Problem of Other Minds

[waxwing]

Solipsism and the Problem of Other Minds


"Solipsism is sometimes expressed as the view that 'I am the only mind which exists', or 'My mental states are the only mental states'. However, the sole survivor of a nuclear holocaust might truly come to believe in either of these propositions without thereby being a solipsist. Solipsism is therefore more properly regarded as the doctrine that, in principle, 'existence' means for me my existence and that of my mental states. In other words, everything which I experience - physical objects, other people, events and processes, in short, anything which would commonly be regarded as a constituent of the spatio-temporal matrix in which I coexist with others - is necessarily construed by me as part of the content of my consciousness. For the solipsist, it is not merely the case that he believes that his thoughts, experiences, and emotions are, as a matter of contingent fact, the only thoughts, experiences, and emotions. Rather, the solipsist can attach no meaning to the supposition that there could be thoughts, experiences, and emotions other than his own. In short, the true solipsist understands the word 'pain', for example, to mean 'my pain' - he cannot accordingly conceive how this word is to be applied in any sense other than this exclusively egocentric one."

http://www.iep.utm.edu/s/solipsis.htm

What do you think of solipsism? Do you see any truth/value to the theory?

[meshou]

I think it can be useful to believe that I can't know what I don't directly experience, but that doesn't mean that when I close my proverbial eyes, the world does not go away.

I do think that the world I percieve is so strongly influenced by my perceptions of it, my body, my cultural and personal biases, being a creature existing in time and therefore unable to experience all there is, makes it impossible for me to believe I have a totally accurate view on anything.

However, this is more a tool of self discovery for me. Knowing this about myself, any innacuracies in my views I do find tell me a good deal about me I probably couldn't know otherwise.

Plus, I have funny ideas about the world related to this sort of thing. I don't strictly believe in cause and effect, and sometimes adopt the view the world is a microcasam of myself for shits and giggles. Meditate, do yoga.

Perception is highly elastic, I am highly elastic, and what happens if you change your perceptions can be extremely self revealing, and sometimes freaky. Never tried hallucenogins, but same principal for those who have.

I'd only adopt true solipsism if I wanted to detatch from the world. The really good ones'd be catatonic. You'd hope. Or I would.

[cathmc]

I do believe that much of what we assume to be 'objective' is actually influenced by our perceptions and biases. But this does not mean there IS no objective reality, just that we don't always know what it is.
Seems like all this definition does is say that Solipsists are just people who lack all capacity for empathy or sympathy.

Anyway, found a short story online that I read once which may be of interest...
http://devernay.free.fr/paradoxlost/html/solipsist.html

[Wilde Mutton]

The question becomes: " What am I?" What IS I? "I think, therefore I am." Does that mean I am one conscious mind? It is equally possible that these feelings of "myself", concerning "me", are thoughts - nothing more. Nothing else but the thing which believes it can perceive itself as something that thinks, something that is thought itself, or what ever one chooses to call it. The universe? Of nothing else there is no feeling but of one´s self which cannot, in all truthfulness, even say if it is an "I", if it has a "me". How does the universe have a self? How can it be anything but a "self"? The "egocentrism" of solipsism seems to be a feeling that there is something which does not in any noticeable way differ from...erm...that is to say, there is nothing for it to differ from. Then that instinctive observation is dressed up in the form of personal experience. It does not serve the solipsist argument to do so while it still has to define the concept of the "self" to which it alludes. How does solipsism define the "self? Does it? I´m not very up with ideologies and their specific features. It would seem that solipsists would have to define the concept of "self" as universal and thus individualistic in a very radical, almost contradictory way - any other definition only enforces rivalling ideologies because a more narrow definition would deny the existence of things of which there is not yet information one way or the other. What else could be meant by "the concept of my consciousness"? If so, it would be an invalid claim, of solipsists being unemphathetic. The concept of "empathy" (and, indeed, "sympathy") would to them be absurd, obsolete.

[euterpenc]

I really wonder if that's true though. It could be and we'd never know it, and it wouldn't matter.

[Sally]

I really wonder if that's true though. It could be and we'd never know it, and it wouldn't matter.

Exactly. I think that questions of 'is there or isn't there an objective reality?' are silly. It doesn't matter. You'll never, ever, ever be able to know. The lack of an actual, verifiable objective reality doesn't negate the practical assumption of an objective reality. I don't think you can even will yourself out of believing that your reality is real. You can doubt it, and your perceptions can change (from point of view to mind-altering chemicals), but the reality in your mind still includes the perception of things the brain interprets as real.

Edt: Not that I think that this discussion is silly. But solipsism... to me, it might as well be the study of perception. I don't have any problem reconciling the solipsist viewpoint with my operative assumption of reality.

[avidApathy]

There is a great movie that deals with this somewhat...and many other awesome things...."What the BLEEP do we know?"....i suggest renting/downloading/buying this movie.

In regards to this movie and this discussion on what is REAL and what our minds create; this movie tries to present an arguement that the world does not even exist without our interaction. Its argument stems off of quamtum physics and neural biology.

Some of the microscopic to macroscopic stretches are a little bit of a stretch for me but the movie i can quite honestly say changed my life...*cough* my Fi is showing.

