Can we debunk solipsism now, please?

[Bunghole Atrocities]

I'm sick to death of these "I don't need to prove my existence to you, I know I exist" arguments. The endless condescension strictly based upon the fact that you can't disprove it. And why? Because the evidence that "proves it" in the mind of a solipsist is so Woody Allen-esque, so neurotic that it buggers belief! Yes, there are audial illusions, optical illusions, tactile illusions, anonymous motion, End of Time Illusion, thermal inversions, anamorphic illusions, etc. These are evidence of the imperfections of the human body! Not evidence that nothing but you exists! Such a malignantly narcissistic logical jump as that is pretty much like looking at a bug on the sidewalk, then looking up and saying "I knew it, I'm having a nervous breakdown".

Hell, this assclown actually tried to say that Occam's razor argues in support of solipsism. Their narcissism is getting stronger... So, please, help me disprove solipsism. Or at least develop a defense against it.

In the spoiler is my attempt at arguing against it, but I'm not happy with it.

You clearly exist (on the cogito ergo sum principle), therefore the universe is not empty. Whether you are corporeal or incorporeal is a question that then emerges. If you are corporeal, even if your real body is nothing like the illusory body you imagine you see, then the universe has gone to an awful lot of trouble to create one copy of you.

This by an inscrutable process that is capable of creating one but no more copies of something necessarily sufficiently complex to house your mind. It is very difficult to see how this could occur. Believing this robustly challenges the principle of parsimony. No process of evolution can explain this - evolution requires large populations which change over time.

If you are incorporeal, then the universe need not contain any matter, just your mind.

But your mind persists in operating as though it is bound by the same rules as bind the minds of the corporeal folk you imagine to exist. Why should it do that? Why are you not God in the imaginary world your mind has created? Your mind is subject to the same sensory illusions born of brain architecture, for example, as are the minds of the virtual people who populate your illusory world. It gets drunk when you drink illusory alcohol according to exactly the same principles that apply to the other virtual minds in your universe. In other words, your mind behaves exactly as though it were corporeal, even though it is not. Why should it be so limited? What sensible process could result in your mind coming into existence with limitations that happen to coincide with its being corporeal, without actually being corporeal? Believing this, too, is a robust challenge to parsimony.

Your solipsistic mind also has some other extremely odd limitations which are otherwise inexplicable. It is capable of creating an apparently consistent non-existent world which operates without error. Yet this is a world that operates according to rules which the mind which created it cannot understand.

You have imagined into existence a world which obeys physical laws about which you have no comprehension. I am willing to bet you do not have Chronos's understanding of physics, but even if you did, the understanding of physics held by the finest minds in the world you have invented is not yet complete or sufficient to explain all the details of the operation of the world you have invented.

In other words, your mind is capable of creating a universe out of nothing, yet is arbitrarily limited so as not to have access to the process by which that is occurring, and is further arbitrarily and very specifically limited to behave in such a way that shares the limitations of others with whom you have populated this imaginary world. Why should you be subject to such limitations if you are, essentially, God?

Where does this world-making skill come from, since it is not coming from your conscious mind? While we might speak of the unconscious mind, no sensible model of that phenomenon allows it to be as powerful as it is required to be to do what is demanded of it by solipsism.

Indeed, so isolated from consciousness is this part of you that is creating the world out of whole cloth that it is difficult to even conceive of it as genuinely part of "you" at all. It is a process utterly foreign to your conscious mind, and utterly inaccessible to it. It is, in essence, "other". And if it is, then the universe now has two objects in it - "you" and this uncontactable "other" process that is running the show for you.

And part of the world the "other" is running is the illusion of people. "You" have no idea what your friends or family are going to do next. You do not have a sense that you are controlling them, puppeteer fashion. They operate according to rules that are of a quite different order from the rules of physics. They are essentially unpredictable, yet at a certain level of abstraction can be seen to operate according to metarules relating to motivations, drives and desires that mirror your motivations, drives and desires. All without you being able to access the process by which "you" are creating this.

"You" have desires and urges for things that do not exist. Sex and food do not exist, yet you wish them. Why and how, would or could, such desires emerge in the only mind in the universe? Why are you not capable of overriding the need for food, the fear of pain and death, given that you are omnipotent?

