Proof against lifegazer's mind theory

[heusdens]

Originally posted by Fliption
Well I don't know what to say. Perhaps you were taught philosophy differently from me. But by your understanding of knowledge, this little debate on materialism shouldn't even be in the textbooks. It is so easily argued against.
- "Of Course there's a material world! See? I can touch it!". Or
- "Of course there's a material world! If there wasn't then I could walk out in front of a bus and kill myself. The world would be chaos." And we all know the world must make sense to be true.

I still say that if you were stuck in the Matrix, you could never prove it one way or the other. This is really what we're talking about.

That you can touch and be aware of the world, that the world makes sense at all is of course an important conclusion that is drawn up from materialism. But if you don't see the importance of that, then don't see it.

Why do you "assume" we are in a Matrix (or the 'Mind of God')? What makes you think we are? Or is it just a topic for intelectual debate without end, and without purpose?

What makes you think we don't live in the real world, but in an embedded reality? And by the way, it could just be that reality is in a way embedded or an offspring of a 'higher' reality, or the product of an infinite chain of oofspring realities (eternal self-repoducing universe through open / eternal chaotic inflation), or ...

I would hold it impossible for reality to be 'mindfull' instead of material. The world is just too large for fitting in any material or artificial mind.

 

[quantumdude]

Originally posted by Fliption
I still say that if you were stuck in the Matrix, you could never prove it one way or the other. This is really what we're talking about.

Sure you could. You could prove it my manipulating "objects" by merely thinking about them.

"There is no spoon," remember?

I am starting to think that, by your standard, solipsism is the only valid philosophy. Because, using philosophy alone, that's all you get. To get "outside of your own head" you have to appeal to science. You may claim that it is like getting a lift to the police station from the robber, but I don't see any other way of getting there.

 

[Lifegazer]

Originally posted by Tom
Sure you could. You could prove it my manipulating "objects" by merely thinking about them.

"There is no spoon," remember?

I am starting to think that, by your standard, solipsism is the only valid philosophy. Because, using philosophy alone, that's all you get. To get "outside of your own head" you have to appeal to science. You may claim that it is like getting a lift to the police station from the robber, but I don't see any other way of getting there.

That's a mistake. Science studies sensory-data. Therefore, science is the study of inner-data. Science doesn't take us outside of our heads.

 

[quantumdude]

Originally posted by Lifegazer
That's a mistake. Science studies sensory-data. Therefore, science is the study of inner-data. Science doesn't take us outside of our heads.

Neither does philosophy; that's the point. The only way to acquire any knowledge of reality is to observe it.

 

[Lifegazer]

Originally posted by Tom
Neither does philosophy; that's the point. The only way to acquire any knowledge of reality is to observe it.

Observation is an inner-process. You look into your sensation of sight, for example. Science is a practise firmly-rooted within our sensations.
You're wrong to think that science takes us outside of our minds. It cannot. Because there are no sensations to observe which exist outside of awareness.

 

[quantumdude]

I did not say that science can take us outside of our heads. What I'm getting at here is that if we rely on philosophy alone, as Fliption seems to want to do, then we can never get away from solipsism. I think it is better to assume the existence of other minds, and get on with life. Once that is done, the only way we can obtain knowledge about reality is by observing it and theorizing about it.

 

[heusdens]

Originally posted by Lifegazer
Observation is an inner-process. You look into your sensation of sight, for example. Science is a practise firmly-rooted within our sensations.
You're wrong to think that science takes us outside of our minds. It cannot. Because there are no sensations to observe which exist outside of awareness.

This is like saying that humans can only think with their own brains, and nothing beyond that. Well, we know that! By keeping saying that you do not disproof the material reality, do you?

You raise doubt about things which are beyond doubt.
And you cannot possibly proof then the opposite thing, that reality would be entirely mindfull, cause we know from experience too, there is a difference between how the sensations and thoughts work, and how the reality workds. The mind can think about things which don't exist. Yet we know from our experience and knowledge about reality, that this is not how the material world really works. There isn't there anything coming into existence just at will, as a mind could do.
And we can make a valid conclusion that, if in fact the whole world would not be there, neither our mind could be there. There can not be thingking without a material world.

 

[heusdens]

Originally posted by Lifegazer
That's a mistake. Science studies sensory-data. Therefore, science is the study of inner-data. Science doesn't take us outside of our heads.

Never heard about observations which go beyond the human senses?

All kind of instruments and detectors for sure don't perceive our "inner-data" but come up with valuable data about the outside world.

 

[heusdens]

Originally posted by Lifegazer
That's a mistake. Science studies sensory-data. Therefore, science is the study of inner-data. Science doesn't take us outside of our heads.

If science takes us (our minds, that is) out of our heads, then I think science will then turn into religion, having discovered a soul that can exists outside a physical body.

Your statement is so rigourlously naive think as to say that we can only think with our heads, and no matter what science performs and discovers, we still think with our head.

 

[Úlairi]

OK, I have absolutely no knowledge of how old this thread is, and I have sworn off forums for the rest of my natural life, however, I need the help from those more experienced in the field of philosophy than I. I conducted a search on google.com for Proof Against Solipsism, this was at the top of the list, and though I have looked for arguments against it, all of them are insipid, I am hoping to find the true proof, because none other than George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair) in his book 1984 mentions this proof, but never elaborates. I am conducting this search based solely to deduct the consequences of the application of this proof in relation to Orwell's dystopian society for my Individual Study for English in my final year of High School. Solipsism per se is an incredibly simplistic philosophical concept to derive for oneself, I myself conceptualized it before I even heard the word used to describe it, but it is extremely hard to disprove. I have skim-read this thread and have concluded that no real proof against its nature is here, but there is high probability that I have missed it somewhere in the writings of members in this thread.

