A Rejection of Transcendental Idealism and Solipsism

This essay shall be separated into two sections. The first shall include what I construe as the strongest argument I have conceived against the philosophical stance of Solipsism, specifically, the Problem of Other Minds. The second part shall include a rejection of its pseudo-sibling Trascendental Idealism in ten parts. A conclusion will, naturally, follow.

A Rejection of Solipsism from Empirical Knowledge:

From an empirical foundation of knowledge as argued for in "A Rejection of Non-Transcendental Idealism", it would seem that extreme Solipsism is untenable. For one, the mind has no capacity whatsoever to imagine from nothing - having emerged similarly from such, as the solipsist would have to hold - and which, in general, the argument against Idealism as argued in the aforementioned essay as an essential critique of Solipsism. However, one crucical concept of Solipsism which is not explicitly rejected in the prior essay, is the Problem of Other Minds, where the holder of such view espouses such and such a conception of reality as to assert that the ontological status of any other conscious mind existing is, in and of itself, unprovable. However, there would seem one crucial reason to suggest otherwise: The ability to learn language. Now, it is quite clear that babies are not born with the capacity to speak intelligbly. That growth does not make itself manifest until much later, about a year or so afterwards, ought to be clear to any human. Now, if we are to assume that we might be speaking to wholely non-conscious beings, then there is no way we'd be able to speak in a language. Three reasons make this abundantly clear:

1. Should we be the only conscious mind, our minds would have no conception of language, nor of such things as meaning and the like, and so we would not be able to learn.

2. Meaning can only be understood by an intelligence. Since clearly meaning is conveyed in language, the conveyor of such a thing must be conscious.

3. There is not only a single language which is universally understood, but tens of thousands of non-universal languages that people speak amongst one another and to which most people in the world the sounds are but gibberish. If these were not other minds conveying important information in a way one is not accustomed to, why then does it produce roughly the same results as one's own language, including point 2's conveyance of meaning necessitating consciousness?

This point is also important to stress as it not only takes the rug out from under the problem, but also points towards the fact that something else out there must exist. That, in essence, there is something real out there. Another mind, in fact, many other minds, which are real and which one interacts with. This will lead us to our next section.

A Rejection of Transcendental Idealism

Part I: A Rejection from Interaction

It would seem reasonable to conclude that should one's perceptions not accord with reality to within a reasonable level, one would simply be destroyed. For instance, let us imagine someone walking by a cliff. Now, imagine if he wanted to peer over the edge yet, unbeknowst to him, his vision had shifted so as to falsely give the impression that everything is twenty feet more distant than they really are. It should be clear that should he continue his walk towards the edge that, given sufficient time, he'll meet his doom via plumetting from said cliff to the distant ground below. What would happen, then, if all life had such warped sensory features? Would not we be incapable of interacting meaningfully with the enviroment and thus come to ruin?

Part II: A Rejection from Non-Sensory Organ Confirmation

Machines, built for certain purposes, may guage various sensory stimuli, like the degree of light in an area, or the temperature and water content of the air, and other such things which could, were a human present. If our perceptions are not to be relied on, why does something give us a picture which conforms to our perceptions? Why does something which has no mind present not see things utterly differently?

Part III: A Rejection from Empirical Knowledge

If even time and space are held to be impositions of the mind on an unknowable reality, from whence did we derive them? For if nothing exists within the mind which was not in the senses, then how could our mind order something in a way it would have no capacity to understand? Moreover, what process, should time be non-existent, account for any conception of temporal happenings? How would the mind go about organizing phenomena in such and such a way as to allow for interaction with it - for clearly we do - and coherent organization a timeless reality?

