The simplest refutation of solipsism

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by wynn, Jun 12, 2009.

  1. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    15,058
    Solipsism is generally considered irrefutable.

    But why?


    If anything, solipsism can regularly be dismissed on the grounds that the terms in its basic premises are lacking clear definition:

    Solipsism, in its common variety, says: All I can be sure of is my self and my experiences.

    But in this, what is "I", "self", "surety", "experience", "my"? These terms are not clearly defined, so a statement made with them is lacking definition as well.


    I am sure many other people have thought of this solution to solipsism.
    But how come it hasn't cought on? How come serious philosophers still hold that solipsism is irrefutable?
    What am I missing here?
     
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. glaucon tending tangentially Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,502
    Signal,

    I won't wade into this discussion, as I'm sure many others will, but I did want to point out a problem with your contention (as it's written..).

    An argument cannot be dismissed simply on the basis that it is insufficiently defined (or, more accurately, described).
    So, you haven't really provided any "solution" to the problem.
     
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    15,058
    To me, it seems that solipsism is a conflation and/or culmination of many other problems - epistemological, ontological, ethical, practical, and possibly others. Which is probably why solipsism seems so impenetrable and solid.

    I presume though that if those other problems would be successfully resolved, then solipsism would lose its appeal as well, don't you think?
     
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. glaucon tending tangentially Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,502
    Yeah, I completely agree with you on all points.
    In that sense, it reminds me of the attempt to attain the GUT in science.

    In both cases, success requires a large amount of work on 'secondary' problems to ultimately find a complete solution.
     
  8. wise acre Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    726
    I think the best refutation of solipsism is finding that I do not believe it.

    I think a problem can arise when we take a hypothetical relationship to ourselves or the world, rather than noticing what it is.

    I would also like to point out that it is very Western to think that solipsism is an exclusive position. IOW that discrete individual entities cannot also be a part of some larger SELF or thing.
     
  9. StrangerInAStrangeLand SubQuantum Mechanic Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    15,396

    Possibly, it seems to be a solution because you just can't accept it as it is.
    The common understanding of those words is clear enough to understand the proposal.
     
  10. StrangerInAStrangeLand SubQuantum Mechanic Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    15,396

    Thinking 1's belief or nonbelief is satisfactory refutation of something is quite common.
    I think a problem can arise when 1 does not properly consider all possibilities. Problems definitely arise with people assuming their perception accurately reflects reality.
    The solipsism proposed in the OP does not assume individuals cannot be part of some larger thing.
     
  11. wise acre Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    726
    I agree with you, but perhaps you did not understand my point. There are ideas that cannot be refuted. Some, not now. Others, I would guess, never.
    For all we know this is a simulation, and other brain in a vat scenarios, are very hard to disprove.
    However, I was responding to the issue in a more practical sense. I think people can wind themselves up AS IF they had some obligation to prove a certain idea false.

    The problem in this case is not the lack of a refutation, but the focus and sense that one has a certain burden.

    If one does not get distracted by an issue by solipsism, and any voice that says one must have a refutation of it, one may notice that one does not believe in solipsism.

    This is a practical elimination of the issue. One does not need to feel that in the face of solipsism one bears the burden of proof, unless one does feel that way.

    A very wise person in these forums once said something along the lines of 'What are you doing?' in response to a line of 'reasoning' another person presented. I think this was excellent. People can raise issues or present arguments for reasons and goals other than simply finding the truth or presenting it. I think this holds even with ideas that seem abstract or that we seem to come up with ourselves.

    Any voice, one from inside us or one outside us, can and should sometimes be challenged with 'What are you doing?' I think solipsism is an issue that, when raised by a voice, is a good one to challenge with 'What are you doing?' Once you engage that voice or feel the burden of proving it wrong, I suspect that voice has won half its real battle.

    I think is it very rare for anyone to consider all possibilities. Perhaps in some mathematical problem-solving situations.

    Sure. Including the perception or idea that one must have a refutation for solipsism or there is a problem. I am presenting this possibility. In a sense following this very idea of yours below....
    .

    Pretty much every solipsism does not assume this. In fact it is a part and parcel with solipsism. Generally when one worries about solipsism the fundamental realness of other individuals is part of the anxiety-producing elements of solipsism. The solipsism in the OP asserts that one cannot know if there are other individuals, generally in solipsism, because they may only be parts of myself or only seem to be other minds. I think the both/option is left out, often when people imagine this scenario.

    I am dealing with this as a problem for an individual in the world. Not as an idea, on paper, that I must defeat.

    Some individuals are tortured by this idea. I am not sure supplying them with arguments against the idea, in the long run, eliminates the problem.

