Catholic Refutation of Solipsism

[JuanFlorencio]

Let’s say I am an avatar. Would anything I say be different from someone who wasn’t?

What Parti is in effect saying is that none of us know if we are or we are not. But let me say that solipsism, as far as I am concerned, is a meaningless concept. I will live my life as if I am real and everything else is as well.

As far as I can see, everyone else, including Parti, does the same.

Bradski, your intervention in this discussion to assist Partinobodycula only says good things of you, and I want to thank you for that. I think Partinobodycula possesses a brilliant mind, and his interventions in other topics tend to be remarkably intelligent; but solipsism is in effect so meaningless and absurd that no matter how brilliant one’s mind is, it is impossible to defend it intelligently till the end. Some of the moderation he usually exhibits is missing here.

 

[Partinobodycula]

…solipsism is in effect so meaningless and absurd that no matter how brilliant one’s mind is, it is impossible to defend it intelligently till the end. Some of the moderation he usually exhibits is missing here.

JuanFlorencio, I would just like to make one last comment, and that is to say that you’re absolutely correct in this assessment, and you’re absolutely correct in challenging me as vigorously as you do. But what tends to get lost in such discussions is the fact that I don’t actually believe most of what I’ve advocated here. All that I can honestly say, is that I don’t know. It doesn’t matter how skillfully I try to weave together an explanation, or the Church tries to weave together an explanation, it still ultimately comes down to the fact that I don’t know. And you’re right, the more that I get pushed in trying to defend the “mind only” explanation, the less cogent it becomes. I willingly concede this point. And so if Upgrade25 is listening, you win.

So why do I defend solipsism? Because it’s important to me that people be willing to admit that like me, they don’t ultimately know the answer to life, and God, and everything. I don’t mind that people believe in things. In fact I encourage them to. But neither do I want them to be so dogmatic in those beliefs as to lose the capacity to admit that they might be wrong. I realize that in any clash of ideologies it’s necessary for one side to be as passionate in defense of their beliefs as their opponent is in defense of their’s. But the world would be a much better place I think, if we each appreciated just a little bit more, how much we’re walking by faith.

So Upgrade25, the refutation of solipsism is this, it doesn’t matter. You’re alive, and life is a very precious thing. Live humbly. Live compassionately. And live well.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

So why do I defend solipsism? Because it’s important to me that people be willing to admit that like me, they don’t ultimately know the answer to life, and God, and everything. I don’t mind that people believe in things. In fact I encourage them to. But neither do I want them to be so dogmatic in those beliefs as to lose the capacity to admit that they might be wrong. I realize that in any clash of ideologies it’s necessary for one side to be as passionate in defense of their beliefs as their opponent is in defense of their’s. But the world would be a much better place I think, if we each appreciated just a little bit more, how much we’re walking by faith.

Certainly, Partinobodycula!

I tend to associate faith with the acknowledgment of how important the life within a community is for us. And even a higher degree of faith, not fanaticism, is necessary for a community to become and remain open to other communities. To love our neighbors, it is necessary not only to acknowledge their existence (I take that for granted!, though it seems that people who live as if they had no neighbors, practical solipsists, abounds), but to believe that each one of them is like us. And the highest degree of faith is required to reach the highest degree of development: to believe that our Lord’s commandment (to love each other as He loves us) makes full sense; that it makes all possible sense.

I assume this is the faith that Upgrade25 struggles to preserve in his soul. Only so I can understand why the crazy idea of theoretical solipsism represents an obstacle to him.

 

[Partinobodycula]

Certainly, Partinobodycula!

I tend to associate faith with the acknowledgment of how important the life within a community is for us. And even a higher degree of faith, not fanaticism, is necessary for a community to become and remain open to other communities. To love our neighbors, it is necessary not only to acknowledge their existence (I take that for granted!, though it seems that people who live as if they had no neighbors, practical solipsists, abounds), but to believe that each one of them is like us. And the highest degree of faith is required to reach the highest degree of development: to believe that our Lord’s commandment (to love each other as He loves us) makes full sense; that it makes all possible sense.

I assume this is the faith that Upgrade25 struggles to preserve in his soul. Only so I can understand why the crazy idea of theoretical solipsism represents an obstacle to him.