Part IV: A Rejection from Ockham's Razor

Whilst Ockham's razor does allow for complication when it is necessary to explain something, should Transcendental Idealism be considered necessary? For if we are to agree that the results are essentially the same, whether or not one conceives the world in light of Transcendental Idealism, or a realism rooted in concordance with reality of our senses, is it necessary to say it is, in fact, that it is not so? For once again, both are accurate in so far as they describe the contents of reality, and come to the same conclusions, yet one postulates unnecessary convolutions. It would seem, then, that the stubble of Transcendental Idealism might be well to clean from one's skin through the employment of Ockham's Razor.

Part V: A Rejection from the Irrational Concept of the Ding an Sich

We might consider the concept of the Ding an Sich (for those unfamiliar with German: The thing in itself) as an unknowable noumena for three reasons:

1. If the Ding an Sich is truly unknowable, however would we come to know that it exists? That which is unknowable could never be known.

2. What need is there for a Ding an Sich? The radical empiricists, for instance, would claim that we cannot speak of anything beyond the perceptions and that it is a symptom of unnecessary and fallacious thought that promotes things which we have no capacity to know.

3. If the Ding an Sich really the thing in itself, and thus theoretically the source of its phenomenal aspects, how does it fail to impose its existence upon what it produces? How does it remain shrouded? For if this is truly the source of the phenomena involved, why is it incapable of revealing itself through itself?

Part VI: A Rejection from Irrefutable Truth

Consider the oft-quoted - by pseudo-philosophical dolts, that is - nonsense-conception: "There is no truth." Now, it is nonsense for a reason: It inherently presumes what it claims does not exist. If this statement is right, then it is truthful, and tehrefore it is wrong because its main contention - that there is no truth - is itself refuted by the very conception. Similarly, the idea that there "are no absolutes" is another one of the philosophically invalid concepts and for precisely the same reasons. In fact, a whole slew of these fallacious statements exist. Yet do we hold something which is so essentially real, if the universe is Transcendentally Ideal? For if thoughts are to be held to the same standard as other phenomena, why can we be certain of something, beyond any doubt whatsoever if such was so? To further drive the point home, we only need to realize that Kant himself postulated logical coherence as the foundation for his notion of the Categorical Imperative as the only valid moral contention.

Part VII: A Rejection from Mutual Intelligibility

It is only through a proxy that we communicate. Barring psychic speculation - or perhaps not, should the concept of "psychic waves" be considered - we may safely affirm because there seems to be no way to directly transmit thoughts without resorting to a vocal, visual, tactile, olfactory, taste-based, chemical, electronic, printed medium, et cetera. Yet that being said, why is it that we are capable of mutual intelligibility with real minds? If a mind is able to accurately present itself through a sensory medium, why then are the senses to be doubted to such an extent that we cannot affirm they correspond to a reality outside of us?

Part VIII: A Rejection from Causality

The primary impetus for the formation of Transcendental Idealism David Hume's argument that causality has neither logical nor empirical basis. Yet considering this may not be so, per the argument presented in "An ARgument for Causality from the Fundemental of Relation", we can say that one of the reasons for adopting a Transcendental Idealist viewpoint might well have been reduced to ruins. It is rare, if ever, that something truthful can be based on that which has later been found to be wrong from the start.

Part IX: A Rejection from Sensory Correction

It is a known fact that the senses can be fooled. Indeed, were we to take the senses at face value, we'd have to state that objects physically shrink and grow the distance one is from them, or that straws in a glass of water bend and magnify beneath the waterline, or that the images in a mirror have an actual existence aside from reflection, or any other absurd notion. Yet how can this be so if the senses do not correspond to reality enough to allow for us to use them to correct even the flaws which we know to be present? For if our perceptions were an absolute, unlike reality, it would seem impossible as the only thing we'd know would be that the senses are correct and the only way to "know" reality at all.

Part X: A Rejection from Utility

It is simply not useful to consider the Transcendental Idealist viewpoint as valid. What good does it do us to admit an ignorance which we can neither correct nor does it any good for us to know? Indeed, is an illusion which cannot be but an illusion still an illusion? Or is it really just unnecesary and unuseful skepticism that allows for it to be even conceived as such? A sort of psychological necessity for self-doubt? An intrusion of nihilism and slave mentality into philosophy?

