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

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Asp-Z
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24 May 2010, 11:10 am

If everything we know is from our own mind and everything we see and feel is from our senses which then feeds the information back to your mind, how do we know that anything outside of your mind is actually real? We can't be sure, because any rationalisation we use would have had to come from the world we know, which we don't know is real.

Discuss.



Sand
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24 May 2010, 11:19 am

Asp-Z wrote:
If everything we know is from our own mind and everything we see and feel is from our senses which then feeds the information back to your mind, how do we know that anything outside of your mind is actually real? We can't be sure, because any rationalisation we use would have had to come from the world we know, which we don't know is real.

Discuss.


What do you suppose our senses are reacting to?



Asp-Z
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24 May 2010, 11:25 am

Sand wrote:
Asp-Z wrote:
If everything we know is from our own mind and everything we see and feel is from our senses which then feeds the information back to your mind, how do we know that anything outside of your mind is actually real? We can't be sure, because any rationalisation we use would have had to come from the world we know, which we don't know is real.

Discuss.


What do you suppose our senses are reacting to?


How do you know you even have any senses? How do you know you're even real? Maybe everything you can see is coming from your mind, including this message.



Sand
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24 May 2010, 11:40 am

Asp-Z wrote:
Sand wrote:
Asp-Z wrote:
If everything we know is from our own mind and everything we see and feel is from our senses which then feeds the information back to your mind, how do we know that anything outside of your mind is actually real? We can't be sure, because any rationalisation we use would have had to come from the world we know, which we don't know is real.

Discuss.


What do you suppose our senses are reacting to?


How do you know you even have any senses? How do you know you're even real? Maybe everything you can see is coming from your mind, including this message.


Very well, I'll stop bothering with you and POOF you're gone.



Asp-Z
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24 May 2010, 11:45 am

Sand wrote:
Asp-Z wrote:
Sand wrote:
Asp-Z wrote:
If everything we know is from our own mind and everything we see and feel is from our senses which then feeds the information back to your mind, how do we know that anything outside of your mind is actually real? We can't be sure, because any rationalisation we use would have had to come from the world we know, which we don't know is real.

Discuss.


What do you suppose our senses are reacting to?


How do you know you even have any senses? How do you know you're even real? Maybe everything you can see is coming from your mind, including this message.


Very well, I'll stop bothering with you and POOF you're gone.


That's another good point actually - if you're not looking at something, does it exist? Considering that you see things because light bounces off of it and reflects into your eyes.



skafather84
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24 May 2010, 12:03 pm

Asp-Z wrote:
That's another good point actually - if you're not looking at something, does it exist? Considering that you see things because light bounces off of it and reflects into your eyes.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat

Actually it does exist in multiple capacities and doesn't exist simultaneously.

/this is what quantum computing is based off of and is freakin' awesome.


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Exclavius
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24 May 2010, 6:49 pm

To each "potential" observer of you, there exists a vast number (possibly infinite) of possible you's. Up until they stop being a potential observer, and become an actual observer, at which point "the waveform collapses" or "the universe resolves which one you see"

As for original question... Not only does everything outside your mind exist, but a vast number of possibilities for everything outside your mind exists... in fact every possible alternative that could have happened since the last time you observed a given thing (and anything that is deterministically affected by that thing) DOES exist (and simultaneously doesn't exist :roll: )

I have wondered if it is possible that when we "observe" if we at some deep level DECIDE WHICH of those myriad of possible outcomes we see, and thus define which alternate universe our consciousness follows.
If so, can we learn how to consciously control it. Learning do so would be interesting .... but only for a while.



sartresue
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24 May 2010, 7:02 pm

Freudian solip-sism topic

I always wondered how the objects did not know I was there or not. :P


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Awesomelyglorious
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24 May 2010, 7:07 pm

Why are you asking imaginary beings if they exist?



Wombat
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25 May 2010, 2:04 am

If nothing exits besides me then I must be god.