"The belief that nothing exists outside your own mind-surely there must be some way of demonstrating that it was false? Had it not been exposed long ago as a fallacy? There was even a name for it, which he had forgotten. A faint smile twitched the corners of O'Brien's mouth as he looked down at him.
'I told you, Winston,' he said, 'that metaphysics is not your strong point. The word you are trying to think of is solipsism.'"
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, Penguin Student Edition, Published 2000

Surely some of you have read this book, and can therefore help me on this topic. If any of you have read the chapter written by Daniel Barwick entitled Neo-Materialism and the Death of the Subject in the $40 waste of hard-earned cash book, entitled The Matrix and Philosophy, then you'll soon realize that post-modern philosophers were beaten to the intellectual punch when it came to originality. The irony of the chapter is that Barwick's entitles it ...the Death of the Subject, which is more or less a reference to Satre's Intentionality of the Consciousness (the act of observation of an object is the fundamental definition of consciousness) and David Hume's take on it, which is then regurgitated by Barwick, is that I myself consider the platform on which disproving solipsism altogether is on... you guessed it... the ACTUAL ...Death of the Subject! Basically solipsists would dictate that the only thing you can prove is your own existence; they then go on to say that nothing but their mind exists and hence all else is immaterial. However, if you have a car accident, your mind ceases to function if you die, and the entire destruction of the Universe takes place because you are the only thing that exists. However, your death has been caused by... MATERIAL OBJECTS! I made this conclusion a long time ago and, by playing Devil's Advocate with myself (a frequent pastime of mine), the solipsist argument against this can only be founded on mental states of the mind. Barwick says, according to the idealist, when a tree is observed, there is a specific mental state created by the mind for this particular observation; which makes complete sense. My argument FOR the idealist would then be (in rebuttal to the materialist claim I made before) that there is a specific mental state for death, the mind from then on ceases to exist. This state however, must be induced, due to the laws of cause and effect. What would cause a singular entity to trigger the onset of its own demise? There's where I hit the brick wall. I then applied predestination in concord with idealism. As you can imagine, you get some pretty freaky, weird and brilliant theories with that logical platform, but all of them are not the answers I'm looking for. I am looking for this direct reference made by Orwell to the actual proof, which he said existed but never elaborated on. Can anyone help me out?

I eagerly await for your (non-existent ) replies.

Thank you for your time.

Cheers,

Úlairi.

EDIT: I now realize the age of this thread, but I ask the initial creators and arguers for against to return to this thread to help out a fellow human in the direst of needs. I desire not to reignite discussion over this thread, but that is however the prerogative of all members of the fora on this board to do so, just as long as I get my answers! Oh, and also, hello to all members on this board, it generally looks like a very interesting one!

 

[Úlairi]

No one's going to help me out? *sigh* Ah well, guess this will be the last time I ever post on a board, I believe. Thanks anyway.

Cheers,

Úlairi.

 

[loz]

Ulairi the proof you require against solipsism will not be found as objective proof is within this argument necessarily subjective . Since the basic premise of this philosophy is that all observations be taken as mere hallucination then proof of existence would not be objective but subjective for every individual observer and therefore unverifiable.
I think the strongest argument in favour of this idea is that it does not require a creator as in creation theory or has to address the problems with the bigbang theory. In essence all that would have to exist is an awareness ,the rest could be a conflabulation. As the thoughts of the material are intangible could not also the thoughts of the intangible be material?

 

[Jonny_trigonometry]

"since we know (from our own mind) how minds work, how we reason, and how we reflect upon the outside world" - Heusdens

So tell me, how do minds work? how do you find out by using your mind? Maybe you should think this over. Can a puzzle piece see the picture imprinted on the entire puzzle? how can you make such a claim without being able to escape to a vantage point outside your own mind (which is impossible because nobody can escape their personality)?

"Idealism, a desolate philosophy that is a fossil of the anthiques/pre-history, in which mankind had no idea about the forces of nature, and assumed the existence of "Gods" to compensate for this lack of knowledge" - Heusdens

You daftly assume that scientific knowledge nowadays is able to fully explain our world. There are more things today that are scientifically unexplainable than there were back then, mainly because we know more now. The more you know, the more questions you can ask.

"This awareness takes place completely within our own minds. We have no way of knowing the "outside world". Everything that exists, just takes place in our mind. Mind is the only real existing stuff...Our relation between our mind and "The Mind" is that we exist as "thoughts" within this one mind ("The Mind"). "The Mind" created witin our own minds a picture of the outside reality, which is why the outside reality seems "real" to us." - Heusdens

This is solipsism. I didn't know idealism regarded God as a solipsist. Very interesting, but how can any philosophy claim to know what God is like without making unscientific assumptions? The claim that god is a solipsist is as unreasonable as the claim that god doesn't exist. They are both just opinions. Materialism is no different than idealism in that it is founded on assumptions.

I really liked David Hume, I even saw his grave in Edinbourough Scotland (not sure on the spelling). I understood his arguments, and I agreed with them but it offered me nothing but cold certainty. I realized that I hate feeling as though I'm right all the time. So I simply don't agree with Materialism anymore, it's just kind of cruel towards your fellow humans. Why be such a sour-puss to other people who are in the same situation as you are? Don't get me wrong, I'm not an Idealist because I don't believe god is a solipsist, I try to berid of any notion of what god is like because I don't beileve I will ever understand his/her true nature. Just like how I will never gain understanding about the purpose of the universe by scientific rigor alone. To be honest, I think Heusdens is simply frusterated at the paradoxical opposite to his own viewpoint. Every viewpoint has a paradoxical opposite in philosophy (seemingly), it's a way of maintaining balance so that we don't go insane.