A Conclusion:

For the above reasons, it would rather seem that Transcendental Idealism - and Solipsism, of course - is a position of no worth to the philosopher. That not only is it false, but the author would even affirm that it is dangerous. That by adopting such a skeptical viewpoint, it robs of man the certainty that is necessary towards truth and, ontop of that, imposes upon him one of the slavish qualities which mark the inferior man, namely, the belief that trust cannot be given even to himself. This objection, elaborated upon by Ayn Rand amongst others, is perhaps the strongest subjective argument against Transcendental Idealism.

We are also left with but two metaphysical conceptions now, namely, Materialism and Dualism. Both shall eventually be touched upon.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

And for Water:

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

"The White Horse"

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

prince james, i don't really know what to say because you have understood everything wrong. then again... maybe we're not talking about the same thing.

of course they produce roughly the same results.

there are many persons but only one self. what is "real"? i call the world an illusion because it is not what it seems to be. it's not something absolute (since it consists of magnetic energy which comes from the self), but it seems absolute because when mind is an atom, it is very primitve, it can hardly express itself in any way. if things were outside your consciousness there would no way for you to interract and be conscious of them.

i really don't know what you're talking about.

mind is present everywhere.

[/quote]If even time and space are held to be impositions of the mind on an unknowable reality, from whence did we derive them?[/quote]

space is rejection of ourself time is a sensation of going forward against some goal.

it sounds like you think that the human mind is the only mind.

they do correspond to a "reality" "outside" us, but that reality is THE mind. the mind concentrates itself in points, atoms, crap... because it rejects itself. hence there is negative and positive radiation in matter.

and nothing is really outside, this is all our own mind which we (mind) reject. goddammit... how could you be conscious of something outside your consciousness??

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Thank you, Prince.

 

becuz of our advanced bodies (br4in), we can express ourselves so much... so some things like matter seem completely dead... however, dead things are impossible.... crystals form following specific mathematic laws... they are not dead... there is a will in them, like in us... just that they are not conscious of their will... the will is life... electricity...

also... scientists will say that when "dead" things do things... "they follow" natural laws... yet, they have never been able to say what causes natural laws to be the way they are... they cannot explain them... matter radiates positive and negative energy.... magnetism... it is full of life... the power comes from existence.... which humans recognize as the self....

da problem iz that ye don't know the difference between the person and self.... when existence... life... enters a human... da human body recognizes it as the self...

 

Dear Prince James.
Some quotes that can support your rejection:

That which makes the mind think but which cannot be thought by the mind - that alone is God, not what people worship. The Upanishads

I have put my truth in your innermost mind, and I have written it in your heart. Psalm 46

For the kingdom of God is within you. Jesus of Nazareth

Whoever knows himself knows God. Muhammad

The state of silence is a state of entire peace, in which the intellect ceases to occupy itself with the unreal. In this silence, the great soul who knows and is one with Brahman enjoys unmingled bliss forever. Shankara

Don't follow the advice of others; rather, learn to listen to the voice within yourself. Your body and mind will become one, and you will realize the unity of all things. Dogen

Many people imagine that there is "creature being" here and "divine being" in heaven. This is not true. You behold God in your life in the same perfection, and are blessed in exactly the same way, as in the afterlife.
Meister Eckhart

Whenever a mind is simple and receives a divine wisdom, old things pass away, - means, teachers, texts, temples fall; it lives now, and absorbs past and future into the present hour. Ralph Waldo Emerson

If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind there are few.
Shunryu Suzuki

If we find fullness of joy in the thought that God exists, we should find
the same fullness in the knowledge that we ourselves do not exist, for it is
the same thought. - Simone Weil

If the mind is happy, not only the body but the whole world will be happy.
Ramana Maharshi

