How can we know other people other than ourselves exist?

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Linusthe2nd said:
Just look around your room and place your hand on half a dozen things. You have just come in contact with things which actually exist and you know them. Thus, solipsism is false.

Pax
Linus2nd
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Been there done that. It doesn’t help. Reasonable evidence is not sufficient for certain knowledge.
 
blase6 said:
So I should stop searching for a way to certainly know the external world exists and just be a solipsist the rest of my life?
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Have you been this way all your life? When did you start having all these doubts? If we start there maybe we can find a solution. I have never actually met anyone with your problem, so I suspect it was caused by taking some philosophy course or you got it off youtube somewhere.

Pax
Linus2nd
 
Linusthe2nd said:
Have you been this way all your life? When did you start having all these doubts? If we start there maybe we can find a solution. I have never actually met anyone with your problem, so I suspect it was caused by taking some philosophy course or you got it off youtube somewhere.

Pax
Linus2nd
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I have never taken any philosophy course or seriously studied any philosophical writing, except some of Summa Theologica.

My first experience of solipsism was when I was about 4 or 5 years old, when I thought about how I cannot experience another person’s consciousness, so I cannot know if their body contains a consciousness like I know in myself. But I didn’t have the verbal skill to explain that to anyone. I didn’t even know that there was a name for my reasoning until I found a topic on here about it.

So I just ignored it for most of my life until now, when I am seriously seeking to understand reality, and not getting very far.
 
A hang-up I have is this: ** It is very possible for my reason to be objective in a solipsist existence.**

Before I realized this I used to comfort myself in regards to information out there trying to prove solipsism by dismissing it with the thought of *"That information is an illusion anyway. Why should I trust it if it were true? *

…but I started to think deeper and decided that while the means that I receive the information from (ex: computer, book) is an illusion, the ‘belief’ within the illusions can be very objective.

So if I heard a philosopher say that solipsism is true because of x and y: The philosopher is just an illusion, but my belief in what the illusion says can be objective and true.

Another example of what I mean by this: If I drop a ball. It will fall to the ground. That is my belief and it happens every time so I can accept it to be true…the ball and the ground are an illusion…but my belief in it dropping is objective.

Could someone please try to find the flaw in this logic? (I’m hoping somebody does, because its one of the few things that keeps this fear of solipsism going).
 
Ben_Sinner said:
A hang-up I have is this: ** It is very possible for my reason to be objective in a solipsist existence.**

Before I realized this I used to comfort myself in regards to information out there trying to prove solipsism by dismissing it with the thought of *"That information is an illusion anyway. Why should I trust it if it were true? *

…but I started to think deeper and decided that while the means that I receive the information from (ex: computer, book) is an illusion, the ‘belief’ within the illusions can be very objective.

So if I heard a philosopher say that solipsism is true because of x and y: The philosopher is just an illusion, but my belief in what the illusion says can be objective and true.

Another example of what I mean by this: If I drop a ball. It will fall to the ground. That is my belief and it happens every time so I can accept it to be true…the ball and the ground are an illusion…but my belief in it dropping is objective.

Could someone please try to find the flaw in this logic? (I’m hoping somebody does, because its one of the few things that keeps this fear of solipsism going).
Click to expand...
I think I said something like this before but you live and work in the world and interact with it and other people. If they didn’t exist you wouldn’t be able to function at all. You wouldn’t be able to go to school, to work, to get from one place to another. God gave us a mind so that we could live our lives as he wanted us to. Do you think God plays cruel tricks, that he put us in a fantasy world?

Pax
Linus2nd
 
Ben_Sinner said:
A hang-up I have is this: ** It is very possible for my reason to be objective in a solipsist existence.**

Before I realized this I used to comfort myself in regards to information out there trying to prove solipsism by dismissing it with the thought of *"That information is an illusion anyway. Why should I trust it if it were true? *

…but I started to think deeper and decided that while the means that I receive the information from (ex: computer, book) is an illusion, the ‘belief’ within the illusions can be very objective.

So if I heard a philosopher say that solipsism is true because of x and y: The philosopher is just an illusion, but my belief in what the illusion says can be objective and true.

Another example of what I mean by this: If I drop a ball. It will fall to the ground. That is my belief and it happens every time so I can accept it to be true…the ball and the ground are an illusion…but my belief in it dropping is objective.

Could someone please try to find the flaw in this logic? (I’m hoping somebody does, because its one of the few things that keeps this fear of solipsism going).
Click to expand...
Yes, even an illusion objectively exists. Since you are experiencing it, whether or not it corresponds to an external reality, the experience itself is true objectively.
 
Linusthe2nd said:
I think I said something like this before but you live and work in the world and interact with it and other people. If they didn’t exist you wouldn’t be able to function at all. You wouldn’t be able to go to school, to work, to get from one place to another. God gave us a mind so that we could live our lives as he wanted us to. Do you think God plays cruel tricks, that he put us in a fantasy world?

Pax
Linus2nd
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…Assuming that God exists, God being an external reality.
 
