Re: Solipsism unplugged
George Levy wrote: The scientist could prove that he is not alone by invoking the principle of sufficient reason: nothing is arbitrary and exist with no reason. If something exists in a particular arbitrary way (himself) with no reason for him to be in that particular way, then all other alternatives of him must also exist (the Plenitude). Hence he is not alone. Solipsism is dead. This used to be an argument against the principle of sufficent reason. 1) If there is a sufficient reason for everyting, everything should exist at once. 2) Everything doesn't exist at once. 3) Therefore there is not a sufficient reason for eveything. But in fact Sufficient Reason is overkill to refute solipsism. The solipsist cannot find any reason for his future expereince, let alone a sufficient reason. Casuality. as Hume reminds us. is not visible as such, and the Solipsist believes in only what he sees, so the solipsist cannot believe in reasons or causes. Solipsism is only irrefutable inasmuch as the solipsist claims that an external world cannot be proved with *certainty*. But science has always been more concerned with explanation than certainty, so it has never been solipsistic. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Solipsism unplugged
George Levy wrote: The scientist could prove that he is not alone by invoking the principle of sufficient reason: nothing is arbitrary and exist with no reason. If something exists in a particular arbitrary way (himself) with no reason for him to be in that particular way, then all other alternatives of him must also exist (the Plenitude). Hence he is not alone. Solipsism is dead. This used to be an argument against the principle of sufficent reason. 1) If there is a sufficient reason for everyting, everything should exist at once. 2) Everything doesn't exist at once. 3) Therefore there is not a sufficient reason for eveything. But in fact Sufficient Reason is overkill to refute solipsism. The solipsist cannot find any reason for his future expereince, let alone a sufficient reason. Casuality. as Hume reminds us. is not visible as such, and the Solipsist believes in only what he sees, so the solipsist cannot believe in reasons or causes. Solipsism is only irrefutable inasmuch as the solipsist claims that an external world cannot be proved with *certainty*. But science has always been more concerned with explanation than certainty, so it has never been solipsistic. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Solipsism unplugged
This is an extract from the full work on solipsism. It is one special section written in the first person, for what else could a solipsist scientist do? I'd be interested in any comments... it paints a rather bizarre picture of science. - I, Solipsist Scientist Copyright(c) 2006. Colin Hales. All rights reserved. - I am a solipsist scientist in that I accept that my mind, which is producing the dialogue you now read, is the one and only conclusively proven mind and possibly the only mind. My mind is an image in a kind of mirror; a phenomenal mirror. The image I see and feel and smell and taste is all I have to enact my craft, my science. Modern neuroscience shows me my brain in the act of being a mirror for me. The image is what philosophy calls my phenomenal consciousness or my phenomenality. I can experiment on my own phenomenality say, by closing my eyes, which I note has a dramatic effect on my ability to do science. When I sleep dreamlessly my phenomenality is absent and when I awake the apparent external world in my mirror is consistently behaving as if it recently had me asleep in it. Yet, as a solipsist I am forced to question the actual existence of what is depicted in my mirror. It is only an image, after all, and images can be fabricated. As a solipsist I attribute this apparent external world depicted within my mirror to be the work of the 'magical fabricator'. At the same time I must find it remarkable that my phenomenality somehow, via the mysterious solution to the 'hard problem', appears to intimately connect me to an external world. I know that my sensory data (nerve signals from the peripheral nervous system that have no innate phenomenality) are used by my apparent brain to create my phenomenality. As a scientist my job is to extract and depict regularity in the appearances within my phenomenal mirror's image as scientifically justified beliefs in the form of useful, predictive generalisations. I know that when I do science what I am doing is correlating the appearances of the contents of my phenomenality. The most obvious evidence of this in any of my scientific papers is that of the 'test' subject in contrast to the 'control' subject. In the case of Newtonian dynamics I would be correlating the behaviour of a mass and the space it inhabits. All of this makes very good sense to me. Yet I am troubled. Within my mirror's image are what appear to be other scientists with brains that look the same as mine. These scientists are merely fabrications in my own mirror's image. Yet despite being mere fabrications they appear, to me, to do science on exquisitely novel things just as well as I do using my real mind. At the same time I cannot see the image in their mirror and vice versa. All report seeing only brain material. I take this as lending support to my solipsism in that I can claim their minds not to exist, which is consistent with my conviction that the external world does not exist. If I am right, and my image(mind) is the only image(mind), then their science is done without any image of their own. The 'magical fabricator' of my image goes to an amazing amount of trouble to make it appear 'as-if' the external world shown to me in my mirror does exist. The scientists within it behave 'as-if' they had the kind of mind I know I must have to do science. To be a solipsist scientist in this circumstance is to live in cooperation with this extravagant fabrication including apparent scientists as adept as myself. As a solipsist scientist, inwardly and silently I deny (remain scientifically unable to confirm) that an external world exists. But as a scientist within this apparent world I am fundamentally conflicted. To be consistent with the behaviour of all the other scientists, outwardly I am forced to act 'as-if' there was an external reality. Also, inwardly I know my mind is the only proven reality, yet to my scientist colleagues, to remain consistent I must deny my own mind as much as I deny theirs. I live in this situation of denial that I have something more than my colleagues have. I am thus doubly conflicted, for I must also act 'as-if' I have no mind, for to declare otherwise is to be inconsistent with my claims about my scientist colleagues, to whom I am identical. Yet despite this odd personal situation the system works, in a way. My scientist colleagues continue to act as-if they had minds. Their scientific lives - our lives - of appearance correlation go on as usual. The whole system is consistent. I, the solipsist, get to inwardly claim my own mind's existence and deny an external world. Outwardly I act 'as-if' there is an external reality and deny my own mind and my colleagues'. They get to act exactly like I do. All along I know that it is actually the work of the magical fabricator, a belief I must also withhold to maintain appearances to my science colleagues, since within this
