Proof Mind is Fundamental and Matter Doesn't Exist

[Angrboda]

Premises 1 and 2 are a classic argument from ignorance, and hence the conclusion  that solipsism is possible doesn't follow.

is that so? the first two premises was specifically to show it is by definition it is unreasonable to believe solipsism is impossible. that means to our epistemic knowledge (for all we know and could possibly learn) solipsism is possible. as such, it is then also reasonable to conclude solipsism is actually possible. you can try to argue we can't use epistemic knowledge to make metaphysical claims and therefore we should be undecided in those terms... but then that would also be to divorce metaphysical knowledge from knowledge you could attain. thus it would not be reasonable as to say 'we can't know about the metaphysical' as that itself is a metaphysical claim that you likewise could not claim to know. thus the only reasonable alternative is to presume we can know of the metaphysical and therefore solipsism is possible.

But you aren't using epistemic knowledge to make a metaphysical claim, you are using the absence of epistemic knowledge, ignorance, to make a metaphysical claim.

[bennyboy]

Moreover, you're assuming that a full explanation of mind won't show how matter is essential to mind.  That's an argument from ignorance

Aren't you also now assuming that there's a theoretical state in which a full explanation of mind can or will be known?  Are you assuming that science, which has demonstrated very little facility in addressing philosophical issues of cosmogony or psychogony, just hasn't got there "yet"?

It seems to me that mind is a special case, and that the belief that it can or will be fully explained is at this point little more than a statement of faith.

[Rational AKD]

But you aren't using epistemic knowledge to make a metaphysical claim, you are using the absence of epistemic knowledge, ignorance, to make a metaphysical claim.

as I said, to our epistemic knowledge solipsism is possible. this is not ignorance.

[Redbeard The Pink]

you misunderstand the intent of the first premise. i'm not saying 'you can't prove it wrong therefore it's true.' i'm saying 'it's impossible to prove it wrong, therefore it's unreasonable to presume it's impossible.' this simply follows, the definition of reasonable is a position that can be reasoned. if you can't prove it false, then you can't possibly reason it's impossible thus it's not reasonable to presume as such. this makes it reasonable to presume solipsism is possible as per premise 2.

It basically doesn't matter what the intent behind your first premise is; the premise itself is fallacious. Your claim (however you choose to word it) is that it is impossible to prove the non-existence of a mind whose dreams encompass all of reality, and I'm telling you that because that statement is non-falsifiable it is logically irrelevant, and that it fallaciously misplaces the burden of proof. This is the first premise we're talking about, and not your conclusion.


Really, though, the possibility of your statement depends on how you define the term "mind." To me, a "mind" is most accurately defined as an animal's intellect, or the quality that allows an animal to be aware of and experience the natural world; because science seems to indicate that this quality is a series of chemical and electrical processes residing within brains and the sense organs attached to them, it's not unreasonable to assume that a mind without a nervous system of some sort is a paradox, and therefore an impossible object. If a mind without matter (specifically brains/nerves) is an impossible object, then solipsism fails by definition.

in what world does 'introspection' translate to 'presuppositions'?

In a world where people attempt to establish argumentative premises that can't be accepted as fact on their own without further scrutiny.

what 'false logic' is there?

Misplaced burden of proof. Premise #1.

based on false logic and speculation? which premises are speculative?

Well, for one thing, the premise that all of reality is dreamed up by an all-encompassing mind is purely speculative because it's completely untestable and lacks evidence entirely.

how about the only thing that exists is a mind, and produces lesser minds from his thoughts. and he produces a simulation of an apparent physical world.

How can it simulate a physical world if there is no physical world for it to simulate? If the only iteration of a physical world is this "simulation" that exists inside this hypothetical mind of yours, then this iteration is, for all intents and purposes, the only physical world. It is not a simulation of anything.

perhaps it was a poor choice of words on my part. I meant, he mapped out a world in likeness to a physical one.' the world he mapped out of course would be completely fabricated as there is no actual physical world to look at.

Ok, so now you're using the word "likeness," which is just another synonym for "simulation" and "resemblance." You cannot use language to escape this problem because the problem is with the concept and not the language. You cannot have a "likeness" of physical reality unless physical reality is a thing that exists and can therefore be emulated.

except you didn't address my reasoning, rather just criticized the conclusion. at least, not until this later post.

No, I've pretty well just been dwelling on Premise #1 because it's bullshit.

wait... what was that I heard? regardless? so i'm not using false logic after all?

Yeah, you are. Premise #1. I honestly haven't looked too far past that because if you're starting with a fallacy, whatever you're following it with basically doesn't matter. Nothing can logically follow from a logical fallacy.

so by falsifiable you mean... what exactly? because making an argument automatically makes it falsifiable by the condition of debunking the premises or the validity of the logic. I can only assume you mean empirically verifiable in which case I would have to whole heartedly disagree with you. not everything can be empirically verified.

