Semantic externalism? A mind only would lack the causal history by which it could have acquired its vocabulary and capacity to imagine external environments and things.
The point is that we don’t need rhe degree of certainty about the nature of external existence that Descartes claims.
It may be sufficient that we accept that all arguments are fallible and choose a set of assumptions that is capable of generating useful answers and test those against the available evidence
“Let us not pretend to doubt in philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts”
Yeah, I mean solipsism and radical skepticism aren’t very pragmatic, but they still offer food for thought and are seemingly quite hard to refute/disprove.
I think Wittgenstein put it most succinctly in Tractatus where the viewer cannot find themselves in a field of view but the recognition leads to accepting the “real” without qualification. You don’t get to cut the cards after that for another round of play.
Surely one thing that philosophy does for us is to persuade ourselves, even unwillingly, to recognise our own assumptions, and maybe to doubt them…?
When I did this myself, I discovered that there’s almost nothing that is certain; everything is doubtful… Our world — the ‘real’ one that we live in — is one of uncertainty, yes?
We cannot evaluate the world except through our minds. But what we perceive does not behave as we wish. If the world were a product of our minds, it would not resist us so desperately and cruelly.
Well, if a mind is all that exists, then nothing else exists. Not even the brain activity from which the mind could arise. The claim both assumes and denies its possibility, which makes it inconsistent.
When all (including words and their meanings) are reduced to the thoughts of a mind, then the mind can’t meaningfully think that it’s a mind. The thought would not refer to a mind but a thought. Even the capacity to think would be reduced to a thought. So if the claim is true, then it’s mindless and meaningless.
There’s something rather than nothing. Some of it gets “taken twice over” to quote William James, once as part of the world and once as part of the mind. We take the world as ‘reality’ in a naive fashion (naive or direct realism). But then some of us recognize that our body’s sense organs receive data from the world and convert it to digital signals (nerve impulses) which get sent to the brain. So we conclude that everything is just a facsimile recreated by the brain from digital data incoming from the ‘real’ world in which the brain has its being (representational or indirect realism). So then we conclude that not only do we not know anything about the ‘real’ external world, but that we can’t know anything about it. Not even that it exists. And so a seed of doubt is sown and begins to germinate. Go back to before it got “taken twice over.”
Is it fair to observe that your reasoning depends on the human mind ONLY existing as an emergent property of a human brain? There is no evidence for this, although most of us seem to believe (informally, if nothing else) that it is so.
This is metaphysics; speculation. I have always thought it impossible to embrace ultra-logical deductive reasoning into such metaphysical considerations.
I don’t believe solipsism is true. Entertaining solipsism helps demonstrate the folly of extreme skepticism - the notion that we should only believe that which can be proven (proven to the extent that it is logically necessary).
No person is born a solipsist. As we develop, we naturally distinguish between ourselves and the external world: other people, other objects. Even babies born deaf-blind interact with the external world. So I suggest that the belief in an external world is innate.
Solipsism demonstrates that it’s logically possible this belief is false. Does the mere possibility of it actually constitute a compelling reason to reject it? Of course not.
Why do we have the innate belief in an external world? Because survival depends on successfully interacting with that external world. This hypothesis doesn’t prove it’s true, but it demonstrates the coherence of a naturalistic world-view. This is a world view with more explanatory scope than any other that I’ve encountered.
The reasoning depends on what the claim depends on: that the words are meaningful. But we can prove that the claim both assumes and denies the meanings of its words.
If the claim is true, that the mind is the only thing that exists, then the word ‘mind’ is not even a word but a thought whose truth conditions are unclear (self-reference?) or denied by the claim (brain activity). In both cases the word is meaningless (in the claim).
If one mind is all that actually exists, then the foundation of your thinking doesn’t fit here. Your thinking is structured and built based on your (our) ‘normal’ conception of what life, the universe and everything is all about. But a change as radical as solipsism will surely leave many ‘rules’ in tatters, no longer relevant to the new ‘reality’?
What if, instead of one mind, there is only God? Or some other possibility. When the foundation of everything-that-exists changes, the consequences of those changes will also be apparent. One such consequence is that some things we have always relied on, are no longer reliable.
The point about solipsism, in this context and topic, is (I think) that it cannot be refuted (or confirmed). We are unable to demonstrate that it is wrong, and so the possibility of it being right (correct) is finite, and real. To deny this is … incoherent. (?)
Exactly. That’s why words for an ordinary reality become meaningless when they’re used for a solipsistic reality.
The alleged mind can’t meaningfully think that it’s the only thing that exists, because the meaning of ‘exists’ is arguably constrained by its history and use for possible modes of existing in an ordinary reality (not solipsistic nor fictional realities).
The fact that solipsism can’t be proven false implies it is logically possible. Fairies and leprechauns are logically possible. Is there something about solipsism that sets it above mere logical possibility - that warrants taking seriously?