How would one choose between Solipsism and Realism/materialism?

[Lobar]

I'm not sure about this because philosophers have argued that Descarte's argument is based on "I think, I exist" and not on logic "I think, therefore I exist". So, when I'm thinking, I exist; otherwise, who's doing the thinking?

You're still using a type of logic here. If you didn't how would you doubt? Hell, if you used no logic you could come to the conclusion that "I think, I am a non-existent tree that doesn't exist while existing"

 

[ThomasT]

But could one not also come from the direction, "ok I've doubted everything, memories, reality, and I can only be certain of my own existence. So prove to me that reality exists or I won't believe it".

Until/unless Morpheus and the gang come to rescue me from my ignorant bliss I feel compelled to believe that solipsism is a fantasy.

 

[quen_tin]

I suggest you read Wittgenstein "on certainty". Wittgenstein shows that doubt is not always grounded, for you must have some prior knowledge or conception, some kind of "framework", to actually doubt of something, and then this framework is beyond doubt.

I think this is relevant to solipsism. I think solipsism is not something you should believe or not believe in. Both believing in it or not believing in it is actually a nonsense, a kind of fiction that is not performative. Even asking the question of solipsism is mistaking reality for something it is not.

This is also to be related with pragmatist conceptions of truth: a belief is true if you can act successfully on its basis. As Peirce observed, we never escape our mental realm, and the notions of subjectivity / objectivity are only relevant inside that realm (objectivity refers to something that has more stability when varying viewpoints, something more "general"). In that sense there is no "God viewpoint" nor any absolute objectivity nor any transcendant truth, this again is a pure fiction of the mind. Asking if other people really exist or not is not something that can be true or false. It is not a belief on the basis of which you could act in a way or another.

Another way to put it is to call "reality" the thing you are aware of. You live inside reality, you act inside it, etc. Saying "there is a chair" is not meaning that some transcendant object exists outside you, it is meaning that there is something you are aware of and you can interact with. Similarly, just call "other people" the people you interact with, take them for how they are given to you in your experience. Wondering about their true nature is a fallacy: there are only interactions.

A last way to put it is to view solipsism not as a doubt on reality, not as a negative claim (the absence of something), but as a positive claim: if you are solipsist, then you think that there is some kind of illusion that makes you believe that people are not "real people". But are there any good reason to believe that there is such an illusion? Is there a kind of God tricking you? What evidence of that do you have? On the contrary, if you just interact with "real people" as they are given to you, without thinking that there is something like their "true nature", illusory or not, that you could grasp beyond appearences, then you are not making any positive claim and there is nothing you can doubt. You just have to live, concretely, within your mental realm and through the representation of reality that best fit with your experience.

Finally you might be interested in buddhists or hinduists conceptions of mind and reality (antic indian philosophy).

 

[quen_tin]

About Wittgenstein: my summary is very poor. I suggest you read it if you haven't.

 

[Lobar]

Thanks quen tin. Your answer is fantastic, and exactly what I have been thinking about this subject for a while (since wuliheron's responses at least!). I have been thinking of reading that Wittgenstein work, since it looks like it could help me in this regard.

And yes, I have been looking at some buddhist and hindu ideas as well as a few ideas.

 

[Khashishi]

While solipsism is unfalsifiable, it is not immune to attack. (Isn't everything unfalsifiable at some level?) We can base our beliefs on various principles which aren't provable but are reasonable and powerful. Some examples of these principles are Occham's razor and the cosmological principle.

If solipsism is true, then the only constraints on the universe are the constraints of my mind. Yet, the universe seems to make far more sense than anything my mind could come up with. It seems to obey all sorts of physical laws. On the other hand, there is a rich complexity of phenomenon in the universe which I do not understand in detail, yet I am discovering more about through study of physics.

The universe CANNOT be all in my conscious mind, because how can it be the case that I can learn things about the universe which I didn't know before, yet all these facts fit together in a consistent framework which describe a universe which already exists in my mind? That cannot be so, unless my mind has multiple layers, and my conscious mind is exceedingly feeble in computation compared with my "overmind" which actually imagines the universe. But, if this is the case, then why even consider the overmind to be me at all? Why not just call this overmind the real universe?

