be regarded as a constituent of the space and time in which I coexist with others and is necessarily construed by me as part of the content of my consciousness."

https://www.britannica.com/topic/solipsism
"Solipsism, in philosophy, an extreme form of subjective idealism that denies that the human mind has any valid ground for believing in the existence of anything but itself. The British idealist F.H. Bradley, in Appearance and Reality (1893), characterized the solipsistic view as follows: I cannot transcend experience, and experience must be my experience. From this it follows that nothing beyond my self exists; for what is experience is its [the self’s] states."

http://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_solipsism.html
Solipsism is the position in Metaphysics and Epistemology that the mind is the only thing that can be known to exist and that knowledge of anything outside the mind is unjustified. It is a skeptical hypothesis, and leads to the belief that the whole of reality and the external world and other people are merely representations of the individual self, having no independent existence of their own, and might in fact not even exist. It is not, however, the same as Skepticism (the epistemological position that one should refrain from even making truth claims).

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/solipsism
noun
mass noun
1The view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist.
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