If I am god then why is my life s**t?

If nothing besides me exists then why are I replying to your silly bloody question?



Sand
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25 May 2010, 4:08 am

Wombat wrote:
If nothing exits besides me then I must be god.

If I am god then why is my life sh**?

If nothing besides me exists then why are I replying to your silly bloody question?


You are obviously talking to yourself since nothing else exists and you're pissed off because you're too stupid to create the universe.



ruveyn
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25 May 2010, 6:03 am

Asp-Z wrote:
If everything we know is from our own mind and everything we see and feel is from our senses which then feeds the information back to your mind, how do we know that anything outside of your mind is actually real? We can't be sure, because any rationalisation we use would have had to come from the world we know, which we don't know is real.

Discuss.


There is an Out There out there. However we cannot prove it absolutely. I know for sure that I am not smart enough to have imagined the world I live in. No way.

ruveyn



Asp-Z
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25 May 2010, 10:01 am

ruveyn wrote:
Asp-Z wrote:
If everything we know is from our own mind and everything we see and feel is from our senses which then feeds the information back to your mind, how do we know that anything outside of your mind is actually real? We can't be sure, because any rationalisation we use would have had to come from the world we know, which we don't know is real.

Discuss.


There is an Out There out there. However we cannot prove it absolutely. I know for sure that I am not smart enough to have imagined the world I live in. No way.

ruveyn


You are capable of more than you think, especially your subconscious. It creates all your dreams just fine, dosen't it?



sartresue
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25 May 2010, 1:34 pm

Asp-Z wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
Asp-Z wrote:
If everything we know is from our own mind and everything we see and feel is from our senses which then feeds the information back to your mind, how do we know that anything outside of your mind is actually real? We can't be sure, because any rationalisation we use would have had to come from the world we know, which we don't know is real.

Discuss.


There is an Out There out there. However we cannot prove it absolutely. I know for sure that I am not smart enough to have imagined the world I live in. No way.

ruveyn


You are capable of more than you think, especially your subconscious. It creates all your dreams just fine, dosen't it?


I dreamed a dream topic

In dreams, I have noticed that time is three dimensional, and not at all like waking life, and this is how I can differentiate between the private dream world and reality.


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Lisac57
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25 May 2010, 2:39 pm

Let's say I have a two room apartment, and you happen to know everything about the one room and nothing about the other. Then, I submit, you cannot deduce anything about the other room, from known facts about the first one. Getting to the point, I will never discover anything about you only on the basis of my observations on myself, and conversely.

Actually, as someone pointed out, even our own existence is an hypothesis. We don't get to deduce much from nothing, and it would seem foolishly ungenerous not to assume the existence of others also. Then we are in business, the operative word being WE.

Another thing to keep in mind is that we don't start out in life totally assured of our own existence and absolutely ignorant about anything else (Descartes seems to be presupposing something on this order). Rather our own existence as individuals is secondary to the mysterious mother/child-unity, psychologically as much as physiologically.

It is true that I have a kind of privileged access to my own consciousness, but if we look at that carefully, specifically paying attention to the CONTENT of our consciousness, our property rights appear much less obvious. Perhaps I am conscious of you, so that the content of my consciousness is/are you... Then to what, exactly, is it that I have unique access?


J

J



Mdyar
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25 May 2010, 5:46 pm

Asp-Z wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
Asp-Z wrote:
If everything we know is from our own mind and everything we see and feel is from our senses which then feeds the information back to your mind, how do we know that anything outside of your mind is actually real? We can't be sure, because any rationalisation we use would have had to come from the world we know, which we don't know is real.

Discuss.


There is an Out There out there. However we cannot prove it absolutely. I know for sure that I am not smart enough to have imagined the world I live in. No way.

ruveyn


You are capable of more than you think, especially your subconscious. It creates all your dreams just fine, dosen't it?

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