    I think, actually, something else is going on, but it seems like the issue is the lack of a refutation of solipsism or that one is a brain in a vat or that the self persists through time, etc.
     
    Last edited: Jun 13, 2009
  12. glaucon tending tangentially Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,502

    Indeed.



    Right. But solipsism questions your 'believing it', as well as (more fundamentally) your 'noticing what the world is'.


    Well, that depends on what you mean by "Western". Perhaps the most solipsistic position taken by a philosopher could be that of the Continental Existentialists, and Sartre in particular...
     
  13. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    15,058
    But as Galucon already pointed out - this is the problem.
    If we could just "notice our actual relationship with ourselves or the world" - all would be fine.

    I do not think it is self-evident what our relationship to ourselves or the world is.
    I do not think that the confusion we have about this relationship is just some idle distraction we have placed upon ourselves and which we can free ourselves of easily, any time.
     
  14. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    15,058
    Sure. Like I noted earlier, solipsism seems to be a conflation and/or culmination of many other problems - epistemological, ontological, ethical, practical, and possibly others - and that this is probably why solipsism seems so impenetrable and solid. And also this is where it gets its appeal, its grip.


    I do think that if one wants to be sane, then one actually has the obligation to prove some things true and others false.
     
  15. Mr. Hamtastic whackawhackado! Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,492
    I believe solipsism is correct, but not as stated.

    I believe that the only things I can be "sure" of are things which I have experienced. I cannot be sure of myself. I "believe" in myself, and thus validate my experiences.

    Obviously, in the event that I do not actually exist, then my experiences are also meaningless.

    If you refute a statement based on the meaning of commonly used words, you are not refuting the statement at all. You are instead seeking to alter it's commonly accepted meaning. For example, if we agree that "I" means "Gandhi", then all words similar to I are forms of "Gandhi". When applied like this you embrace the idea that when I say I exist I am in fact saying Gandhi exists and not myself.

    It's one thing to argue the meaning of seldom used words or contexts for commonly used words, another entirely to try to give a new meaning to commonly used words to make a statement say something more easily refuted.
     
  16. wise acre Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    726
    Not idle, no, not at all. I do not see this as frivolous. But I do think it is a distraction. I think certain voices can use our fear against us by getting us to focus on things that are very mental. The terror there is real and deep. I do not see the getting locked on to an issue like this as silly, in the least.

    I also do not think it is self-evident what our sense of the world is.....
    but,
    I do not think engaging voices that suggest solipsism
    helps us to come closer to what we really believe. I think it shifts us to objective thinking, where we try to decide what one should think.

    What one should think?

    Rather than what we do.

    So to be as clear as I can...

    I do not mean that if you stopping trying to refute solipsism you could just do a quick inventory and say
    Oh, look, I don't believe in it.

    I do think the enterprise of finding one's own beliefs is more important than and interfered with trying to objectively refute solipsism and related viral ideas.
     
  17. wise acre Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    726
    1) if you can, perhaps, though I doubt it 2) there are a lot of people, some present in these forums, who are quite sure they have disproved God, for example, and yet it seems pretty clear to me they are tortured by the theism of others.

    I think proof around some issues does very little.
     
  18. Mr. Hamtastic whackawhackado! Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,492
    If you want to refute solipsism, answer this:

    What can anyone depend on that they have no experience of?

    Simple!

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  19. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    15,058
    To me, finding my own beliefs and trying to objectively refute solipsism (for example, among others) go hand in hand.
     
  20. StrangerInAStrangeLand SubQuantum Mechanic Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    15,396

    If you mean the god of the KJV, it simply disproves itself by selfcontradiction. If you mean gods in general, I'd like to see more than 2 regular posters named.



    What seems pretty clear to you just might not be the way it actually is.



    Not certain I understand this. I hope my best guess isn't right.
     
  21. EmmZ It's an animal thing Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,449
    If you want to refute solopsism all you have to do is to refute "self" and "I". Therefore, if we ask what is self, is it the mind? Well, since the mind is an aggregations of the collective parts of the mind it cannot be the mind itself. Since a tree is not a forest, nor is a forest a tree. It is not the body, since we can remove all the parts of the body and find no self. It cannot be a collection of those two, since 0+0 never equals 1. It isn't outside the body and mind, because we do not identify the self outside of those parameters. So, upon investigation the self cannot be found, if the self cannot be found then solopsism is refutable.
     
  22. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    15,058
    Interesting.
    And when you lose your job or get cancer, it isn't you who actually loses the job or gets cancer ....?
     
  23. Crunchy Cat F-in' *meow* baby!!! Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    8,423
    Solipsism is refuted by general anisthetic.
     

Share This Page