"There is no greater mystery than this, that we keep
seeking reality though in fact we are reality. We
think that there is something hiding reality and that
this must be destroyed before reality is gained.
How ridiculous! A day will dawn when you will laugh
at all your past efforts. That which will be the day
you laugh is also here and now."
Ramana Maharshi

"You are all Buddhas
There is nothing you need to achieve.
Just open your eyes."
Siddhartha Gautama

It is proper to doubt. Do not be led by holy scriptures, or by mere logic or inference, or by appearances, or by the authority of religious teachers. But when you realize that something is unwholesome and bad for you, give it up. And when you realize something is wholesome and good for you, do it. Gautama Buddha

"The spirit of man is inseparable from the Infinite, and
can be satisfied with nothing less than the Infinite."
-- James Allen

"That which is essential is invisible to the eye."
Antoine de Saint Exupery

"There is in all visible things...a hidden wholeness."
-- Thomas Merton

"The fact is that because no one thing or feature of
this universe is separable from the whole,
the only real You, or Self, is the whole."
-- Alan Watts


=-
The most beautiful and profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms – this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religion. Albert Einstein

 

C7ityi:

Why must something be absolute to be "real"? Things are quite "real" whilst they are not absolute. Is not this some sort of intellectual prejudice that only looks for the "greatest reality" to be real? Moreover, existence itself is eternal, infinite, immutable, et cetera, and contains all these ephemeral, finite, and mutable things.

How would it be impossible to interact with something that did not share in one's consciousness?

Okay, here's another example:

Ever hear of the Shaolin monks? From China? They do one practice to learn balance which, in its highest form, entails balancing, for hours on end, on a wooden stake which offers one room for only one foot to rest. Surrounded by this, the ground is litterally covered with razor sharp spikes, all of which will lead one to one's death should one lose balance. Now, suppose our senses were to fail then? To give us an utterly wrong conception of reality? One wrong sensory connection and we'd be dead, having fallen from said stake.

There is no goal in time. Time simply moves. Moreover, space cannot be a rejection fo ourselves, as even if we are this infinite God of which you speak, we are composed of an infinite amount of space.

I recognize the consciousness of all known live creatures, from paramecium up to humanity. I only distinguish in their complexity of intelligence.

Here's how: Something outside of my consciousness interacts with me by producing sensory stimuli which I can sense in one way or another. In essence, it travels through non-conscious space and reaches my consciousness through the senses.

Natural laws show no signs of consciousness. They are related back to spatial phenomena.

Natural laws are caused by other natural laws and other natural laws ad subinfinitum (infinitely small).

Genep:

You mean "reject my rejection", no? Or are you saying these somehow actually support my assertions?

 

Existence is eternal, but existence of SOMETHING might not be eternal. What IS "something"? If matter is nothingness, then nothingness is the only existence.

If it is not in your consciousness, you couldn't be conscious of it.

Okay, I already got it the first time, I was just wondering why our senses would fail for SOMETHING like that.

There is no goal in the universe? I would say that unification is the goal, since all things constantly tries to unite. Space can be limited.

Then it's no longer outside your consciousness.

You can't say that something non-conscious can produce something conscious. Everything MUST be "conscious" at some level.

It hurts so much that you don't understand. My precious crystals which form according to mathematical laws...

 

Because the Quran says so and Quran is true. There's no reason religions would talk about an illusion if it wasn't true. SOMEHOW it is true.

There can't be both illusions and real things in the same world. Opposites are illusions. There is no light and darkness, there's only light and "absence" of light. There's only variations of the same thing. A spectrum. Some things can't be living and then some things not living. How could unliving things build up living things? Every atom, every particle, must be "alive", to some degree.

Beyond atoms is magnetism and the cause of it, and that is life itself: "non-existence", the only thing that really exists. There is only one Being, one existence, and this existence is the center of everything, the self!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

C7ityi:

Nothingness cannot, however, -be- existence. And yes, existence as a whole is eternal, but everything within it is no less real because it is temporal.