Secondly, why would my mind create a human body for me which is the same as other human bodies in my universe. Except that my body is somehow special, because I inhabit it. This symmetry doesn't make any sense.

Basically, solipsism is ridiculous.

 

[josh1492]

The universe CANNOT be all in my conscious mind, because how can it be the case that I can learn things about the universe which I didn't know before, yet all these facts fit together in a consistent framework which describe a universe which already exists in my mind? That cannot be so, unless my mind has multiple layers, and my conscious mind is exceedingly feeble in computation compared with my "overmind" which actually imagines the universe. But, if this is the case, then why even consider the overmind to be me at all? Why not just call this overmind the real universe?

Basically, solipsism is ridiculous.

this is the exact conclusion that I came to when I was first confronted with this idea. Sure you can still argue that it is not theoretically impossible but it is so ridiculous and improbable that it is foolish to accept it as a philosophy...also it is pointless to adopt this thought style ...

anyway I like to think of philosophy as a way of "weight lifting" for my brain haha

 

[Goethe]

The private language argument handles this one nicely. In short: there can be no private language, and if solipsism were true, all the language that I, myself, am acquainted with, would be private. So solipsism is false. If you're in doubt as to whether the premise that there can be no private language is true, then read the link.

 

[bohm2]

The private language argument handles this one nicely. In short: there can be no private language, and if solipsism were true, all the language that I, myself, am acquainted with, would be private. So solipsism is false. If you're in doubt as to whether the premise that there can be no private language is true, then read the link.

I think one can question that argument in that article, although I think strict solipsism is just silly. In particular, it depends on how one defines "language". See section entitled: "Chomskyans treat something essentially social as if it were essentially individual" of this article:

But it does seem to me that a community view, even if not Kripke's, seems plausible to philosophers because they start out with an empirically falsifiable, and false, picture of language generalized from their local (usually Oxford) experience. I think it is worth pausing to correct this false picture.

Wittgensteinians and Chomskyans: In Defence of Mentalism
http://www.selectedworks.co.uk/wittgensteinianschomskyans.html

Here's another piece questioning the premise that "language" (at least I-language) serves primarily social functions like communication:

Langauge can of course be used for communication, as can any aspect of what we do: style of dress, gesture, and so on. And it can be and commonly is used for much else. Statistically speaking, for whatever that is worth, the overwhelming use of language is internal – for thought. It takes an enormous act of will to keep from talking to oneself in every waking moment – and asleep as well, often a considerable annoyance. The distinguished neurologist Harry Jerison (1977:55) among others expressed a stronger view, holding that “language did not evolve as a communication system…. the initial evolution of language is more likely to have been…for the construction of a real world,” as a “tool for thought.” Not only in the functional dimension, but also in all other respects – semantic, syntactic, morphological and phonological – the core properties of human language appear to differ sharply from animal communication systems, and to be largely unique in the organic world.

The Biolinguistic Program: The Current State of its Evolution and Development
http://www.punksinscience.org/klean...L/material/Berwick-Chomsky_Biolinguistics.pdf

 

[Goethe]

I think one can question that argument in that article, although I think strict solipsism is just silly. In particular, it depends on how one defines "language". See section entitled: "Chomskyans treat something essentially social as if it were essentially individual" of this article:

Wittgensteinians and Chomskyans: In Defence of Mentalism
http://www.selectedworks.co.uk/wittgensteinianschomskyans.html

Interesting article, but I don't think it stops the application of the private language argument to solipsism. The article rejects the kind of scepticism that solipsism (and the private language argument, possibly) relies on, whereas the private language argument (as it applies to solipsism) assumes such scepticism and uses that scepticism against solipsism. What I mean is, this article appears to operate at a different level than the discussion in this thread.

I'll read the other article later. Thanks for the links.