Re: Solipsism unplugged
The scientist could prove that he is not alone by invoking the principle of sufficient reason: nothing is arbitrary and exist with no reason. If something exists in a particular arbitrary way (himself) with no reason for him to be in that particular way, then all other alternatives of him must also exist (the Plenitude). Hence he is not alone. Solipsism is dead. George Colin Hales wrote: This is an extract from the full work on solipsism. It is one special section written in the first person, for what else could a solipsist scientist do? I'd be interested in any comments... it paints a rather bizarre picture of science. - I, Solipsist Scientist Copyright(c) 2006. Colin Hales. All rights reserved. - I am a solipsist scientist in that I accept that my mind, which is producing the dialogue you now read, is the one and only conclusively proven mind and possibly the only mind. My mind is an image in a kind of mirror; a phenomenal mirror. The image I see and feel and smell and taste is all I have to enact my craft, my science. Modern neuroscience shows me my brain in the act of being a mirror for me. The image is what philosophy calls my phenomenal consciousness or my phenomenality. I can experiment on my own phenomenality say, by closing my eyes, which I note has a dramatic effect on my ability to do science. When I sleep dreamlessly my phenomenality is absent and when I awake the apparent external world in my mirror is consistently behaving as if it recently had me asleep in it. Yet, as a solipsist I am forced to question the actual existence of what is depicted in my mirror. It is only an image, after all, and images can be fabricated. As a solipsist I attribute this apparent external world depicted within my mirror to be the work of the 'magical fabricator'. At the same time I must find it remarkable that my phenomenality somehow, via the mysterious solution to the 'hard problem', appears to intimately connect me to an external world. I know that my sensory data (nerve signals from the peripheral nervous system that have no innate phenomenality) are used by my apparent brain to create my phenomenality. As a scientist my job is to extract and depict regularity in the appearances within my phenomenal mirror's image as scientifically justified beliefs in the form of useful, predictive generalisations. I know that when I do science what I am doing is correlating the appearances of the contents of my phenomenality. The most obvious evidence of this in any of my scientific papers is that of the 'test' subject in contrast to the 'control' subject. In the case of Newtonian dynamics I would be correlating the behaviour of a mass and the space it inhabits. All of this makes very good sense to me. Yet I am troubled. Within my mirror's image are what appear to be other scientists with brains that look the same as mine. These scientists are merely fabrications in my own mirror's image. Yet despite being mere fabrications they appear, to me, to do science on exquisitely novel things just as well as I do using my real mind. At the same time I cannot see the image in their mirror and vice versa. All report seeing only brain material. I take this as lending support to my solipsism in that I can claim their minds not to exist, which is consistent with my conviction that the external world does not exist. If I am right, and my image(mind) is the only image(mind), then their science is done without any image of their own. The 'magical fabricator' of my image goes to an amazing amount of trouble to make it appear 'as-if' the external world shown to me in my mirror does exist. The scientists within it behave 'as-if' they had the kind of mind I know I must have to do science. To be a solipsist scientist in this circumstance is to live in cooperation with this extravagant fabrication including apparent scientists as adept as myself. As a solipsist scientist, inwardly and silently I deny (remain scientifically unable to confirm) that an external world exists. But as a scientist within this apparent world I am fundamentally conflicted. To be consistent with the behaviour of all the other scientists, outwardly I am forced to act 'as-if' there was an external reality. Also, inwardly I know my mind is the only proven reality, yet to my scientist colleagues, to remain consistent I must deny my own mind as much as I deny theirs. I live in this situation of denial that I have something more than my colleagues have. I am thus doubly conflicted, for I must also act 'as-if' I have no mind, for to declare otherwise is to be inconsistent with my claims about my scientist colleagues, to whom I am identical. Yet despite this odd personal situation the system works, in a way. My scientist colleagues continue to act as-if they had minds. Their scientific lives - our lives - of appearance correlation go on as usual. The whole system is
RE: Solipsism unplugged
George Levy: The scientist could prove that he is not alone by invoking the principle of sufficient reason: nothing is arbitrary and exist with no reason. If something exists in a particular arbitrary way (himself) with no reason for him to be in that particular way, then all other alternatives of him must also exist (the Plenitude). Hence he is not alone. Solipsism is dead. George I agree! The point is they dont! (prove they are not alone). What they do is act as-if they are not alone and deny mind as evidence of anything by OMISSION. If mind admitted as evidence in its own right they would be doing science on something causal of mind, rather than on the appearances it delivers. They do not do thisso. If you had read the whole thing you would find that despite your logic (with which I agree!), scientists are unwitting as-if solipsists. So the reality is that it is not actually (methodologically) dead because scientific behaviour is as-if it were a policy in science. That is the whole point! Dont tell me!. Tell scientists other than me! Ask them why they continue to be virtual solipsists. Or better: ask them If that which is seen is scientific evidence, then what is seeing evidence of? Its not evidence for brains appearance, its evidence of something manipulated by brains to generate appearance. Why dont we work on that? They do not..neural correlates of consciousness is NOT doing thatergo scientists are all methodological solipsists tacit in-denial because none of them realise it.because they are not doing something they dont know they are not doing. Please read the whole thing. Colin Hales --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