See my explanation for why we could.

They could fail for everything and then life would not exist.

Things also separate. The expansion of the universe, for instance.

It's existence is.

Water is made up of Hydrogen and Oxygen, yes? In a 2:1 ratio? However, do tell me where "water" is to be found in either?

Crom laughs at the Quran.

Non-existence cannot exist and be non-existence. Moreover, how can we reduce things to non-existence?

 

Nothingness can be existence. Infinite "space". Space is nothing.

Less real. I guess it depends on how we define stuff.

There's no reason for senses to fail for sensations.

How do you know? You only know there is a SENSATION of an outside. It's outside only because of our consciousness. It's mental. All opposites are. The existence, the self, is in everyone of us. There is no outside. C'mon.

You can't compare like that. They're not at all similar things. Without consciousness there wouldn't be a way to know what water is. Water is in our consciousness.

And no, I don't know what water is "made of". Everything's made of small particles I'd say.

I laugh at his laughter and I laugh at the dooms he sends me!!!!

Why do you need to reduce things to non-existence? Is not 0,9999999.... (repeating to infinity) = 1?

 

c7ityi_,

I don't agree with your religious psychobabble, but there is new evidence in quantum mechanics to suggest that particles have volition. This is also suggested to some extent in the Buddhist concept of dependent arising.

 

xerxes

does volition mean like free will? stupid. only humans have free will!

 

'Free will' is another nonsensical religious term. Things are neither free nor non-free.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=volition

 

of course we're free. i can do whatever hell i want!! i can say: ap0ynreuiduhfzshofd if I want, or what the FUCK I want. free will, get it.

if not, then explain in what way we don't have free will?

 

c7ityi_:

You're extremely misinformed about the nature of space. Space is not "nothing" but the -essence- of substantiality. It is a ubiquitous expanse of interacting energy fields and constantly appearing and annihilating virtual particles.

There is if reality is in the mind and we can never know for sure if it conforms to reality.

A sensation from an outside source I have neither any connection with nor consciousness of? MOst definitely separate from I.

Yet if water is not to be found in either particle, you cannot say that consciousness must go al lthe way down. Relation produces different - sometimes VASTLY - different things.

So did the Archaen dominion. You'd do well to remember the toppling of their purple minarets.

No. It is .9999... forever.

Xerxes:

What evidence?

How can something be neither free nor not free? Being not free is the antithesis of freedom and vice versa. You cannot be neither or both.

c7ityi_:

You just proved you aren't. You were compulsed by a desire to prove against it determinism. We are all incapable of acting without a reason, nor can we violate causality.

 

Not in my version. Every particle is a mind. It seems very real, but it's still illusive.

Yes, mentally separate. And there is a connection with the mental outside too. The mental outside is as real as you are. It is you.

Evidently, the water is in the particles, but because they are separated, they are not water. Separation is creation, unity is destruction. But in this world, unity can be creation too. The divine monistic perspective is always opposite from the personal separated viewpoint.

Write DOG on your chest. When you read it, it goes from left to right. But when you are it. You don't see it. It goes from right to left, and it says GOD.

Now you know why divine writing goes from right to left.

 

c7ityi_:

And these particles would have accurate perception of reality?

Then why is my body different? Why does space separate us? Why do I not have a perception of their mind? Why do I not feel them?

If unity is destruction it should not be able to also be creation.

ACtually, it would look more like Qob.

 

Prince_James,

Non-locality.

All things are void of self-existence, since their existence is dependant on conditions. So the term 'freedom' doesn't really mean anything in the greater scheme.

Why individual minds? It makes more sense that particles are part of a larger, universal mind.

 

Xerxes:

How is existence dependent on conditions connected to having a "void of self-existence"? What makes conditional existence incapable of producing self-existence? Or do you mean that in order to have a self-existence, you must somehow have created yourself?