(August 10, 2009 at 9:34 pm)LukeMC Wrote: My bolding.
And within that mind exists the thoughts and feelings of the possessor, as well as the experiences with the billions of other would-be ontologically independent minds and the rest of the stuff that comes with it.

That is not a necessary premise for solipsism, no. All it states is that your conscious mind exists, and it's conscious experience. It doesn't state that anything that falls outside your actual conscious experience exists even in your mind, because to state that would be unverifiable. And since it doesn't state that your sense-data exists independently of your conscious experience, the sense data itself, even if it was much larger than it is, will always be less complex than an actually existing reality, since sense data contains and records less than actually exists according to realism.

(August 10, 2009 at 9:34 pm)LukeMC Wrote: A mind capable of inventing and maintaining this is far more complex as an entity than an objective universe full of beings.

Perhaps so. But that is not what solipsism proposes. That would be proposing more than solipsism.

(August 10, 2009 at 9:34 pm)LukeMC Wrote: the process by which it came into existence is surely a mystery.

But that falls outside what solipsism affirms anything about. Solipsism says nothing about ontogenesis, only ontology. It doesn't affirm that there is any way to know anything about ontogenesis.

Of course it's absurd and there's no way anyone (or at least, any sane person) can accept solipsism. But that it is incovenient and absurd and morally and epistemically unacceptable is not a rational reason for rejecting it.

(August 10, 2009 at 9:34 pm)LukeMC Wrote: In the same way no god is less complex than an all-powerful, super-complex god.

Not according to the doctrine of divine simplicity, the orthodox Christian understanding of God, which explicitly states that God is the simplest possible being, and that all his attributes are identical to his being, and that the universe is more complex than God.

(August 10, 2009 at 10:31 pm)Jon Paul Wrote: That is not a necessary premise for solipsism, no. All it states is that your conscious mind exists, and it's conscious experience. It doesn't state that anything that falls outside your actual conscious experience exists even in your mind, because to state that would be unverifiable. And since it doesn't state that your sense-data exists independently of your conscious experience, the sense data itself, even if it was much larger than it is, will always be less complex than an actually existing reality, since sense data contains and records less than actually exists according to realism.

The reality itself would be less complex, but not the whole system. Of course, if all I'd ever seen in my life was my bedroom, it would be much simpler to say my bedroom is all that exists than to say a universe exists outside of it. But the difference is that (like Kyuu said) the idea of a universe offers one or two layers of complexity to exist, whereas a conscious mind upholding its experience of a universe it created adds whole new layers of baffling complexity to the system as a whole.

With solipsism I can go as far as to say my mind is real and what I cosciously experience is real in one form or another. After this, the assumptions I base my life on are not to do with solipsism as such, but stem from an Occam's razor decision of which scenario is the least complex/most probable. With my confirmed conscious mind I can go on to conclude that if my mind is all that exists, it must have greater levels of complexity to process the experiences I have had than whatever complexity an objective universe has. By no means am I claiming this to be verifiable. Just a foundation built up from the first premise.

Jon Paul Wrote:Not according to the doctrine of divine simplicity, the orthodox Christian understanding of God, which explicitly states that God is the simplest possible being, and that all his attributes are identical to his being, and that the universe is more complex than God.

(August 11, 2009 at 8:22 am)LukeMC Wrote: The reality itself would be less complex, but not the whole system.

There would be none other than the conscious experience. To state that there is any "system" accounting for the conscious experience is to go into the metaphysics of it's ontology, which is again to speculate about ontogenesis, which is not solipsism, since solipsism has an extremely limited ontology and epistemology. A bit like many naturalist physicists believe that the question of why anything exists is a question that is either answered by the fact that it does (e.g. the cause of the existence of the universe is within the natural order itself), or no answer exists to it, solipsism takes the stance that the reason the mind exists (ontogenesis) either lies in the mind itself (e.g. the cause of the mind is within the natural order of the existence of the mind), or there is no answer. In all cases, it does not go into the metaphysics, in the sense of what is beyond the mind, since that would be affirming extra-solipsistic existence, just like the naturalist does not go into what is beyond nature, since that would be affirming extra-natural existence.

(August 11, 2009 at 8:22 am)LukeMC Wrote: Of course, if all I'd ever seen in my life was my bedroom, it would be much simpler to say my bedroom is all that exists than to say a universe exists outside of it. But the difference is that (like Kyuu said) the idea of a universe offers one or two layers of complexity to exist, whereas a conscious mind upholding its experience of a universe it created adds whole new layers of baffling complexity to the system as a whole.

But the conscious mind needs not uphold what you call either a "system" OR a "universe". Because in solipsism, to say that anything exists outside of your conscious experience is an unverifiable claim which is simply not made. Again, it's simple: all that exists is your conscious experience, no universe, no system, no nothing, just that which is contained your conscious experience. Anything which is not consciously experienced by you, is by no means held to exist, because all that exists is your mind, and saying that anything which you haven't experienced with your mind exists, is again positing an extra-solipsistic reality.