By falsifiable I mean "can be proven false." Your premise cannot be proven false by virtue of its structure rather than its merit...that is, unless one considers a mind without matter to be an impossible object, in which case your premise can be proven false by way of impossibility.

[brewer]

More questions.

Are you arguing god into existence? I would think that a god that simulated all of these minds would not need an argument. That would be one of the basic laws/givens of the mind simulation.

Or, are you arguing your belief system into existence and giving us your supporting argument? If you are, thanks, you're welcome to it, hope it works for you. I'll go my own way.

Tell me if I'm wrong but I hear you state that the mind is the only reality and is based on the minds ability to perceive, that matter does not exist except through the minds perception. Direct answer, yes, no, or correction.

Hypothetical: You come into the ER, the staff draws blood and tells you that you are having a hypoglycemic crisis and shows you the result of the lab test. They then tell you that if the condition is not corrected you'll die. The staff tells you that an IV drip of 50% glucose will correct your condition. They hook up the IV and leave. Because the contents/chemical make up of the IV depends on your minds perception (and this can only based on what you were told), do you recover no matter what is in the IV?

[Rational AKD]

It basically doesn't matter what the intent behind your first premise is; the premise itself is fallacious. Your claim (however you choose to word it) is that it is impossible to prove the non-existence of a mind whose dreams encompass all of reality, and I'm telling you that because that statement is non-falsifiable it is logically irrelevant, and that it fallaciously misplaces the burden of proof. This is the first premise we're talking about, and not your conclusion.

the statement can't be proven false because the existence of our own mind is evident. but that doesn't make the statement itself invalid, you can use evident claims in premises. and just because the truth of the premise is evident doesn't mean it's shifting burden of proof.

Really, though, the possibility of your statement depends on how you define the term "mind."

which is why I defined it in the OP.

To me, a "mind" is most accurately defined as an animal's intellect, or the quality that allows an animal to be aware of and experience the natural world; because science seems to indicate that this quality is a series of chemical and electrical processes residing within brains and the sense organs attached to them, it's not unreasonable to assume that a mind without a nervous system of some sort is a paradox, and therefore an impossible object. If a mind without matter (specifically brains/nerves) is an impossible object, then solipsism fails by definition.

except you have the presumption built in your definition that the mind is material, which is the only reason you come to that conclusion thus you're question begging. this is why I specifically choose a definition of mind that doesn't presume it's material or immaterial.

In a world where people attempt to establish argumentative premises that can't be accepted as fact on their own without further scrutiny.

so why can't the first premise be accepted as fact exactly?

Well, for one thing, the premise that all of reality is dreamed up by an all-encompassing mind is purely speculative because it's completely untestable and lacks evidence entirely.

tell me, what premise was that?

How can it simulate a physical world if there is no physical world for it to simulate? If the only iteration of a physical world is this "simulation" that exists inside this hypothetical mind of yours, then this iteration is, for all intents and purposes, the only physical world. It is not a simulation of anything.

right. the only reason I call it a simulation is because it is a world that acts physical but is truly not. it's merely a distinctive word because if I merely said he 'produces a material world' people would get confused. it is a simulation by function, meaning the world doesn't have it's own objective existence. it only exists as part of our subjective experience.

Ok, so now you're using the word "likeness," which is just another synonym for "simulation" and "resemblance."

except you don't need to have something to make a likeness to it. you just have to picture it.

No, I've pretty well just been dwelling on Premise #1 because it's bullshit.

lets see... you say you're skeptical I lead with an argument. that my 'premise is designed to avoid being testable or verifiable whatever that means. there's no proof for mind substance. the simulation doesn't explain irrelevant questions. and finally, what is it simulating. other than quibbles of words used, which of these actually address the premises?

Your premise cannot be proven false by virtue of its structure rather than its merit

tell me, how exactly can words be put together in premises that makes them impossible to prove false but are false nonetheless? what exactly does the structure of an argument do to make it impossible to invalidate even though it's not valid?

that is, unless one considers a mind without matter to be an impossible object

and this objection was addressed by the first and second premises. I did make clear what I meant by proof in the OP, right?

[Rational AKD]

More questions.

Are you arguing god into existence? I would think that a god that simulated all of these minds would not need an argument. That would be one of the basic laws/givens of the mind simulation.

Or, are you arguing your belief system into existence and giving us your supporting argument? If you are, thanks, you're welcome to it, hope it works for you. I'll go my own way.