 

[quen_tin]

Solipsism is no falsifiable per se.
The private language argument is only valid to the extent that other people exist and that communication is possible (i.e. that solipsism is false from the start). Therefore it does not prove that solipsism is false, since it is a prerequisite.

 

[Goethe]

The private language argument is only valid to the extent that other people exist and that communication is possible (i.e. that solipsism is false from the start). Therefore it does not prove that solipsism is false, since it is a prerequisite.

Keep in mind that proving that language is public is only one prong of the argument. Proving that language cannot be private is the important part, as far as solipsism is concerned, and this part does not rely on the existence of other people.

 

[quen_tin]

Keep in mind that proving that language is public is only one prong of the argument. Proving that language cannot be private is the important part, as far as solipsism is concerned, and this part does not rely on the existence of other people.

That's wrong. The argument is based on the fact that a private language would have no meaning and would appear arbitrary for someone else. Therefore, someone else's existence is required for the sake of the argument : it is invalid within solipsism.

 

[Goethe]

he argument is based on the fact that a private language would have no meaning and would appear arbitrary for someone else.

I think you may have misunderstood the private language argument. The argument uses memory skepticism to show that a private language is unintelligible even to the person for whom it is supposedly private.

 

[nucl34rgg]

Hey guys. I know this has been discussed many times before on here and you are probably sick of it, but I'm having a problem.

My question is slightly different from the usual "please refute solipsism" questions. I don't care about refuting it with absolute certainty. However, my problem lies between choosing what to believe. Frankly at this moment I don't know what is more logical to believe.

Why? Because Solipsism is unfalsifiable. But at the same time, is not reality unfalsifiable?

One could approach this from 2 directions. The general response is, "Yes, it's a possibility, but prove to me that this world is an illusion".

But could one not also come from the direction, "ok I've doubted everything, memories, reality, and I can only be certain of my own existence. So prove to me that reality exists or I won't believe it".

Does the last one seem logical?

I'm stuck and I'm actually quite anxious over this whole thing (I have been through this solipsism thing once before, but it seems my doubt didn't go deep enough and now I'm stuck in this situation again).

Thanks for the help guys!

There are a few philosophical traps from which one can't escape using logic because they are, in fact, logically defensible (as absurdly contrived as they may be). One is the immortal "it was meant to happen" statement. For example, whenever an event occurs that most of us believe occurred by chance, such as a nuclear decay, some smartass can say "it happened because it was meant to happen" or "God makes it happen...every...single...time..." and this can go on and on. There is no point arguing against this point of view. It is a brick wall.

Solipsism is the same way. It is as utterly defensible as it is utterly depressing. There is no reason to take a solipsistic point of view except to be a contrarian. It adds no benefit and can potentially skew your philosophies on moral responsibility. For my personal benefit, I abandoned solipsism long ago. It was not a choice made by logic but rather by utility! :D

 

[quen_tin]

I think you may have misunderstood the private language argument. The argument uses memory skepticism to show that a private language is unintelligible even to the person for whom it is supposedly private.

OK I understand better your argument. However I still disagree.

If you mean that language (and thus probably the whole world) would be unintelligible within solipsism, that is probably true. But that does not entail that solipsism is false.

I don't think we can prove that language is intelligible. This is merely an unquestionned assumption on the basis of which we use language, just as the assumption that other people genuinely exist is an unquestioned assumption on the basis of which we communicate and live.

 

[quen_tin]

I think you may have misunderstood the private language argument. The argument uses memory skepticism to show that a private language is unintelligible even to the person for whom it is supposedly private.

Also note that memory scepticism does not appear to be involved in Wittgenstein's argument, according to the article you cited before. Rather the constancy of assignment is involved. Memory scepticism is as much destructive of public language as it is of private language.

 

[thoughtgaze]

It doesn't even seem that solipsism can explain itself. All it states is that all that can be known is the existence of the self/mind. It can't even explain what that mind is or where it came from etc.

Realism at least gives us the ability to attempt to explain the world we experience, and it works very well.

