I had in mind (from very 'old' studies/readings) a somewhat different
version of the "hard' solipsism and this one - sort of - eliminates the
validity of the questions. I will interject.
My take was Russell's remark I mark with *** in the post.
John M
----- Original Message -----
From: "Russell Standish" <r.standish.domain.name.hidden>
To: <everything-list.domain.name.hidden>
Sent: Tuesday, September 19, 2006 9:23 AM
Subject: Re: Reality, the bogus nature of the Turing test
>
> On Tue, Sep 19, 2006 at 04:02:36PM +1000, Colin Hales wrote:
> >
> >
> > BACK TO THE REAL ISSUE (solipsism)
> >
> > I am confused as to what the received view of the solipsist is. As us
usual
> > in philosophical discourse, definitions disagree:
> >
> >
> >
> > "An epistemological position that one's own perceptions are the only
things
> > that can be known with certainty. The nature of the external world -
that
> > is, the source of one's perceptions - therefore cannot be conclusively
> > known; it may not even exist."
> >
> > or
> >
> > "belief in self as only reality: the belief that the only thing somebody
can
> > be sure of is that he or she exists, and that true knowledge of anything
> > else is impossible"
> >
> > or
> >
> > "the belief that only one's own experiences and existence can be known
with
> > certainty"
> >
> >
> >
> > The definitions are all variants on this theme..
> >
>
> It could also be argued that this theme is essentially instrumentalism.
>
> > ---------------------------------
> >
> >
> >
> > Q1. As a solipsist, if you say 'belief in self as the only reality' does
> > this entail the disbelief in anything else other than 'self'
(=experiential
> > reality of the observer)? .i.e. ...the active denial of any reality
other
> > than your experience?
> >
> ***
> I think solipsism goes further in denying existence of other minds.
>
> Note that denial of materiality, or even of noumenon does not
> eliminate other minds.
JM:
I would formulate it harder: "there is ONLY "MY" mind and it produces all
that I (think to) experience as existent' at all. In that case it does not
make sense to "deny" or "eliminate" the nonexistent. My problem was: why am
I so stupid to imagine such a "bad" world? so I dropped solipsism.
>
> >
> >
> > Q2. If experiences are all that are known with certainty, then why have
> > scientists universally (a) adopted the explicit appearances (of the
external
> > reality) within experience as scientific evidence of an external
reality, to
> > the complete exclusion of (b) the implicit evidence that the existence
of
> > any experience at all provides that it is caused by something (and that
> > something is also external reality)? This is rather odd, since in the
> > 'certainty' stakes (b) wins.
> >
JM:
in my 'hard' solipsism that all is my figment. You are nonexistent, the
world is nonexistent, the problems and their solutions are my
decisions/experiences in my own mind. To continue this line into cosequency
is the road to the nuthouse. Bon Voyage!
>
> Most scientists do not even think about ontological issues. Its as
> though they practise "as-if" instrumentalism regardless of their
> personal beliefs.
>
>
>
> --
> *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which
> is of type "application/pgp-signature". Don't worry, it is not a
> virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this
> email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you
> may safely ignore this attachment.
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
> Mathematics
> UNSW SYDNEY 2052 R.Standish.domain.name.hidden
> Australia
http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks
> International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02
JM:
John Mikes
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Received on Wed Sep 20 2006 - 16:00:17 PDT