At the risk of reigniting this debate, I would like to address Upgrade25’s struggles, and why I as a solipsist should care. I care because if reality is all in my mind, then Upgrade25’s struggles are simply a reflection of my own. The questions he grapples with are the questions I grapple with. I don’t know if there’s a God. I don’t know if there’s a purpose. I don’t know why I’m here, and where I came from. But turning my back on him and pretending that he doesn’t exist isn’t going to make him any wiser, and it isn’t going to make me any wiser either. And so I can’t not care. For I may not simply be like him, I may be him. And I care that in discussions like this one I leave you a little wiser than you were. A little more understanding than you were. A little more forgiving than you were. But it’s not just about changing you, it’s about changing me. That I too might be a little wiser, and a little kinder, and a little more forgiving. And I care about everyone who reads this, for as a solipsist, they’re not nothing to me, they’re everything to me. They may be me. So don’t believe that I don’t care.

I realize that I cannot know that this is true. But I choose to live as if it’s true. I choose to care. I choose to try. The hardest part is knowing that there are so many people that I can’t reach. That I can’t change. But the hope is that in changing the least of them, I might in some small measure change them all. Or it may simply be that what I’m actually doing, is changing myself. What a shame it would be to one day find, that all I needed to do to change the world was to change myself. And I didn’t even try.

People think a solipsist doesn’t care. I think they’re wrong. I think I care very much.

Oh, and by the way, it does say “Christian Solipsist” up there in the corner. I’m not trying to change your faith, I’m trying to change your life.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

Oh, and by the way, it does say “Christian Solipsist” up there in the corner. I’m not trying to change your faith, I’m trying to change your life.

Of course! There are all sorts of strange things nowadays. Once, I met a Christian materialist here. I guess your christianism is one in which Jesus Christ is just an illusion of yours, and you killed Him. So caring you are!

 

[inocente]

Of course! There are all sorts of strange things nowadays. Once, I met a Christian materialist here. I guess your christianism is one in which Jesus Christ is just an illusion of yours, and you killed Him. So caring you are!

Good point you make. It’s one thing to not be able to prove that more than the self exists. After all lots of things can’t be proven, we can’t prove the sun will rise tomorrow.

But it’s a whole other thing to actually believe that only the self exists. To do so depends on a prior belief that the mind is disembodied, and a materialist cannot possibly hold such a belief.

 

[Lucretius]

I don’t have one. Shoot away, fellow CAFers.

First of all, there isn’t a non-arbitrary reason to accept solipsism. There is no evidence for evil demons/genii. We can’t conjure the products of our imaginations into existence.

Second, the first experience we abstract into our minds is of Being, and by understanding Being, we come to understand that it, by its very nature, external. To put it another way, by understanding the concept of being, by having an insight into the essence of Being, we know that by definition being must be objective.

This illumination of being acknowledges what we call first principles.

Christi pax,

Lucretius

 

[Partinobodycula]

First of all, there isn’t a non-arbitrary reason to accept solipsism.

Are you sure that this isn’t actually an argument FOR solipsism. You’re saying that there are no arguments for solipsism that don’t exist solely within one’s own mind. Okay, I’ll buy that.

There is no evidence for evil demons/genii.

And yet don’t Catholics believe in demons? Still, I get your argument here, there are things that APPEAR to have an existence outside of your own mind (Like other people), and there are things that don’t appear to have an existence outside of your own mind (Like genies). But the thing is that you can’t prove the objective existence of either one. All that you can accurately say, is that there are things that appear to have an objective existence, and there are things that don’t.

We can’t conjure the products of our imaginations into existence.

Now you’ve simply conflated consciousness with imagination, as if the two are the same. Imagination is an aspect of consciousness with very specific attributes, it pertains to things that aren’t necessarily real. Arbitarily deciding to turn what’s imaginary into what’s real would be like arbitrarily deciding to turn a cat into a computer. It’s logically inconsistent. Reality, even one that exists solely within one’s own mind, must be logically consistent, otherwise all that you have is chaos. I’m conscious precisely because that which I perceive to be, is consistent. If it wasn’t, consciousness wouldn’t be possible. Even if reality exists entirely within one’s own mind, it can’t arbitrarily create whatever it wants to. It can’t turn what’s imaginary into what’s real anymore than it can turn one thing into another. Reality must be coherent and consistent.