These limitations are simultaneously hopelessly arbitrary and capricious yet at the same time absolutely rigid and unavoidable if extreme solipsism is true. Once again, all of this robustly challenges parsimony.

It is possible, in a very limited way, to create a world in your head. When you dream, you are not able to predict the movements and behaviors of other people in the dream, yet this is a product of your mind. Yet it is vastly imperfect. Why should your mind have two levels of capacity to world-build - the full scale one that works when you are awake, and the limited imperfect version that operates when you dream? Why aren't your dreams as perfectly rendered as the real world is, given that you make both? How could this come to pass? What sensible, Occam-friendly explanation for all this is there?

[Lucky~9~Lives]

ToiletPaper Rorschach

When you dream, you are not able to predict the movements and behaviors of other people in the dream, yet this is a product of your mind.

I'm pretty sure sufficiently skilled lucid dreamers are able to predict - and control - the movements and behaviours of other people in their dreams. I'm not one, though, so I guess that's irrelevant to solipsism.
- sweatdrop

[Fermionic]

No, we can't. Sorry.

[Aporeia]

Solipsism is self confirming. It assumes nothing, which is the primary point.

[Aporeia]

Lucky~9~Lives

ToiletPaper Rorschach

When you dream, you are not able to predict the movements and behaviors of other people in the dream, yet this is a product of your mind.

I'm pretty sure sufficiently skilled lucid dreamers are able to predict - and control - the movements and behaviours of other people in their dreams. I'm not one, though, so I guess that's irrelevant to solipsism.
- sweatdrop

I have never heard this of lucid dreamers. If such an ability is even possible, I would have trouble believing it came from this direction. Lucid dreaming allows travel into the depths of your own consciousness, but if you were to do this to others, you must look outside, not merely in your own thoughts.

I am no stranger to the idea of listening in, or even some degree of control via trickery. Being up in LaLa Land is the exact opposite of what you would want in my school of understanding.

[Lucky~9~Lives]

Aporeia

Lucky~9~Lives

ToiletPaper Rorschach

When you dream, you are not able to predict the movements and behaviors of other people in the dream, yet this is a product of your mind.

I'm pretty sure sufficiently skilled lucid dreamers are able to predict - and control - the movements and behaviours of other people in their dreams. I'm not one, though, so I guess that's irrelevant to solipsism.
- sweatdrop

I have never heard this of lucid dreamers. If such an ability is even possible, I would have trouble believing it came from this direction. Lucid dreaming allows travel into the depths of your own consciousness, but if you were to do this to others, you must look outside, not merely in your own thoughts.

Other people in the dream - not other people outside the dream.

[Silent Mule Man]

Just kick them and tell them to stop getting so pissed about something that isn't even happening.

[Morberticus]

Aporeia

Solipsism is self confirming. It assumes nothing, which is the primary point.

A solipsist assumes they exist or, if they subscribe to Descarte's cogito ergo sum argument, assumes they doubt/think.

[Nerdologist]

Morberticus

Aporeia

Solipsism is self confirming. It assumes nothing, which is the primary point.

A solipsist assumes they exist or, if they subscribe to Descarte's cogito ergo sum argument, assumes they doubt/think.

Thought is something which is directly experienced, not assumed. It's not possible to doubt the existence of cognition without using it, which would lead to a contradiction.

[Avgvsto]

Why would you want to prove that you don't exist?

[Mooby the Golden Sock]

Your spoiler makes a lot of claims and assumptions that hinge on there being an external world. Saying the universe "creates" the solipsist is invoking a metaphysical view of the universe (likely scientific empiricism) that the solipsist rejects.

Were I a solipsist, I might find it fun to invert your claims about how my mind creates a world and then limits my experiences. "How can you know what I'm experiencing unless you're a product of my mind?" I may ask.

Also, cogito ergo sum is not airtight, despite what the solipsist may have you believe. Several philosophers have criticized part or all of Descartes' reasoning, and some reject it completely. Skeptics (particularly Pyrrhonian skeptics, radical skeptics, and some fallibilists) and epistemological nihilists are often quite willing to question the veracity of cogito ergo sum.

