http://www.olemiss.edu/d.../philosophy/solipst.html

Solipsists of the world, UNITE!

Okay, so i really laughed out loud at this one. Quite loud. But there wasn't really any one else in the crowded room who could really hear.

(And look at the counter at the bottom of the page. I howled again, but again went unheard by all the figments of my imagination)

hahaha wow.

alan watts made a joke about this.. it is nice to see it actually came into existence.

it's a funny joke, I guess, but solipsism does not necessarily negate the desire or ability to socialize with others. It's a legitimate philosophical position and, as such, it should be discussed for its strengths and faults rather than being mocked.

but if its just you mocking yourself, then whats the problem?

Because you are your own worst enemy.

i question the philosophical legitimacy of dismissing the existence of everyone else off-hand\

(i can't experience it, therefore it isn't real - speak of which walking on the moon is not real)

Perhaps my definition of solipsism is incorrect. I define it as "the belief that only one's mind can be known to exist"... As opposed to assuming that your perceptions and interpretations of reality are 100% accurate off-hand.

In my opinion, coming to the "wrong" conclusion is better than never considering that there are more possibilities than the obvious one.

hahahhahahaha @ that counter

The solipsistic viewpoint makes more sense the harder I'm tripping. (Easy to chuckle at this- "it's the drugs,man!". But at those moments I can understand how one might come to such conclusions.

But I think it's a conclusion based on a misinterpretation. As the mind of the universe, you are all that exists and therefore can only be a solipsist. And certain routes of thinking- not necessarily just those brought on via entheogens- can bring you to a min-of-the-universe perspective, where you are keenly aware that on one level, all beings in the universe are parts of you and therefore all conversations are you, talking to yourself. The mistake happens when that perspective is applied to the "you" that you see in the mirror, which strips the entire thing of its vast inner life and leaves it as simply a fever dream of one little primate.

I do think the solipsistic perspective is an interesting and legitimate route of exploration, mainly because its fundamental simplicity might provide leverage for finding holes in the equation that could reveal deeper truths. The flipside of it all, and the part that invites suspicion or even derision, is the notion that a person with this viewpoint can see all others as being mere figments, which most of us find unacceptable.

exactly, well put. This resonates with some of my high dose experiences with mushrooms or lsd as well (almost exclusively when mixed with cannabis)

go solipsists go do your thing

If you look on the counter, there is ONE so far. LOL

Why would one believe that the "you" seen in the mirror exists if only the mind can be known to exist? I'm not sure that a real solipsist would or has ever come to that conclusion. Otherwise, your description of personal experience with solipsism was very well put, but I have to ask what the difference is between the mind-of-the-universe and an individual's mind if the individual's mind happens to be the only thing that exists. I don't see a way that true solipsism can logically manifest other than in the mind-of-the-universe scenario that you proposed.

When I look into my mind I feel very much like a primate with big ideas. I feel the distinct limitations of my in-the-mirror self, with all the particular limitations of being this particular individual. I don't feel at all like the mind of the universe, and certainly don't feel big enough or universal enough to be the creator (or the imaginer, you could say) of All That Is. So the basic solipsist proposition seems to entail not only that you are the dreamer of this whole thing, but that you have also forgotten (possibly by intention) most of yourself.

So if everyone else are just figments, but the in-the-mirror self is the perspective that you are imagining this all from, then that does in fact give special significance to that particular in-the-mirror self. I think many of us psychonauts can resonate with the mind-of-the-universe thing but not the special significant individual thing. These are two distinctly different ways of apprehending the problem- one where we all, figments or not, possess a basic equality, and another where all but one of us are figments. I personally find the first of these two proposals to be far more palatable.

So it boils down to a question not of whether or not solipsism is valid, but what perspective is is valid from.

I think we have all had elaborate dreams of alternate realities where we forgot who we really are.

Regarding the perspective of solipsism, it is not clear to me that, in a dream, imagined people are any less "real" than myself in the dream. They, with their own personal histories and personalities, exist somewhere in my brain just as my consciousness does, and I don't think I could distinguish between them (as figments) and me (as "real" if I never woke up. In the dream, we might as well all be figments, imagined by the same mind.

How one gets to the psychonaut's version of solipsism is an interesting topic, now that I think about it. For me, it occurs after many realizations of interconnectedness. Each realization makes it harder and harder for me to define clear boundaries between my brain and the matter surrounding it. Eventually, my mind has expanded to encompass other people and objects. By the end, my mind seems universal. Of course, by then, the definition of "me" has changed, so by "my mind" I do not mean the brain of this primate that you speak of.

I think that otherwise inanimate objects can have subjective experience, and we can thus empathize with and mentalize such objects. So perhaps the mind-of-the-universe perception results from our ability to imagine reality not only from the perspectives of other people, but also from that of objects, groups of objects, and the universe itself. Such imaginings cause me to see my mind, and the minds of others, as manifestations of the self-consciousness of reality itself. Our conversation is like an internal dialogue in a transcendentally subjective being.

But guys, what about the funny bit?




(or are you all just manifestations of my serious side?)

That site is both funny and thought provoking... And so look what happened.

I guess if it keeps going in this vein we can always move it to Philosophy.

I think I reflexively play the devil's advocate, which means my first instinct is to consider jokes seriously while addressing serious topics jokingly.

Funny - that is exactly what I would have you say were you no more than a figment of my imagination.