Second, the first experience we abstract into our minds is of Being, and by understanding Being, we come to understand that it, by its very nature, external. To put it another way, by understanding the concept of being, by having an insight into the essence of Being, we know that by definition being must be objective.

When we first consider the concept of Being we recognize that there’s a distinction between that which constitutes me, and that which is external to me. By “me” we tend to include the physical body as well as the conscious mind. The mental and the physical together are what I perceive to be “me”. Only later do we recognize that what I perceive to be me, is simply that, what I perceive to be me. It’s a perception. A mental construct. But this doesn’t mean that there’s no objective physical reality underlying that construct. It simply means that we have no way of knowing. We have no way of knowing if our mental construct isn’t just that, a mental construct.

What we come to understand therefore, is that there’s that which I perceive to be me, and there’s that which I perceive to be external to me. What we can’t ultimately know is the nature of that which I perceive to be external to me.

This illumination of being acknowledges what we call first principles.

The first principle is simply this, I am.

However, not being able to discern the nature of what I perceive, doesn’t alter the fact that my existence is only definable in terms of my relationship to it. It’s you. And it’s life. And it’s the manner in which I choose to live it, that determines “what” I am.

So I don’t know the nature of you, but I can still appreciate the importance of you.

 

[Lucretius]

Dear Partinobodycula:

What I mean is that the arguments for solipsism, such as the Brain in the Vat, the evil genius/ evil demon argument, etc. are all based on the premise that imagining something makes it possible, that is, by being able to imagine something indicates that there is a real possibility for it, rather than an imagined possibility.

But this premise is evidently false. I can’t conjure a cat on my bed by imagining it, and neither can I conjure the possibility of a evil demon by imagining it.

Notice I said “the possibility of…” My argument isn’t that we have no evidence of actual evil genii or brains in vats, since Descrates and his ilk woukd agree, but rather that we don’t even have evidence for the possibility of these things, and that an imagined possibility doesn’t make it a real possibility, just imagining a cat doesn’t make it real. These “vat” arguments are based on the idea that they are at least possible not necessarily that they are actual. Descartes, at least with this, is a witch doctor, since shamanism and other such things are believed based on the same premise, that if you can imagine hexes or potions as working, then there is at least a possibility of such working.

Thus, solipsism and even the milder idealism based on evidently false premises.

Christi pax,

Lucretius

 

[aclausen]

Dear Partinobodycula:

What I mean is that the arguments for solipsism, such as the Brain in the Vat, the evil genius/ evil demon argument, etc. are all based on the premise that imagining something makes it possible, that is, by being able to imagine something indicates that there is a real possibility for it, rather than an imagined possibility.

But this premise is evidently false. I can’t conjure a cat on my bed by imagining it, and neither can I conjure the possibility of a evil demon by imagining it.

Notice I said “the possibility of…” My argument isn’t that we have no evidence of actual evil genii or brains in vats, since Descrates and his ilk woukd agree, but rather that we don’t even have evidence for the possibility of these things, and that an imagined possibility doesn’t make it a real possibility, just imagining a cat doesn’t make it real. These “vat” arguments are based on the idea that they are at least possible not necessarily that they are actual. Descartes, at least with this, is a witch doctor, since shamanism and other such things are believed based on the same premise, that if you can imagine hexes or potions as working, then there is at least a possibility of such working.

Thus, solipsism and even the milder idealism based on evidently false premises.

Christi pax,

Lucretius

That may be one form of solipsism, but the form I’ve encountered usually amounts to “I’m a disembodied mind, and reality is simply an illusion.” In other words, it’s like the dream of someone in a coma.

My response to solipsism and the related omphalism is to reply “so what?” If reality is an illusion, and yet it still behaves like reality, and the advocate of solipsism is, by openly making the assertion, tacitly admitting that he’s communicating with beings other than himself in some sort of temporal and spacial reality, you might as well pretend that that reality is, well, er, real.

The only time solipsism might ever scare me is if someone was delusional enough to believe they were a disembodied mind fabricating the world around them as some sort of dream, and acted as if that were so. But frankly, I have never actually encountered a real believer in solipsism, so I’ve always felt it to be more a philosophical foot note, as the extreme end of skepticism.

 

[Partinobodycula]

What I mean is that the arguments for solipsism, such as the Brain in the Vat, the evil genius/ evil demon argument, etc. are all based on the premise that imagining something makes it possible, that is, by being able to imagine something indicates that there is a real possibility for it, rather than an imagined possibility.

