Arising_uk wrote: ↑Sun Mar 24, 2019 5:02 pm
Speakpigeon wrote:I don't see your argument from the existence of language as conclusive. There's very little that's happening in one's mind that you control: emotions, dreams, sensations,impressions, what ideas come into your mind, memories, etc. So, language is just one of those things and none of them proves the solipsist wrong. ...
Well one should be able to control their reaction to their emotions or at least have them congruently sorted. Sensations and 'impressions'(not really sure what you mean by this?) I agree you have little control over as they come first, memories can always be rewritten by context and ideas I'd have thought are thought up? I don't think language is at all like those things as I think it takes two to create it.
That may be what you believe but maybe you're wrong. Maybe language happens like dreams, or emotions, or memories, or indeed ideas. They just happens outside your control.
By impressions, I mean impressions that are not sensations, dreams, ideas, etc. Most people don't even notice them. They're at the threshold of consciousness, stay there for less than a second and most of the time are immediately forgotten. Those you notice you think of them as ideas you have, which is correct, but what is not correct is to think they are produced by your conscious mind. Instead, they are produced by an unconscious process and only the end-result will be conscious. Impressions may be thought of as unobtrusive comments your unconscious mind provides you with to help you go through your day. You take notice of them or not, depending on how busy your are, and you act on them or not depending on how you feel about them but you often do without really paying attention. Don't worry about them. They're there for your own good.
The solipsist doesn't say he controls all that's happening, only that his mind is all there is. Or, equivalently, that all there is is a mind he is a part of. It's a sort of subjectivisation of material reality. Logically, I don't see how one could prove that wrong.
Don't see this as equivalent at all as the part is effectively saying that is all there is so how is it saying there is a 'greater mind' it is part of? And if it is then it's solipsism is wrong.[/quote]
Maybe it is but the discussion is about whether it is logically inconsistent.
EB