Submitted by dbrereton t3_10rw9fq in philosophy
Reply to comment by Dreamcatcher993 in “All knowledge must be built upon our instinctive beliefs. If these are rejected, nothing is left. We can organize these beliefs and their consequences, modifying or abandoning them until they don’t clash, forming a harmonious system.” | Bertrand Russell on Epistemology by dbrereton
Psychosis can make the concept of solypsism more relevant to you. The condition makes the external world less consistent, lowering confidence in external persistence, which undermines the basis for 'taking a leap of faith' and moving beyond solypsism. Why put effort into studying an 'external' reality who's rules change constantly?
Solypsism is a philosophical stance. Psychosis is a sensory condition. You can choose solypsism, you can't choose psychosis.
I challenge any solipsist to visit a psychiatrist and claim that doc might not exist without their mind.
This may not be the sub for you...
If you're interested in understanding solypsism you can look into radical skepticism, Descartes Demon, and the Cogito. In that order is sort of the chronology of the cogito, which was Descartes' answer to radical skepticism.
Solypsism is like the formal conclusion to radical skepticism. There are definitely some pseudo-spiritual types that like to dramatize the idea, but ironically it's about the absolute absence of belief.
I first read Descartes when I was 13 man.But still thanks for the explanation.
You're confusing metaphysical solipsists with Epistemological Solipsists. Also, you're targetting more towards people who fear solipsism out of a mental health concern rather than philosophically consistent and authentic solipsists.
I know the difference but still thanks
This thread resonates with me. I experienced "psychosis" and my first explanation was Simulation Theory... However I actually reasoned that all I had was faith. I was experiencing, I didn't know if it was "real" but I was experiencing for a reason, so I developed a bottom-up approach looking for points of consistency.
I used three archetypes, The Philosopher, The Doctor and The Engineer to understand reality again and form a more consistent picture.
Russel came up in my investigations, and I found his aversion to "self-reference" (compared to Godell) to be...limiting, (not that I understand it).
I'll have to look into that stuff. But I admit I do have a sort of morbid curiosity to know how someone well educated in these sort of fundamental reality proofs would be able to manage something like psychosis. I imagine these sorts of proofs would help you ground yourself and even make it back to reality, but wow would it be annoying when you have to constantly categorize your perception between internal and external.
I would argue that solipsism or any philosophy that states that reality is not real can not be hold by living beings while being consistent and rational about it, because this kind of thinking would define air as not existent really, making it absurd to continue breathing, and then dying.
You can repeat that with food or any other requirement for survival.
While this things can be interesting in some context, any discussion that don't accept the pre-conception of an objective reality outside our mind is not sustainable. Of course, this aren't the only ideas that can't be hold with consistency and rationality.
Your proof comes from your faith in external senses that have seen death and faith in the existence of a past and future. The whole point of Solypsism is it is the ONLY perfect rational position, requiring no assumptions. That's why it's an intellectual curiosity because it's uniquely invincible.
I agree though that, to your point, remaining doubtful to the point of being solypsist has no usefulness. Nature would be keen to evolve creatures that have faith that their senses are detecting a 'real' external existence. It's a safe leap of faith not only because it costs nothing to move past it, but because (unless you have psychosis) the external world is extremely self consistent.
The point on my argument is that solipsism is not a position that can be hold rationally and consistently, because holding it implies not being alive, so no one can ever claim to hold that position in a rational and consisten way.
And also, it is not that it has no usefulness, it is that is impossible to hold. It is a fun mind experiment, but not a position that is rational in any way.
Besides being a suicidal position, it is also a position that implies that no discussion makes sense, because if you could believe in solipsism, there is no way that you can discuss anything with anyone else, because you don't believe that there is anyone else.
So, again, fun mind experiment, but if you hold that position, you are being inconsistent and irrational (not saying that you hold it).
You've got something wrong cause again the whole point is that it's perfectly consistent and rational. Seems like your getting into an is/ought problem. Solypsism is what you can prove the world is. Survival is an ought. Computers aren't illogical because they don't fight you when you go for the off button. You can't disprove Solypsism because you ought to survive. Even the concepts of life/death require a future, past and that your experience has any bearing at all in your existence. If you're desperate for a real cause of such a situation: you could be in a simulation, you could be a boltzman brain, you could have intense psychosis.
You choose the have any cognitive configuration, but Solypsism does not conform to the external world(which is logic since it denounce a external world. How the mind can exist without external worlds is a question. It is beliving that one is a go’s that creates everything yet don’t remember any of it). Also the philosophical stance don’t further any understanding about the worlds and is therefore useless by definition
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