But this premise is evidently false. I can’t conjure a cat on my bed by imagining it, and neither can I conjure the possibility of a evil demon by imagining it.

Notice I said “the possibility of…” My argument isn’t that we have no evidence of actual evil genii or brains in vats, since Descrates and his ilk woukd agree, but rather that we don’t even have evidence for the possibility of these things, and that an imagined possibility doesn’t make it a real possibility, just imagining a cat doesn’t make it real. These “vat” arguments are based on the idea that they are at least possible not necessarily that they are actual. Descartes, at least with this, is a witch doctor, since shamanism and other such things are believed based on the same premise, that if you can imagine hexes or potions as working, then there is at least a possibility of such working.

Thus, solipsism and even the milder idealism based on evidently false premises.

Forgive me if at times I have difficulty following your thought processes. And thank you for trying to clarify. Don’t be surprised if it takes more than one attempt however.

I agree that I can’t conjure up a cat by simply imagining it. I also agree that I can’t conjure up the possibility of a demon by simply imagining a demon. Men often err in imagining what’s possible, because they fail to fully understand what is. There are times however when the opposite is true, that men fail to accept what’s possible, because of a preconception of what is.

I think people have a preconception about the nature of reality. Not that they’re necessarily wrong, but that they can’t be certain that they’re right. An epistemological solipsist doesn’t argue that they know the answer, rather that they don’t know the answer. Which would you imagine is closer to the truth, that you know the answer, or that you don’t?

As a solipsist, people always want me to defend the “mind only” hypothesis, which is understandable. But they seem to think that I consider it to be a point of fact, but I don’t. I simply believe that given the available evidence, what is, isn’t as easily distinguished from what’s possible as people seem to believe it is.

What I want isn’t for people to admit that I’m right, but simply for them to accept that they might be wrong. For the heart of a man who knows that he might be wrong, is far more forgiving than the heart of a man who’s certain that he isn’t.

Millions of people have suffered and died, because other people were certain that they were right. I don’t want people to abandon their faith in God. I simply want them to put a little less faith in themselves.

You’ll have to forgive me, I do tend to get preachy.

 

[aclausen]

As a solipsist, people always want me to defend the “mind only” hypothesis, which is understandable. But they seem to think that I consider it to be a point of fact, but I don’t. I simply believe that given the available evidence, what is, isn’t as easily distinguished from what’s possible as people seem to believe it is.

What I want isn’t for people to admit that I’m right, but simply for them to accept that they might be wrong. For the heart of a man who knows that he might be wrong, is far more forgiving than the heart of a man who’s certain that he isn’t.

Even if you’re right, it is epistemologically irrelevant.

Millions of people have suffered and died, because other people were certain that they were right. I don’t want people to abandon their faith in God. I simply want them to put a little less faith in themselves.

Or, if one of the more extreme interpretations of solipsism is true, then no one has suffered at all.

 

[Lucretius]

That may be one form of solipsism, but the form I’ve encountered usually amounts to “I’m a disembodied mind, and reality is simply an illusion.” In other words, it’s like the dream of someone in a coma.

The dream argument is actually weaker than the Vat argument, because we are able to tell the difference between dreams and reality. Lucid dreaming is a good example of this. The reason why many of us don’t realize we are dreaming until after the dream is because we never consider to contemplate whether it is one or not. In real dreams, once you consider whether you are in a dream or not, you immediately realize that you are, and begin lucid dreaming. In fact, guides on how to bring yourself into a lucid state include creating habits in your waking life in which you check whether you are in a dream or not, with those habits developing in your dreams as well.

You can modify this argument, but then it just becomes a kind of vat argument, assuming the same fallacious premise.

Christi pax,

Lucretius

 

[aclausen]

The dream argument is actually weaker than the Vat argument, because we are able to tell the difference between dreams and reality. Lucid dreaming is a good example of this. The reason why many of us don’t realize we are dreaming until after the dream is because we never consider to contemplate whether it is one or not. In real dreams, once you consider whether you are in a dream or not, you immediately realize that you are, and begin lucid dreaming. In fact, guides on how to bring yourself into a lucid state include creating habits in your waking life in which you check whether you are in a dream or not, with those habits developing in your dreams as well.

