Who? Anybody with valuable input.

This is almost a war going on in philosophy here on sciforums. Simply put, one side believes that everything exists whether we experience them or not, therefore no proof of existence is necessary.

The other side believes that nothing can be shown to exist to anyone who has not experienced it.

An example: Side A: There is evidence for electrons. I have been told there is, and that they exist. My experience of electrons has no bearing on their existence, they objectively exist, my opinion is unimportant.

Side B: I have heard that people have experienced seeing evidence and doing math which suggests electrons may exist. Inasmuch as I have not seen this evidence, nor have I received any sensory data that an electron exists, I may choose to believe they exist, but without an experience of an electron, I cannot say for sure they exist.

I am a member of side B. This is known as solipsism. Solipsism is not discussed frequently because it is believed it cannot be disproven. Some would take this as a sign of it to be a better way, some dismiss it on the grounds that there's nothing to discuss, therefore it must not be true.

So, my challenge is simple. Prove something exists that you have no direct experience of. I invite any other solipsist to respond to your proof, as I will.

Something you may hear frequently: You had an experience of X? Good. I take it that's true for you? Good. Why should it be true for me, precisely?

Or the opposite: I had a dream of being hanged. I know that I am still alive and healthy. On a cocktail of ecstasy and alcohol, I became convinced that I was flying. When I came to, I realised I hadn't been.
So some things I directly experience never happened or don't exist.

the make up of who you are , nutrient wise and genetically

because you will experience the same consequence

a lack of water is a lack of water

hence dehydration

Dreams and drugs are direct experiences?

I turned on a light switch. Almost instantaneously, I had an experience with electrons and knew they existed based on the fact that the observations fit the explanations.

Billions of people who don't exist beyond my experience know for a fact they have no experience of me, too. Therefore, none of us exist.

A quarter of a million people who never had an experience with a tsunami did find out for a fact that tsunami's do exist, despite the fact I personally have had no experience with a tsunami, therefore they don't exist.

With my direct experience to it, the silliness of solipsism exists.

People die of starvation daily in many parts of the world, I howvever have no idea what starvation is therefore I still know about starvation through the media so I have no direct experiance but know it is true through the pictures I see and stories I read.

You don't know it's true dawg.

Also the sides presented in the OP are not mutually exclusive.

*Continues to read the very last post in threads and respond without reading any others*

OK, I can't see electrons with the naked eye (except if I'm shown a picture of same as taken through an electron microscope) but I know they exist, because if they didn't nothing physical would exist.

Well yeah.
In a way.
Can you say unequivocally that it's actually electrons and not pixies pretending to be electrons?
I think that's the main thrust.

Er, pixies chosen for the silliness of course.
"Reality" is what we know. But it isn't provable.

I have never been to America - USA. I have been reading, listening and watching millions of things and they have pretty much convinced me that this country do exist. If I was not, I could purchase a ticket and fly to this country. There are three possibilities right after that:

a) After I arrive there, I could see it with my own eyes that the country exist. It wouldn't make any surprise since I had already believed the existence of it.
b) I could not arrive there, because the country actually did not exist, but some people (some millions) were actually fooling the rest of us. It wouldn't surprise me again, because I know that the deception is a sophisticated human faculty. I could just say "Bastards..."
c) I could not arrive there, because my plane would crash into the Atlantic Ocean. That also would not surprise me, since I know that planes crash and people die.

The point, or lesson from this: It does not really matter to be convinced on something as long as we believe in it. All our electronic devices work on the principles of electron(s). If I suspect, I could do my own experiments and rediscover the America or electron. But the results are satisfactory, and I am convinced that it is not magic, it is the result of human knowledge on measurable and manipulated electrons.

And we all know that, some people can believe in things or concepts that actually do not materially exist, yet plays a great deal in their lives, eventually in other's lives. Such as God, principle of equal rights, etc. If some people are managing their daily lives according to certain things which can not be proven in solid sense, I am afraid these things "somehow" still exist. We see people build churches, buy special occasion suits, get together, namely they shape their material world according to their belief. I can tell thousands of times that God do not exist, but it would make little effect. If a fanatically devoted person kills me because I claimed that God do not exist, I become fool: Because I lost my life for something even do not exist. The idea (God) physically ends my life through this highly devoted person.
Do God exist materially? As long as some people believe in it, and organise their physical life according to it, yes the "idea of God" exist, and this idea has material force over physical things through it's believers.

We do not see or completely know what gravity is; however, we are able to send objects to space thanks to our working formulas on gravity. All in all, if we say that all people must exercise basic needs such as shelter, food, a peacefull environment, proper education and health services; if we say that we can travel to other galaxies; if we believe that humans are capable of reaching to a level of wisdom that makes sense in broader and deeper universe, and managing the greater possibilities of existence; and if we think that we could do everything if we manipulate our mental and material sources more humanly... Believe it, dream it and make it real, make it material. No problem for humans. And electrons, God(s), America, or Universe, and material and non-material things, and things do exist or do not exist; They all have to find places in my mind to make some sense, or I have to find places for them. Otherwise, their existence do not occupy any space in my human universe. They are like honeycomb for a polar bear...

