RE: Non-existence
August 11, 2009 at 12:08 pm
(This post was last modified: August 11, 2009 at 12:09 pm by Jon Paul.)
(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.
The people who are the most bigoted are the people who have no convictions at all.
-G. K. Chesterton
-G. K. Chesterton