I came across a good publication from an internet encyclopedia which gives a detailed refutation of solipsism.

Has anybody read this?

iep.utm.edu/solipsis/

I found this part really good:

There is a temptation to say that solipsism is a false philosophical theory, but this is not quite strong or accurate enough. As a theory, it is incoherent. What makes it incoherent, above all else, is that the solipsist requires a language (that is a sign-system) to think or to affirm his solipsistic thoughts at all. Given this, it is scarcely surprising that those philosophers who accept the Cartesian premises that make solipsism apparently plausible, if not inescapable, have also invariably assumed that language-usage is itself essentially private…

The proposition “I am the only mind that exists” makes sense only to the extent that it is expressed in a public language, and the existence of such language itself implies the existence of a social context. Such a context exists for the hypothetical last survivor of a nuclear holocaust, but not for the solipsist. A non-linguistic solipsism is unthinkable and a thinkable solipsism is necessarily linguistic. Solipsism therefore presupposes the very thing that it seeks to deny. That solipsistic thoughts are thinkable in the first instance implies the existence of the public, shared, intersubjective world that they purport to call into question.
 
Ben_Sinner said:
I came across a good publication from an internet encyclopedia which gives a detailed refutation of solipsism.

Has anybody read this?

iep.utm.edu/solipsis/

I found this part really good:

There is a temptation to say that solipsism is a false philosophical theory, but this is not quite strong or accurate enough. As a theory, it is incoherent. What makes it incoherent, above all else, is that the solipsist requires a language (that is a sign-system) to think or to affirm his solipsistic thoughts at all. Given this, it is scarcely surprising that those philosophers who accept the Cartesian premises that make solipsism apparently plausible, if not inescapable, have also invariably assumed that language-usage is itself essentially private…

The proposition “I am the only mind that exists” makes sense only to the extent that it is expressed in a public language, and the existence of such language itself implies the existence of a social context. Such a context exists for the hypothetical last survivor of a nuclear holocaust, but not for the solipsist. A non-linguistic solipsism is unthinkable and a thinkable solipsism is necessarily linguistic. Solipsism therefore presupposes the very thing that it seeks to deny. That solipsistic thoughts are thinkable in the first instance implies the existence of the public, shared, intersubjective world that they purport to call into question.
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Expressing one’s solipsism to others requires language, but internal thoughts do not require language.
 
blase6 said:
Expressing one’s solipsism to others requires language, but internal thoughts do not require language.
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He did end it with this though.

That solipsistic thoughts are thinkable in the first instance implies the existence of the public, shared, intersubjective world that they purport to call into question.
 
Ben_Sinner said:
He did end it with this though.

That solipsistic thoughts are thinkable in the first instance implies the existence of the public, shared, intersubjective world that they purport to call into question.
Click to expand...
Yes, the external world exists in the sense that I perceive an external world within my own consciousness. But I have no guarantees that my awareness corresponds to an actual external world, even if I have evidence that it is real. I demand to have absolute certainty that something is true, because that is the only way I can know something. If I do not know something, then I have only a belief which is not certain truth. So I can know that existence itself is real, and my perception is real, but everything else for me is just an uncertain belief.
 
davidv said:
Why must the existence of God be assumed?
  1. St Thomas Aquinas showed that it is a reasoned conclusion
  2. Jesus revealed it as fact
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Because reasonable evidence is not sufficient for certain knowledge. That is my main reason for solipsism.
 
blase6 said:
I have never taken any philosophy course or seriously studied any philosophical writing, except some of Summa Theologica.

My first experience of solipsism was when I was about 4 or 5 years old, when I thought about how I cannot experience another person’s consciousness, so I cannot know if their body contains a consciousness like I know in myself. But I didn’t have the verbal skill to explain that to anyone. I didn’t even know that there was a name for my reasoning until I found a topic on here about it.

So I just ignored it for most of my life until now, when I am seriously seeking to understand reality, and not getting very far.
Click to expand...
The paranoid fear that you are the only one that exists?
 
ChainBreaker said:
The paranoid fear that you are the only one that exists?
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It is a general fear that since one cannot know the external world certainly, how can I say confidently what will happen to me, I cannot know for certain. I am trapped in a world where I want to know what is real for certain, and find few certain truths to be knowable. A belief based on reasonable evidence is not enough for me. It is profoundly frustrating and confusing. But I cannot leave it, because it appears certainly true to me, so to abandon my reasoning would be like tricking myself.
 
Perhaps you should seek medical help, some kind of therapy?

Pax
Linus2nd
 
blase6 said:
Why, you can’t find an argument against my proposition?
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I and others have given you valid arguments but you are not disposed to accept them. And since you have stated that this ’ idea ’ began in early childhood, that it just popped into your head for no reason, and that you have not been able to shake it since, would seem to indicate a kind of psychological block somewhere. You have to realize that not many people have the same ’ idea. ’ That might indicate that there really is no " argument " which will bring you back to reality. This might indicate a psychological problem.

Pax
Linus2nd
 
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