Solipsism / Cartesian philosophy are fun when you're a college sophomore. Then you grow up.
The thing about solipsism is that it doesn't get you anywhere. Sure, this could all be a hallucination. For all I know I'm a trans-dimensional turnip in the cozmik vegetable looney-bin, tripping on LSD25. But so what? It looks real, it feels real, it has testable, coherent, consistent laws of physics with which I can manipulate what appears to be matter and energy to achieve predictable goals.
So even though it is impossible to empirically demonstrate that anything other than 'me' exists, I might as well act as though it does, and live my life as though it does. It makes no difference, so long as this apparent reality continues to be consistent and predictable.
Or I could sit around smoking pot and asking "dude, have you ever, like, y'know, ever really looked at your hands?"
The thing about solipsism is that it doesn't get you anywhere. Sure, this could all be a hallucination. For all I know I'm a trans-dimensional turnip in the cozmik vegetable looney-bin, tripping on LSD25. But so what? It looks real, it feels real, it has testable, coherent, consistent laws of physics with which I can manipulate what appears to be matter and energy to achieve predictable goals.
So even though it is impossible to empirically demonstrate that anything other than 'me' exists, I might as well act as though it does, and live my life as though it does. It makes no difference, so long as this apparent reality continues to be consistent and predictable.
Or I could sit around smoking pot and asking "dude, have you ever, like, y'know, ever really looked at your hands?"