That being said, it might help knowing what type of solipsist you're arguing against. Most "solipsists" are actually methodological solipsists, which means they are only accepting solipsism as a thought experiment for some other position. If that is the case, you might want to try and figure out their true position.

[Xiam]

ToiletPaper Rorschach

I'm sick to death of these "I don't need to prove my existence to you, I know I exist" arguments.

I don't need to listen to you, you can't prove that you are not a hallucination of my own mind.

[Aporeia]

Morberticus

Aporeia

Solipsism is self confirming. It assumes nothing, which is the primary point.

A solipsist assumes they exist or, if they subscribe to Descarte's cogito ergo sum argument, assumes they doubt/think.

That isn't an assumption. I think, therefore I am. I think, so whatever manner of beingness that I can ascribe to such a word can at the very least be applied to me.

I am thinking of a thought, or at least, I think I thought I did. If I did not think, I would not have thought this thought... I think?

[Aporeia]

Lucky~9~Lives

Aporeia

Lucky~9~Lives

ToiletPaper Rorschach

When you dream, you are not able to predict the movements and behaviors of other people in the dream, yet this is a product of your mind.

I'm pretty sure sufficiently skilled lucid dreamers are able to predict - and control - the movements and behaviours of other people in their dreams. I'm not one, though, so I guess that's irrelevant to solipsism.
- sweatdrop

I have never heard this of lucid dreamers. If such an ability is even possible, I would have trouble believing it came from this direction. Lucid dreaming allows travel into the depths of your own consciousness, but if you were to do this to others, you must look outside, not merely in your own thoughts.

Other people in the dream - not other people outside the dream.

In retrospect, I see that now.

I thought it was a peculiar thing to say for you.

[The Herald of War]

ToiletPaper Rorschach

You clearly exist (on the cogito ergo sum principle), therefore the universe is not empty. Whether you are corporeal or incorporeal is a question that then emerges. If you are corporeal, even if your real body is nothing like the illusory body you imagine you see, then the universe has gone to an awful lot of trouble to create one copy of you.

But what if he is the entirety of the universe? Then it didn't go through an awful lot of trouble, he just was.

Quote:

This by an inscrutable process that is capable of creating one but no more copies of something necessarily sufficiently complex to house your mind. It is very difficult to see how this could occur. Believing this robustly challenges the principle of parsimony. No process of evolution can explain this - evolution requires large populations which change over time.

If he's the entirety of the universe then it's not like it was capable of only one, it got created and that was that. And just because there was one copy there's no reason to think there should be another. And difficult to see how it could occur? By what standards? If it's correct then all the laws of physics may as well be bunk, so you can't rely on them as that would be begging the question.

Quote:

If you are incorporeal, then the universe need not contain any matter, just your mind.

But your mind persists in operating as though it is bound by the same rules as bind the minds of the corporeal folk you imagine to exist. Why should it do that?

Is there a reason that it is suspicious that it does? Why would it not? Perhaps you imagine them as you think of yourself.

Quote:

Why are you not God in the imaginary world your mind has created?

Why would you be? What makes you think that the idea of a God even makes sense? Why should he have control of his mind? That seems to presuppose that you know anything about how minds work. Very hard to do if you're not presupposing anything about the reliability of senses and the mind.

Quote:

Your mind is subject to the same sensory illusions born of brain architecture, for example, as are the minds of the virtual people who populate your illusory world. It gets drunk when you drink illusory alcohol according to exactly the same principles that apply to the other virtual minds in your universe. In other words, your mind behaves exactly as though it were corporeal, even though it is not. Why should it be so limited? What sensible process could result in your mind coming into existence with limitations that happen to coincide with its being corporeal, without actually being corporeal? Believing this, too, is a robust challenge to parsimony.

Who says it's that limited? If your senses are suspect, why not your memory? All past evidence may have been imagined.

Quote:

Your solipsistic mind also has some other extremely odd limitations which are otherwise inexplicable. It is capable of creating an apparently consistent non-existent world which operates without error. Yet this is a world that operates according to rules which the mind which created it cannot understand.