You can modify this argument, but then it just becomes a kind of vat argument, assuming the same fallacious premise.

Christi pax,

Lucretius

Or, alternatively, we are just dreaming that we can tell the difference… dreams within dreams.

Once you invoke some form of solipsism, it becomes impossible to disprove. I just find the whole concept to be pretty useless. It serves no purpose at all, because even an extreme solipsist is inevitably going to act as if solipsism isn’t true.

 

[Lucretius]

Or, alternatively, we are just dreaming that we can tell the difference… dreams within dreams.

If we can’t tell the difference dreams and reality, then we can’t even propose the dream argument. If we don’t know the difference between dreams and non-dreams, then we can’t even have the concept of what a dream is, and thus cannot even create the dream argument in our navel-gaving

C. S. Lewis wrote that if we were creatures without eyes, then dark, which is known in contrast to light, and light itself, would be without meaning, because we could have never experienced it. Same applies to dreams and reality.

Madness and conspiracies are often hard to refute

Christi pax,

Lucretius

 

[Lucretius]

I think people have a preconception about the nature of reality. Not that they’re necessarily wrong, but that they can’t be certain that they’re right.

But we can be certain of things through reason alone.

You conceded that the self exists. How do you know about the self, about consciousness? To modern idealists, we begin with knowledge of self, and then try to receive knowledge of non-self objects. As Kant and Berkeley finally point put, this is impossible. So now we are trapped in uncertain perceptions.

The problem with this approach is that it ignores truths that are known prior to the knowledge of the self, truths that are presupposed by “I am.” The first of all principles is that “there is an is,” that is, being. We cannot know the self until we experience being. We know this in certainty, because the self is understood in reference to non-self. That is, we only know ourselves in relation with other things, with non-self. The knower is known only in relationship with the known. The very knowledge of the self presupposes the existence of external being.

In summary, we are not and cannot be merely conscious, but rather must be conscious of something. We first must know something, and then we can contemplate how we know it, and what it is that does know it.

Millions of people have suffered and died, because other people were certain that they were right. I don’t want people to abandon their faith in God. I simply want them to put a little less faith in themselves.

Immoral people will use anything to justify their immorality, be it religion, philosophy, science, politics, etc. Truth doesn’t cause evil. The problem isn’t with knowledge, the problem is with us.

Christi pax,

Lucretius

 

[Partinobodycula]

But we can be certain of things through reason alone.

You conceded that the self exists. How do you know about the self, about consciousness? To modern idealists, we begin with knowledge of self, and then try to receive knowledge of non-self objects. As Kant and Berkeley finally point put, this is impossible. So now we are trapped in uncertain perceptions.

The problem with this approach is that it ignores truths that are known prior to the knowledge of the self, truths that are presupposed by “I am.” The first of all principles is that “there is an is,” that is, being. We cannot know the self until we experience being. We know this in certainty, because the self is understood in reference to non-self. That is, we only know ourselves in relation with other things, with non-self. The knower is known only in relationship with the known. The very knowledge of the self presupposes the existence of external being.

In summary, we are not and cannot be merely conscious, but rather must be conscious of something. We first must know something, and then we can contemplate how we know it, and what it is that does know it.

I very much appreciate that you’ve put some real thought into your response. And your reasoning is not unlike the reasoning that I myself have had to go through. You, me, Wittgenstein, and others have all wondered about what constitutes the “I” in the absence of the experiences that delineate it. How does one even form the concept of I, without the context in which to define it. It seems almost unimaginable that the concept of I can precede the context in which it exists. Reason would therefore seem to dictate that consciousness couldn’t have come first.

Many at this point would consider the argument settled. If consciousness couldn’t have come first, then context must have. I unfortunately, am not one of those people. I have to ask why. And I have to wonder, what if neither could be said to have come first? What if the concept of time itself is meaningless without a conscious observer to perceive it? What if the reality that gives context to what I am, and the consciousness that perceives that I am, emerge together?

I could go into a whole spiel about quantum physics, and cause and effect, but the gist of the argument would simply be this, what if the two arise together? What if what consciousness perceives, must simply be consistent, with the fact that it perceives? One cannot exist without the other, and one cannot give rise to the other. The two must arise from something else.

I’m sorry for the delay in posting this, but this wasn’t an easy thing to write, regardless of its seeming simplicity. There’s more deep reflection here than may be apparent.