[CosmicDust]

In regards to this movie and this discussion on what is REAL and what our minds create; this movie tries to present an arguement that the world does not even exist without our interaction.

Then how the BLEEP did we GET here?!? I don't think quantum physics should need theism as a basic premise or anything. My way of understanding the Copenhagen interpretation is such that only the tweaking of a microscopic object into a physical state *that we can recognize and render* requires measurement. The existence of the microscopic entity itself can occur on its own just fine, only not necessarily having a specific recognizable macroscopic property we might inquire about.

[kuranes]

I saw the movie - interesting. Everything kind of revolved around "a day in the life" of Marlee Matlin, the deaf actress. There was another movie I saw once with a similar theme, that had people going out to the famous French castle that was once a prison, where the water floods the land surrounding it once a day, and then recedes. Mont St. Michel? They discussed the nature of reality out there. Pretty cool.

[crofbe]

Even if it were "ultimately true", solipsism is a stupid philosophy.

[tragula]

How funny. I was just reading about this idea yesterday. The book (How the Mind Works) suggested that autistics actually see the world exactly that way. To them other people are more like objects....

It also suggested that from a certain perspective there is a rationality to viewing things in that way. But certainly not a practical one.

[Sally]

How funny. I was just reading about this idea yesterday. The book (How the Mind Works) suggested that autistics actually see the world exactly that way. To them other people are more like objects....

It also suggested that from a certain perspective there is a rationality to viewing things in that way. But certainly not a practical one.

I was reading a book (Animals in Translation) that suggested just the opposite - autistics have the most "accurate" view of the world because they don't conceptualize; they see what's really there. Most normal people don't see reality - the brain takes in data and then presents an interpretation of that data to the conscious mind. Any time you don't notice your keys lying in plain sight, any time you do see something you expect to see (an obvious demonstration would be optical illusions where your mind fills in the blanks), you're witnessing the effect your consciousness has on perception.

And it's like those demonstrations where two groups of people see the same video of a car crash, and then are interrogated a week later, and the language of the questions actually alters the person's memory of the video.

Perception is really a fascinating field of study.

[cuspuser]

while the solipsist's problem is an interesting one, there is another barrier to knowledge of other minds closer to home than this one ...

and that is when you use your sense organs to perceive the world around you, they go through your specific organs, which while similar with others do differ, and you cannot know for certain what others perceive is the same as you ... for example having a different perscription for glasses means that you don't share the same type of visual experience (though we can regulate this quite easily) what becomes more confusing is that of perception of time (for example reflexes, compare someone who does slight of hand to someone who sits on the couch all day and imagine how this fine tuned skill makes them perceive a drastically different world), hearing - we know that some people are varying degrees abilities here, taste, smell, etc ... it isn't such a far jump from here that you bring in colour problems, depth perception problems (think of ratios, like for every 1cm i perceive its in 2 of your units) - and then notice how even with this problems the objective reality and agreement wouldn't change, even if i see 1cm as 2 of your perceptual cms we still agree its 1cm although it is different, and this difference can never be noticed, or if you see blue as my perceptual red we'd still call it blue, and these seemingly complex and meaningful problems seem to sort themselves out.

another intesting problem of other minds is that you cannot know for certain what another person is thinking, or if they are thinking at all ... of course for practical purposes it is important to acknowledge that you never know what someone else is thinking, it doesn't really make any sense as to think of the person across from you as having no thoughts,
in terms of this last type of problem of other minds, while it is practical at times to be skeptical of others intentions (that you might be being lied to or bluffed), for practical purposes it makes no sense to think of others as being zombies (unless you want to try an extensive behavioural study)

as the more likely result of that is that you don't really think, rather than you're the only thinker, then we get into a whole other problem of free will (this problem i often see as more of a problem for psychology students who are really into behaviourism and learning where a stimulus incites a response and we learn in a sort of random way depending on how we've been reinforced over our lives, plus relex and biological preference) ... which is a whole other discussion ...

the problems definately are there, and depending on what you accept as evidence you they can be problems for you, but it definately shows of limits of our possible knowledge ... i think the thing that helps (me at least) is seeing these things not as a foundation or base (which is often ascribed to them in philosophy) upon which all other truths crumble, but rather as a limit or something that we strive for but a line at which we are currently unable to penetrate, but that the more basic questions, those based on perception (such as science) stay intact.

and i also enjoyed "What the BLEEP do we know"

anyways, felt like ranting ...

[cuspuser]

How funny. I was just reading about this idea yesterday. The book (How the Mind Works) suggested that autistics actually see the world exactly that way. To them other people are more like objects....

It also suggested that from a certain perspective there is a rationality to viewing things in that way. But certainly not a practical one.

That is certaintly interesting, as i've always felt being close to "nature" (or Kant's noumena) you'd have to be able to think without concepts, language, etc because "nature" is essentially passive.

in turn this would make it impossible to talk about because as soon as we envoke language we create something outside the "natural"

another 2 cents ...

[meshou]

Even if it were "ultimately true", solipsism is a stupid philosophy."The truth is stupid?" I like!