I don't think realism or solipsism would get us any closer at defining where everything came from. Any explanation of reality misses something deeper. The rabbit hole knows no end in this case.

In regard to the original question, I've battled with this for a while. Some people want to pass off solipsism as "silly" but it speaks to something fundamental. The limitation of knowledge by the fact that experience is bound to an "individual" or experience IS indidivualistic by its very nature and hence we should not ever expect to be able to answer this question even in a "realistic" world, and hence our knowledge of the physical world is always limited and any well defined physical theory will always lack deeper unattainable information.

This point leads me to believe that such questions inherently make no sense. To ask a question about something where the answer is, by definition of the situation, unattainable , we have asked a nonsensical question. Therefore, whether we are the only ones perceiving or whether there is something else "out there", makes grammatical sense, but lacks conceptual sense because there IS no answer in either case (either case referring to the case of a realistic reality or a solipsistic reality).

 

[EagleNebula]

I say, refute it. Asking yourself questions which can't be contradicted or proven right/false with what I/we perceive as logic seems somewhat pointless to ask. Remember, it's a philosophy for a reason. It's not science because science is always based on something we call evidence. How could we possibly prove Solipsism is right?
It's the same argument given to religious people, how can we prove your wrong if you can just add more philosophical barriers to it?

If the case is that you believe that this is all an illusion you have created, why do I also think? Why do I also ponder around asking myself the same questions as you do? Am I just an imagination you have created? Maybe I'm just your subconciouss trying to convince you're wrong for your own personal comfort? If so, that's a pity because I feel like I exist. Maybe your right? I don't know, personally it just feels like something Philip K. Dick would write a FICTIONAL book about. But that's just me, you could see the world like that if you want to, I think I'll stick to the idea of Earth being a place where everything is connected, and a place where we all coexist.

Now, how would you choose between the two?
It's your decision, isn't that what Solipsism teaches? Your individual decision is the only thing that matters here. I will just say this, it's called Realism for a reason. That's because it's reality, whatever that is.

 

[ingenvector]

Ah, metaphysics.

The first thing to remember about metaphysics is how expansive it is. Essentially, you are facing two primary problems. First, one must begin with a theory of ontology which is entirely arbitrary. As well, in metaphysical space, there is no meaningful comparison of what is more probable or logical. What is more probable, for example, is dependent on the arbitrary axioms one begins with.

There is one "philosophy" that claims absolute Objective (<-here it is! This is the hint. It's right here.) knowledge from naive realism, but it is so stupid and potentially destructive, I will not name it. I will, however, leave behind a hint in the previous sentence because... because I can.

Solipsism is irrefutable. So is Berkeley's Idealism, no matter how many stones you kick. It's also tends to be rather nihilistic, though not necessarily. Regardless, if one is consistent, unlike Descartes who conveniently remembered God, doubt pervades all epistemic claims.

I don't recommend logical analysis as an arbiter for matters of philosophy or science (Hey, science is basically pure ontology on the philosophies of philosophical and methodological naturalism. Comport to the evidence, not the logic!), it usually has valid applications in many instances, but there always exists the problem that the universe may not necessarily comport to logic. Rather, what I find is that the logico-linguistic nature of such discourse often degenerates similarly to what Popper noted in that "every discipline, as long as it used the Aristotelian method of definition, has remained arrested in a state of empty verbiage and barren scholasticism".

Perhaps you should ask whether you think that the universe is discoverable. This would imply Realism. Otherwise, you are going to have to find a harder way to irrationally believe what is naively most obvious. Or believe in solipsism. Actually, I find solipsism to be really more improbable, just because it's coherent doesn't mean it is of equal value in justification. Why give such consideration to solipsism to begin with?

 

[PeterJ]

Hmm. I can't agree with much that's been said here. Solipsism has been opposed to realism, but this is not a true contradictory pair by Aristotle's rules and so there can be a third answer. Metaphysics is full of these unintentional category-errors, and they cause all the problems. I would say that solipsism and realism are false, and that a more subtle view is called for. But it's a monster of a topic.