 

[Lucretius]

What if the concept of time itself is meaningless without a conscious observer to perceive it?

My argument doesn’t necessarily require a temporal sequence. The known is known by the knower, and then the knower is known, simultaneously, if you must (although I would disagree with this ultimately). Similar to how the Father is primary and the Son is secondary, even though the Son isn’t begotten in time. Therefore, knower and the known can be argued to arisen temporally simultaneously, but ontologically, the object is known before the subject, and the subject is then known by reference to the object (this makes sense, since the self is immaterial, and so is understood in analogy to material anyway).

However, time is an objective reality, at least in part, otherwise dimension, extension, velocity, Carbon-14 dating, the age of the universe, spacetime, etc. make no sense, so there isn’t a problem, at least for the reasons you give, to say that there is a temporal distinction as well.

One cannot exist without the other, and one cannot give rise to the other. The two must arise from something else.

The point made by Thomist epistemology is that consciousness is not a closed system that somehow must find a way out of itself and into the world, but rather that the self itself presupposes reference to something non-self. Because of this, the external world is known before “I am” is known. Even if the subject is known ontologically simultaneously to the object, it still demonstrates that we can’t know the subject without reference to the object, and is thus sufficient in demonstrating that if we can know the subject, then a fortiori we must know the object (not completely, mind you, but that we can contemplate the object’s essence). We can know what the object is too, and not just that the object is, if we can know what the subject is.

And since we can know that the object is, and what it is, this refutes any rational basis for solipsism, along with the argument against the"deceiver" arguments.

Christi pax,

Lucretius

 

[Partinobodycula]

My argument doesn’t necessarily require a temporal sequence. The known is known by the knower, and then the knower is known, simultaneously, if you must (although I would disagree with this ultimately). Similar to how the Father is primary and the Son is secondary, even though the Son isn’t begotten in time. Therefore, knower and the known can be argued to arisen temporally simultaneously, but ontologically, the object is known before the subject, and the subject is then known by reference to the object (this makes sense, since the self is immaterial, and so is understood in analogy to material anyway).

However, time is an objective reality, at least in part, otherwise dimension, extension, velocity, Carbon-14 dating, the age of the universe, spacetime, etc. make no sense, so there isn’t a problem, at least for the reasons you give, to say that there is a temporal distinction as well.

The point made by Thomist epistemology is that consciousness is not a closed system that somehow must find a way out of itself and into the world, but rather that the self itself presupposes reference to something non-self. Because of this, the external world is known before “I am” is known. Even if the subject is known ontologically simultaneously to the object, it still demonstrates that we can’t know the subject without reference to the object, and is thus sufficient in demonstrating that if we can know the subject, then a fortiori we must know the object (not completely, mind you, but that we can contemplate the object’s essence). We can know what the object is too, and not just that the object is, if we can know what the subject is.

And since we can know that the object is, and what it is, this refutes any rational basis for solipsism, along with the argument against the"deceiver" arguments.

Beware I don’t speak philosophy, but I try to understand it as best I can. (Barely)

I can appreciate what you’re saying. (I think) But I fail to see how this refutes solipsism. It seems only to pertain to an ontological order, and I’ve already agreed that it’s difficult to form the concept of self without a context in which to do so. It doesn’t however suggest a causal order. Nor does it tell us anything about the objective nature of reality.

So perhaps you could clarify for me how this refutes solipsism.

 

[Lucretius]

Beware I don’t speak philosophy, but I try to understand it as best I can. (Barely)

I can appreciate what you’re saying. (I think) But I fail to see how this refutes solipsism. It seems only to pertain to an ontological order, and I’ve already agreed that it’s difficult to form the concept of self without a context in which to do so. It doesn’t however suggest a causal order. Nor does it tell us anything about the objective nature of reality.

So perhaps you could clarify for me how this refutes solipsism.

I’ve already agreed that it’s difficult to form the concept of self without a context in which to do so.

My argument is that it is not difficult, it is impossible. Therefore, if we can know consciousness, we must be able to know objects. If we can know objects, then solipsism is false. To be conscious is to be conscious of something.

Another way of saying this is that mind doesn’t exist before being.

The solipsist, if he wants still to reject objects, must reject that we can know what the self is, which itself contradicts solipsism.

Christi pax,

Lucretius