How do you know it operates without error? Maybe, like a dream, you just fuzz over the errors with your imperfect perception? Maybe it doesn't operate by rules that the mind that created it can't understand. Maybe it doesn't operate by rules at all and that is why he cannot understand them. It's arbitrary and inexplicable because it is just imagined.

Quote:

You have imagined into existence a world which obeys physical laws about which you have no comprehension. I am willing to bet you do not have Chronos's understanding of physics, but even if you did, the understanding of physics held by the finest minds in the world you have invented is not yet complete or sufficient to explain all the details of the operation of the world you have invented.

Which assumes the imagined world has rules and it's not just all imagined. Not like he's personally seen these scientists, maybe they don't exist and are made up on the spot by his dream.

Quote:

In other words, your mind is capable of creating a universe out of nothing, yet is arbitrarily limited so as not to have access to the process by which that is occurring, and is further arbitrarily and very specifically limited to behave in such a way that shares the limitations of others with whom you have populated this imaginary world. Why should you be subject to such limitations if you are, essentially, God?

How is he God? It's not as if, even in the presumed world we exist in, we have perfect control over our own minds. Maybe the only real mind has even less control than the mind he imagines has. Much like I might be able to dream of flying even if it isn't possible, he is dreaming of things he himself cannot do.

You are relying too heavily on evidence and consistency from the world whose existence is contention. Memory can be in question too, which poses quite a problem for any evidence at all.

Quote:

Where does this world-making skill come from, since it is not coming from your conscious mind? While we might speak of the unconscious mind, no sensible model of that phenomenon allows it to be as powerful as it is required to be to do what is demanded of it by solipsism.

Is it skillful? It could be haphazard, all gaps covered by an inability to perceive the inaccuracies. After all, the only way to check for them depends on that oh so unreliable mind and its unreliable senses and its unreliable memory.

Quote:

Indeed, so isolated from consciousness is this part of you that is creating the world out of whole cloth that it is difficult to even conceive of it as genuinely part of "you" at all. It is a process utterly foreign to your conscious mind, and utterly inaccessible to it. It is, in essence, "other". And if it is, then the universe now has two objects in it - "you" and this uncontactable "other" process that is running the show for you.

No more so than one dreaming. And this is all in reference to your understanding of the minds of humans that might not even exist in the first place! You can't compare to the abilities of things whose existence are in contention.

Quote:

And part of the world the "other" is running is the illusion of people. "You" have no idea what your friends or family are going to do next. You do not have a sense that you are controlling them, puppeteer fashion. They operate according to rules that are of a quite different order from the rules of physics. They are essentially unpredictable, yet at a certain level of abstraction can be seen to operate according to metarules relating to motivations, drives and desires that mirror your motivations, drives and desires. All without you being able to access the process by which "you" are creating this.

You seem to suppose a clear human mind. It could be utterly inhuman with no clarity at all.

Quote:

"You" have desires and urges for things that do not exist. Sex and food do not exist, yet you wish them. Why and how, would or could, such desires emerge in the only mind in the universe? Why are you not capable of overriding the need for food, the fear of pain and death, given that you are omnipotent?

Why are you supposing complete control? You can't just look at a human mind and suppose his would be anything like it.

Quote:

These limitations are simultaneously hopelessly arbitrary and capricious yet at the same time absolutely rigid and unavoidable if extreme solipsism is true. Once again, all of this robustly challenges parsimony.

Not if you stop assuming consistency and comparing to things whose existence are in contention.

Quote:

It is possible, in a very limited way, to create a world in your head. When you dream, you are not able to predict the movements and behaviors of other people in the dream, yet this is a product of your mind. Yet it is vastly imperfect. Why should your mind have two levels of capacity to world-build - the full scale one that works when you are awake, and the limited imperfect version that operates when you dream? Why aren't your dreams as perfectly rendered as the real world is, given that you make both? How could this come to pass? What sensible, Occam-friendly explanation for all this is there?

Why do you presuppose that it is a full scale capacity? It could easily be imperfect as well, thus explaining all the flaws. As for why a dream might seem to be worse, well again you have to rely on memory of that dream being accurate. And you can't rely on memory.