Tell me if I'm wrong but I hear you state that the mind is the only reality and is based on the minds ability to perceive, that matter does not exist except through the minds perception. Direct answer, yes, no, or correction.

Hypothetical: You come into the ER, the staff draws blood and tells you that you are having a hypoglycemic crisis and shows you the result of the lab test. They then tell you that if the condition is not corrected you'll die. The staff tells you that an IV drip of 50% glucose will correct your condition. They hook up the IV and leave. Because the contents/chemical make up of the IV depends on your minds perception (and this can only based on what you were told), do you recover no matter what is in the IV?

i'm presenting an argument for idealism, but I could easily build on that for an argument for God. as for your follow up, I think it's rather presumptuous to state how God should have made the world. maybe he has reasons for not making his existence evident enough to not be questioned.

no, i'm not arguing my belief into existence. i'm providing reason via a sound argument that my belief is correct. my argument builds from the ground up, not from top to bottom.

do I think matter only exists in our perception? yes, that is correct. a good analogy I like to use is a sandbox game. in the game, you have a world to experience. the map you play on is consistent, but at the same time it's not all there at the same time. the game only loads a certain amount of the map at a time dependent on what you're viewing. sometimes you can even see parts of the map loading on your screen (of course you can't see that in reality). much is the same in an idealist world.

as for your hypothetical, it's an interesting scenario. it brings up a topic that I haven't discussed here yet. concerning contents of the world that are not observed, they are not there when you are not observing them. but their processes are still governed by determined probabilities. in the example, a hooked IV has a near 100% chance of performing its intended function given it was hooked up properly, thus when it is observed it will most likely be found performing as expected. this probability view comes mainly from evidence of quantum theory with many of it's principles and experiment findings. but it would go off topic to discuss those so I will not do so here.

[robvalue]

Others have raised many of the specific objections I would make, so I won't repeat all of them.

Solipsism could be impossible, but not demonstrably so. To announce it is possible because it can't be proved impossible is, as Jorg says, the classic argument from ignorance.

Going back to what I said, you may currently be dreaming and you think you've proved something to various figments of your imagination during the dream that "minds cannot exist in this dream". That is your best case scenario, and it doesn't preclude you waking up and realising this dream makes no sense to anything. You also have some figments well trained in dream logic opposing you, so I guess you should be proud of your ability to counter your own arguments

It also raises the problem of what "exist" actually means. This isn't trivial. Does anything in a dream world exist, or not?

[Lucanus]

Moreover, you're assuming that a full explanation of mind won't show how matter is essential to mind.  That's an argument from ignorance

Aren't you also now assuming that there's a theoretical state in which a full explanation of mind can or will be known?  Are you assuming that science, which has demonstrated very little facility in addressing philosophical issues of cosmogony or psychogony, just hasn't got there "yet"?

It seems to me that mind is a special case, and that the belief that it can or will be fully explained is at this point little more than a statement of faith.

Why? What is the evidence that points in that direction? I find it silly that in an universe so big, that is made out of matter/energy as far as anything can "see", the mind, which is such an insignificant phenomenon compared to the scale of the universe, must be of such utter importance to the workings of the universe itself.

Moreover, depending on your definition of mind, the evidence we have implies that the universe has existed for several billion years without any minds in it. So how is it then? Did the universe just spontaneously come to exist when the first cell became "aware" of the stimuli that surrounded it? If so, how did the cell begin to exist in the first place? (Jeesh)

All the evidence we have suggests that what we call 'mind', that is, the summa of our conscious sensations and behaviours (including our ability of recognising patterns, which in turn allows us to think abstractly) is "made" by the workings of a neural network. There was a recent study that showed that changing only one synapse in the worm Caenorhabditis elegans causes dramatic changes to its behaviour. Now, C. elegans is just a tiny little worm, but still, its behaviour and senses are controlled by a nervous system which functions basically in the same way as ours. The only difference is that our nervous system is several orders of magnitude bigger and more complex, and therefore allows for a bigger variety of behaviours, sensations etc.

Saying that the mind is a special case that won't ever be explained by science is a position that is completely unsupported by evidence, and is one of that kind of arguments that try to hold back the most fundamental human longing for the unknown.

And you know what? I think it's reasonable to make "statements of faith" and to trust that science will get there eventually. History pretty much shows us that doing so is like betting on a horse that always wins.

[robvalue]

Defining "mind' and "consciousness" is a big problem, really.

It's conceivable that this whole reality is in fact a manifestation of another mind, representing an emergent property within it. Another unfalsifiable premise, but one which shows you can't come to definite conclusions about the nature of reality.

Bottom line is everything goes through at least one filter, and the integrity of that filter can never be fully tested. We don't ever actually experience "reality", we receive images and feelings generated by our brains.