RE: "How do you actually know you're real?"
January 17, 2013 at 3:07 pm
(This post was last modified: January 17, 2013 at 3:12 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
(January 10, 2013 at 7:42 am)Creed of Heresy Wrote: Oh.Sorry, I had a brainfart when I was reading your post, something didn't translate well to my brain in it.
I see what you mean, it's just...how DOES one convince someone that thinks that the argument that the five senses are not enough to be definitive proof of one's own existence that, in fact, it is all that you have and all that is needed? If you can at all? And is it valid to think that way? Or is it just idiocy masquerading as deep thought that rejects any semblance of tangibility in favor of arguing the inarguable? Take a guess which one I think it is. My concern is just, am I biased? SHOULD I be considering this viewpoint as valid, or...is common sense just working in my favor on this one?
How indeed. The truth is that you cannot, and that solipsism is technically valid. I matters very little, in the end, if it's all an illusion. It's just a shift in qualifiers. It isn't really idiocy masquerading as anything. It -is- "deep thought", and it took us a long time to come to it, but it isn't useful or productive thought. The bit where ignorance gets involved is when someone proposes it as a detriment to your viewpoint and a support or defense of their own (specifically in attacking yours - as is usually the case). In truth, it's a scorched earth. Two opposing viewpoint may both be incorrect once solipsism is invoked, but one may still be less incorrect than the other. In the context of an atheist debating a theist, an appeal to solipsism is a concession of defeat on the part of the theist. Simply agree with them, you can't prove any of it, it's all an illusion - including their god. You're a figment of their imagination offering up their own doubts, or vice-versa. The delusion isn't collective, but the collective nature of the delusion is delusion itself, etc etc etc.
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