(August 11, 2009 at 8:22 am)LukeMC Wrote: With solipsism I can go as far as to say my mind is real and what I cosciously experience is real in one form or another. After this, the assumptions I base my life on are not to do with solipsism as such, but stem from an Occam's razor decision of which scenario is the least complex/most probable. With my confirmed conscious mind I can go on to conclude that if my mind is all that exists, it must have greater levels of complexity to process the experiences I have had than whatever complexity an objective universe has. By no means am I claiming this to be verifiable. Just a foundation built up from the first premise.

But you have not at all justified that claim. You have confounded solipsism with a machine simulating an entire universe or a system, which solipsism categorically rejects, and at that, you have done that as if that system or universe existed in any other form (necessitating it's simulation) or as if something actually existed other than the conscious experience of the mind (e.g. that which is not experienced "yet" maybe), which solipsism completely rejects.

What is the mind?

(August 11, 2009 at 12:28 pm)LukeMC Wrote: What is the mind?

The mind is, in this context, at the very least the ontological reality and entity in which all sense-data and thoughts are consciously experienced.

(August 11, 2009 at 2:30 pm)Jon Paul Wrote:

(August 11, 2009 at 12:28 pm)LukeMC Wrote: What is the mind?

The mind is, in this context, at the very least the ontological reality and entity in which all sense-data and thoughts are consciously experienced.

And you go on to deny that the conscious experiences which this mind has actually exist in any form?

(August 11, 2009 at 2:32 pm)LukeMC Wrote: And you go on to deny that the conscious experiences which this mind has actually exist in any form?

No. The solipsist acknowledges the existence of conscious experience, and nothing more. He does not make the leap of faith that the conscious experience represents an independent reality outside of the conscious experience in the mind itself.

(August 11, 2009 at 2:34 pm)Jon Paul Wrote: No. The solipsist acknowledges the existence of conscious experience, and nothing more. He does not make the leap of faith that the conscious experience represents an independent reality outside of the conscious experience in the mind itself.

And nor did I within my arguments. So why then is it that you deny that a universe or system even exists within the mind?

(August 10, 2009 at 5:59 pm)Jon Paul Wrote:

(August 10, 2009 at 5:51 pm)Kyuuketsuki Wrote: Even if you assume YOU are the one doing the dreaming it would mean that the virtual/dream scenario is pointless and no one else was real! Why bother? I don't think you are claiming that though! I think you want to have a hosted scenario with the host being non-existent which brings us back to mental masturbation.

No. All I have said is that proposing only a mind (which is all we have real evidence of) is proposing less complexity than proposing a reality outside of the mind.

A mind which must support ITSELF in addition to hosting the entire universal scenario ... it is therefore MORE COMPLEX than the base assumption of a physical universe!

(August 10, 2009 at 5:59 pm)Jon Paul Wrote: I have not said anything about which scenario is true or false.

It is implicit in your claim.

Kyu

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(August 11, 2009 at 8:22 am)LukeMC Wrote: [quote='Jon Paul' pid='25382' dateline='1249957894']The reality itself would be less complex, but not the whole system. Of course, if all I'd ever seen in my life was my bedroom, it would be much simpler to say my bedroom is all that exists than to say a universe exists outside of it. But the difference is that (like Kyuu said) the idea of a universe offers one or two layers of complexity to exist, whereas a conscious mind upholding its experience of a universe it created adds whole new layers of baffling complexity to the system as a whole.

And again ... thank you Luke! Finally someone else gets what it is I am on about (and more to the point what a load of old tripe these Jon Paul & Arcanus are wittering on about).

Kyu

(August 11, 2009 at 3:15 pm)Kyuuketsuki Wrote: A mind which must support ITSELF in addition to hosting the entire universal scenario ... it is therefore MORE COMPLEX than the base assumption of a physical universe!

The mind does not contain conscious experience of the entire universal scenario. Anything that falls outside the conscious experience of the mind does not exist, for the solipsist, since all that exists is the conscious experience contained in the mind.

I've already said it:

The sense data of the mind, even if it was much larger than it is, will always be lessser and less complex than an actually existing reality, since sense data contains and records less than actually exists according to realism.

You say a mind which supports itself, which is again metaontology and metaphysics, that speculates as to the ontogenesis of the mind, and why the mind is. But the only object of ontology is that which is, and the mind is. Just like the natural world exists, and there is no reason why it exists which is is not itself a part of the reality of the natural world (for the naturalist), there is no reason why the mind exists, which is not itself a part of the reality that the mind exists (for the solipsist) since that is all he affirms in existence at all.

(August 11, 2009 at 2:53 pm)LukeMC Wrote:

(August 11, 2009 at 2:34 pm)Jon Paul Wrote: No. The solipsist acknowledges the existence of conscious experience, and nothing more. He does not make the leap of faith that the conscious experience represents an independent reality outside of the conscious experience in the mind itself.

And nor did I within my arguments. So why then is it that you deny that a universe or system even exists within the mind?

The conscious experience of sense data is the only system there is, and that is not really a system but the ontological fact of the mind.