It can't be done. I experience existence. Going down Descartes path I see that everything could be delusion. This does not mean that I do not experience; It just that all of my interpretations and beliefs and school learnings and all the people I thought existed and the ground I thought I walked on may all be delusions and unreal.

Descartes should have stopped there. He started butchering logic when he tried to prove that he and God existed.

I think therefore I am breaks down to "I therefore I" and "thinking therefore am/existence". I therefore I is a potentially delusional belief like all the other beliefs and is therefore not valid. Advaita and Budhism go farther in exploring "I" than Descartes did. "thinking there am" is valid. It is not that thinking is anything other than a delusion but the existence of delusion is enough to prove that existence exists. Since "I" has been discarded as useless "Am" as in think therefore "Am" should be changes to Am's impersonal form which is "exist" or "is".

Existence exists, end of story. Nothing more can be proved.








We experience beliefs about Electrons, but we do not experience electrons. Our beliefs about electrons may be useful and predictive in real or delusional time within our delusion and or within reality but the functionality and predictive capabilities of our beliefs about electrons can never prove that electrons exist.

In science for the sake of efficiency and functionality we act as if theories that consistently predict future observations are proven theories but they are not proven they simply have a scientifically solid basis for becoming assumptions.


Both positions are wrong. Solipsism can not be proved or disproved. But Solipsism is functionally useless to science. Your typical 2nd rate scientific type mistakes functionality for reality and therefore incorrectly considers much of what they were taught in science class to be proven. Solipsism would ask them to doubt their beliefs and they simply are too lazy to doubt there beliefs or are too practical and unplayful to doubt there beliefs, or they are just interested in working the look of being scientific but have no actual love for truth or they just are not bright enough to wrap their minds around solipsism. Solipsism is so simple that it is doubtful that people are not bright enough to understand it. More likely they just don't like solipsism.

It can't be done.

All interpretations, nothing is proven. You don't "know" these things you believe these "ideas".


Maybe the whole problem with pro and anti solipsism debates is that people don't agree on the definition of the word "prove".

then lets define prove

prove means that one is asked to show that any assertion by you or any theory is true and/or is supported by evidence

You could place a recorder in a random place and tape everything while your not there. Then again, there is no proof that what happens to you exists/happens... -.-

I love these formal debates....
Mr. Hamtastic as you read this I want you to become aware of your breathing. Feel your chest expanding and contracting. There, you felt that?

I have never experienced you breathing, but I just proved it happens (to you, not to anyone else).

I can't prove I exist to you, but I can prove you exist, to you.

A lot is hidden in that phrase 'they exist'. However you describe 'them' is tainted by images and models we have made for certain experiences scientists have had. Most people have images of tiny little round things and think they understand something when they say they have a negative charge. But these little round things are not at all like things - check out double slit experiments with electrons. We move from 'these things happen' to 'these things exist' because it is a lot easier for our minds to handle, but it is very misleading. 1) is it as if the thing out there - the electron in this case - can be described as it is without an observer - note I am not getting into observer issues in physics; I am writing about the problems invovled in the reification of events into things. 2) aren't we talking about processes really and not things?

This is just playing with definitions of words.

Formal Proof
A formal proof or derivation is a finite sequence of sentences (called well-formed formulas in the case of a formal language) each of which is an axiom or follows from the preceding sentences in the sequence by a rule of inference. The last sentence in the sequence is a theorem of a formal system. The notion of theorem is not in general effective, therefore there may be no method by which we can always find a proof of a given sentence or determine that none exists. The concept of natural deduction is a generalization of the concept of proof.[1]

Argument
In logic, an argument is a set of one or more meaningful declarative sentences (or "propositions") known as the premises along with another meaningful declarative sentence (or "proposition") known as the conclusion. A deductive argument asserts that the truth of the conclusion is a logical consequence of the premises; an inductive argument asserts that the truth of the conclusion is supported by the premises. Deductive arguments are valid or invalid, and sound or not sound. An argument is valid if and only if the truth of the conclusion is a logical consequence of the premises and (consequently) its corresponding conditional is a necessary truth. A sound argument is a valid argument with true premises.

Theory of justification
Theory of justification is a part of epistemology that attempts to understand the justification of propositions and beliefs. Epistemologists are concerned with various epistemic features of belief, which include the ideas of justification, warrant, rationality, and probability. Of these four terms, the term that has been most widely used and discussed in the past twenty years is "warrant". Loosely speaking, justification is the reason why someone (properly) holds the belief, the explanation as to why the belief is a true one, or an account of how one knows what one knows.

among other topics included when looking up the word 'Proof'..

to define the word 'proof' or 'prove' sounds like it needs its own thread...

OK


yes

but at the sametime that doesn't mean that the logic that follows from the premises is right


of course


assuming the logic is sound

and the logic is not always sound , despite the soundness of the the premise

instead of premise

I would have preferred Reason

since it is the knowledge > thinking > hence the reasoning therefore , that is what, is , behind the premise