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[Gimym TILBERT]

Pikachu! I disprove you!

[Cow]

 

[moi]

Solipsism is a self-defeating theory anyway so why even bother

[Cow]

If one of you has been imagining me this whole time I'm going to be pissed.

[X3N]

Actually everyone on this thread is a bot and you're in a simulation 

Yes we all run according to our brain programs. Simulacra!

[Andy]

I went through a period of time where I was obsessed with solipsism. In all my life I have never seen an argument against solipsism that stands up to scrutiny. To assert though that solipsism is correct, and that you are the only mind, would be incorrect. You can’t say something is true just because you can’t prove it false. This is begging the claim. Frankly I highly doubt solipsism is true, I am pretty sure you all have minds, I will grant you all the benefit of the doubt. Not that I assert you do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IF54xqYhIGA

[Cow]

So, why do a few people even want this to be true?

[Andy]

So, why do a few people even want this to be true?

I am sure there are many people who would like solipsism for varying reasons. Maybe it could boost an ego, make someone feel almost god like. Who knows, I personally don't care either way. Remember though, to a solipsist you are dead. You apparently have no awareness of yourself. You are just an illusion to them. Are you real cow, or am I just imagining you?

[Xion]

Or, in the words of Samuel Johnson, I refute it thus!

I read that as 'Samuel Jackson,' so I read the entire quote in his voice.

[Mipe]

I believe that your mind has nothing to do with mine. After all that girl didn't turn to look my way after I wished hard for it. 

Screw you, cruel life. 

[Xion]

Seriously though saying you can't disprove solipsism is like saying you can't disprove God.  You can't disprove either because they are undisprovable by definition.  The burden of proof is on the something something

Funnily enough, I'd use the same argument, except the other way around. Surely asuming something (reality's existence) is what needs the evidence, rather than assuming nothing?

Assuming that your mind is the only thing that exists or whatever is not assuming nothing. To assume that everything you see and experience is just a twitch in your singular, cosmic, god-mind is far more presumptuous than simply seeing a person standing five feet away from you and concluding that there is a person standing five feet away from you.

Assuming nothing would be more like making no conjectures about the nature of a thing, except what is directly observed. An apple falls off a tree, and so this apple falls off of this tree. Repeated experiments show that this apple falls no matter what, so this apple falls. It is observed that all observable apples exhibit the same behavior, so most apples fall. It is still unknown as to whether there's some apple somewhere in the world that doesn't fall, though, because until you observe every apple in existence falling, you can't say that 'all apples fall', since there might be that one that doesn't. This is assuming nothing, I think. This is the person to whom you'd have to prove that all apples fall, and not he to you that an apple, somewhere, might not. This is the person to whom you'd have to prove that your mind was all that is, not he to you that he existed.

You can't do that though, because it's bullshit.

[Feral_P]

@Xion:
The assumption non-solipsists make is that their senses are reliable. I have no problem with this assumption and, in fact, make it myself. But it is an assumption nonetheless.

Solipsists say that the only thing they know for sure is that their own thoughts exist, which is self-evident and (AFAIK) requires no assumptions.

The apple problem you talk about is the "problem of induction" (or similar), and just goes to demonstrate how little we know for sure.

[SFBTom]

I have a question. If solipsism were to be proven or disproven, what difference would it make to anyone? If the world around me is 'just' a construct of my own mind, how would that affect my life in any way? It doesn't free me of consequences, or promise something better/other than this world. Would anyone, upon learning the truth, change the way they approach life?

My feeling is that it's always nice to know more about the true nature of reality. Beyond that though, the question that solipsism poses is irrelevant to me and not worth thinking about (again, to me).

[Feral_P]

I have a question. If solipsism were to be proven or disproven, what difference would it make to anyone? If the world around me is 'just' a construct of my own mind, how would that affect my life in any way? It doesn't free me of consequences, or promise something better/other than this world. Would anyone, upon learning the truth, change the way they approach life?

My feeling is that it's always nice to know more about the true nature of reality. Beyond that though, the question that solipsism poses is irrelevant to me and not worth thinking about (again, to me).

Well, exactly. I suppose maybe you'd live in a more hedonistic or selfish way, but my guess is that most solipsists don't do that, for whatever reason.

EDIT:
People seem to think that solipsists *neccesarily* think other people actually don't exist. AFAIK, it only means that they think you can't know for sure about the outside world.

[Rm88~]

The assumption non-solipsists make is that their senses are reliable

Why wouldn't they? That's assuming they're NOT reliable in the first place, and without any good reason to do it other than 'I CAN doubt my senses'.

And this is just me assuming (lol), but if you believe everything and everyone is part of your imagination, you'd feel somewhat less inclined to help/love/respect/etc. other people. You can't feel empathy for them because they don't exist, in your mind that is.