Is there anything outside of our own minds? (solipsism)

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I may be able to, yes. This has very little to do with solipsism, though.

I wish I was a real solipsist and being able to magically adjust "reality" according to my wishes.

I wonder why people who seriously accept solipsism bother to discuss it with what they assume are figments of their own mind..

They are playing with themselves, I suppose.

To achieve internal equilibrium, by getting all the voices in their heads to agree? xD

It would get boring talking to only real people (seeing as they don't exist), and quite lonely for the poor solopsist.
So, like the imaginary friend you may or may not have had as a child, they have to invent others to live in their make believe world, some people invent just others that agree with them, to make them feel better, others invent people who disagree with them, so they have someone to play the devil's advocate, that way they can become smarter solopsists... hopefully after long enough, they'll learn enough to become non-solopsists and have a real life with real people.

I know a Buddhist who says "there is no such thing as self". Self is an illusion. Everything is one.

I said to him "If I whacked you with a big stick then who would feel the pain?" It certainly wouldn't be me.

Another problem with Buddhism. If there is no "self" then who or what builds up karma and gets reincarnated?


Wasn't there some Greek philosopher who thought that everything was an illusion? He walked out into the road and got killed by an "illusionary" chariot.

Ah, but maybe the death and the illusion were only coincidentally coherent.

If such ones wanted to know , they could stop up their ears with plugs and blindfold themselves for a while, and if another reality impinged on them whilst sense deprived, then 'the outside' is truly an illusion.

[quote=
You are capable of more than you think, especially your subconscious. It creates all your dreams just fine, dosen't it?[/quote]
Imagine if you were deprived of all of your senses at birth and somehow kept alive ; could you imagine the world you know now?[/quote]

Look at that woman Helen Keller. She was born blind and deaf yet she learned enough to be able to write books.

God knows how she managed that but she did.

Imagine if you were deprived of all of your senses at birth and somehow kept alive ; could you imagine the world you know now?[/quote]

Look at that woman Helen Keller. She was born blind and deaf yet she learned enough to be able to write books.

God knows how she managed that but she did.[/quote]

And you assume she made it all up with no outside stimulation? C'mon!

The main problem as evidenced here is not that nothing outside exists to the human mind but that not much exists inside a great many human minds.

Look at that woman Helen Keller. She was born blind and deaf yet she learned enough to be able to write books.

God knows how she managed that but she did.[/quote]

And you assume she made it all up with no outside stimulation? C'mon!

The main problem as evidenced here is not that nothing outside exists to the human mind but that not much exists inside a great many human minds.[/quote]

Keller had sight until she was about 18 months. A bout with scarlet fever rendered her blind and deaf. She still had sense of touch and smell and that was sufficient for her underlying intelligence.

ruveyn

Normal brains develop in response to stimuli received both before and after birth. Without any sensory input, normal brain development would not occur - connections could not be made (apart from randomly) and would not be strengthened. I am pretty sure that in such a situation a 'self' would never develop, let alone have any concept of anything in the world.

Adults who are sensory deprived will start hallucinating - the brain takes the background 'noise' (random firing of neurons etc. together with the few stimuli that remain such as body awareness, heartbeat etc) and becomes more sensitive to it, producing the illusion of sensing things which are not actually there. However, this can only happen because of memories previously stored in the brain - hallucinations will be mixtures of things that the person has experienced before, similar to what dreams are.

My general view is almost opposite to that proposed by the OP - I am pretty convinced the outside world exists, but less convinced that my 'self' exists as anything more than a transient, rapidly changing pattern, relying on memories of experience to keep it generally consistent. I can't prove that I'm not actually a sort of God who can create these experiences I have out of nothing (and yet be unaware that I am creating - in which case is it really 'me' doing the creating or some 'superme' which isn't the 'me' that I know?), but I actually find such a possibility rather frightening - if there is absolutely nothing apart from myself, this means I am completely alone.

I think the idea that nothing exists apart from one's own mind is rather egotist (and thus typical of humans who like to think they are important). I do remember wondering whether other people were 'real' when I was about 7 or 8, and gradually came to the conclusion that they probably were, as my theory of mind got better (in fact, this point of view might be more attractive to people whose theory of mind is not as good as normal - those on the autistic spectrum). Certainly, it's best to treat them as though they are real though, whatever you really think.

Absolutely.
There would have to be a template there ,hence some a priori knowlegde, but this would only be the' firmware' with a base script.

I can think of a parrot I had , and it had to have a priori knowlegde of 'a hawk' that flew overhead high in the sky.
This bird was raised /breed in someones home ( here in the U.S.) and never was around anything other than itself.
But the bird could recognize this hawk and went " crackers" when spotted , and with any other species of bird, it didnt even wince.




Yes, I believe you hit it there ,as there is an emotive inclination /bias for someone to decide this.