Philosophy Now Forum

…have some ‘isms’!

https://philosophynow.org/issues/16/Ont ... _Beginners

Solipsism

This is the theory that the world out there doesn’t exist. The whole thing is a product not just of a mind (idealism), but specifically of your mind. The rest of us are just figments of your imagination. Few people seriously believe solipsism to be true, but it is a remarkably difficult theory to disprove. You’ll find that anything that you can call up as evidence against solipsism could be part of the illusion.

I never think that people are a figment of my imagination. Instead, I have always had a sneaking suspicion that I am a figment of theirs.

As I've said before, in multiple places: I'm too friggin' stupid to be imagining 'reality' (all the stuff that seems to be outside me), so 'sumthin'' must exist outside of me. And: as I seem to successfully navigate that 'sumthin', the information I apprehend about that 'sumthin' (by way of my senses) must be reasonably accurate. So, the world exists, and it exists largely as I perceive it.

Solipsism is for shit.

henry quirk wrote:As I've said before, in multiple places: I'm too friggin' stupid to be imagining 'reality' (all the stuff that seems to be outside me), so 'sumthin'' must exist outside of me. And: as I seem to successfully navigate that 'sumthin', the information I apprehend about that 'sumthin' (by way of my senses) must be reasonably accurate. So, the world exists, and it exists largely as I perceive it.

Solipsism is for shit.

Yep. If the lights suddenly go out, I still bump into the desk that persists in reality.

Yes, but our reality tells us there is such a thing as hallucinations, and dementia, etc. Damage to the brain can also make us forget or become different people, it seems a little egotistical to believe you are the master of your own mind when it is so fragile? Your reality will soon be gone when you're dead. How do you know it is all that accurate now?

artisticsolution wrote:Yes, but our reality tells us there is such a thing as hallucinations, and dementia, etc. Damage to the brain can also make us forget or become different people, it seems a little egotistical to believe you are the master of your own mind when it is so fragile? Your reality will soon be gone when you're dead. How do you know it is all that accurate now?

I don't. But I accept the pain of a stubbed toe, in the dark, against the desk leg that otherwise persists outside my immediate senses, as a reasonable facsimile of reality. And if it happens twice in a row, I would also accept this facsimile of reality as totally sucking, too.

"Yes, but our reality tells us there is such a thing as hallucinations, and dementia, etc. Damage to the brain can also make us forget or become different people, it seems a little egotistical to believe you are the master of your own mind when it is so fragile? Your reality will soon be gone when you're dead. How do you know it is all that accurate now?"

Deviations from the baseline (organic and psychological damage or degradation) don't negate the baseline, but reinforce it. Aunt Tilly is senile...I gauge her disconnect from reality by my own solid grasp...that is: I know Aunt Tilly has lost it cuz I still have it, and I know I still have it cuz - as I say - I seem to successfully navigate the stuff that's outside of me. Tilly climbs on the roof during one of her spells, thinking she can glide down like Rocky the Squirrel while I, both feet on the ground, call the Fire Dept. to come haul her keister down. She has no success navigating the world cuz she's damaged; I navigate the world and save her from breaking bones.

And, I don't think it's egotistical to believe one is in control of one's self. Fragility should simply make one more careful in how one goes about things...that one is fragile is no excuse for clinging to impotence.

And, when I die, what dies is my singular perspective on Reality...Reality itself keeps right on ticking away without me.

henry quirk wrote:"
And, when I die, what dies is my singular perspective on Reality...Reality itself keeps right on ticking away without me.

You may think that now, but you won't think that after you die!

"On"tology could have been two sided but no one got "Off"tology...

-Imp