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14 Apr 08
Originally posted by Mark AdkinsYou again avoid the question put to you: how do you as a solipsist behave and interact in the world? As a solipsist, who contends reality is a deception, do you pay taxes? Do you abide state law? As a solipsist, surely you would have no inhibitions about genocidal massacres because they are not real anyway.
Accepting the conventional representation of my world is not simpler, since it is inconsistent with my observations. Many of those observations (as I've already suggested in referring to a position of centrality within my universe) involve a good deal of behavior by so-called others which conclusively indicates that they are not genuinely sentient, inde ...[text shortened]... thy and hostile, and I have thus been conditioned to tend to avoid interacting with them.
14 Apr 08
4 edits
Mark’s solipsism seems to be of the full-blown ontological variety.* The interesting thing for me is that I seem to recall posting on these forums for some years before he showed up, and there appears to be at least circumstantial evidence that I in fact did so. Now, if I am simply a projection of Mark’s consciousness, then my memories of such events are strictly delusional—as well as any other life memories that I seem to have.
Now Mark has assessed his consciousness as, at least in part, “an altered, impaired state of consciousness” (although the word “altered” raises some questions). Based on both (a) his comments about “in-person” interactions with other pseudo-beings—their facial expressions, their verbal responses, their hostility toward himself as the singular source of sentience—and (b) his strange interactions with his own mental creations on here (those that you might think of as “us” ), I might suggest that his impairment quite likely includes multiple personality disorder of some sort. That is, because of his impairment, he has been unable to integrate these various personalities (including “us” ), which were not deliberate creations of his to begin with. (The comment that “I seldom speak honestly of my views since that could lead to problems for me” is also interesting in this context, for the “problems” could only come from his other personalities.) Whether or not he is a megalomaniac (in at least one personality) depends, of course, on the actual existence of the rest of us.
I, for one, intend to not respond to Mark further at all (sans hostility, or any other emotional investment for that matter). Perhaps, after a suitable interim, he will—in a moment of lucidity—be able to tell me exactly what this (non-deliberate) creation of his consciousness has been (apparently) up to in his “absence.”
This has been quite interesting. And I, for one, have enjoyed the interaction.
____________________________________________
* Based on such comments as the following:
“I do not believe that I am interacting with sentient, independent beings”
“I'm the only sentient being in it”
“so-called others”
Although he specifies “sentient, independent beings,” it does not appear that he admits any non-sentient, independent beings into the universe that is his consciousness either. At least he has not been clear on that point.
14 Apr 08
Originally posted by Conrau KI said nothing about an "other-ego" much less "one that makes me dream reality". Nor did I attempt to postulate or give details of any mechanism. Please stop dropping your misrepresentational pantloads, or else leave the room.
This does not sound like solipsism to me. You are not the only thing that exists; there is a bizarre other-ego that makes you dream reality. In an almost hyde-and-jekyll psychology, your imagination is separated as an autonomous thing outside the conscious self.
Plus, it must be difficult for a solipsist to understand any language, given that language i ...[text shortened]... er? ... And why would a solipsist have a language if the communicant and receiver were the same?
14 Apr 08
Originally posted by vistesdThis is exactly the sort of childish parroting (mixed with contrarianism) that I have come to expect from the pseudo-sentients. There is no "you" -- "you" exist only as some text on my screen. You have no mind and therefore you experience no universe.
[b]I DO think that my universe is (in one sense or another) a figment of my imagination. I'm the only sentient being in it.
Of course, since my universe is (in one sense or another) a figment of my imagination, you are not a sentient being in it. And since my consciousness is neither altered nor impaired (how could that possibly be, since my consciou ...[text shortened]... no argument, except as I myself generate for my own amusement. My universe is quite coherent.[/b]
Solipsism does not prevent me from discerning the fact that I exist in an altered, impaired state of consciousness. When I awake from sleep, I know that I have been experiencing an altered, impaired state of consciousnessness; and even when asleep, if I am dreaming lucidly, I know this also. My so-called waking state is also an altered, impaired state of consciousness. I apprehend this through direct knowledge of myself.
I am the only sentient being in my universe. Your prattling is merely pseudo-sentient nonsense, like gas-bubbles rising to the surface of a swamp. My universe, as I have already indicated, is NOT coherent. It is not functioning properly, due to intervening pathological influences. These manifest in unwanted and unnatural behaviors by the pseudo-sentients, and in other ways. Considering the totality of my experiences and observations, I am satisfied that these pathological influences are non-sentient also. If I were to restrict my consideration to only parts of the evidence, it would be easy to delude myself. One's imagination is a powerful thing, and can easily pose as anything from God to the Devil to anything in between. It also can be influenced by one's own ideas about things, in turn creating manifestations which feed a cycle of delusion.
14 Apr 08
Originally posted by josephwI know that my universe is not coherent because I observe this. How do I know that the sky is blue and the grass green? I also have an innate sense of the way things should be, and the way things should not be; I know what is proper and natural, and what is not. I have also previously written of self-evident truths known by means of direct apprehension. If you were a sentient being, you would not question the incoherency of the universe, because it would be OBVIOUS. You are like one of those moronic pseudo-sentients who write books claiming that their own (supposed) consciousness is an illusion. Absurd. You will not convince me that I am mistaken by means of bald assertions to the contrary. *I* am not a figment of my imagination, though what I call "my body" is.
So if your universe is a figment of your imagination, how do you know whether or not it's coherent?
The idea that the universe is a figment of the imagination is just that. A figment of the imagination. Otherwise nothing is real. If nothing is real, then everything doesn't exist. If nothing exists, there's nothing left to say.
Or is it just my imagination? 🙄
14 Apr 08
Originally posted by KellyJayYou remarks are erroneous. I have often influenced the content of books and movies, in highly idiosyncratic and unmistakably ways. I am able to influence both the behavior of supposed other beings as well as various kinds of "natural phenomena" which do not even ostensibly involve sentience, simply by willing it. I have also seen these things influenced pathologically by an unknown but mindless intervening force: the latter clearly is not a sentient being with its own values, but is simply a kind of disease reflex reacting to my values in a contrarian fashion.
You interact with the universe in only one point, youself, it does not
mean that you are alone, it does not mean that you make it up as
you go, you may twist the way you would like to view it, as you can
enlarge or shrink the text on a document; however, the document
will be what it is.
Kelly
14 Apr 08
Originally posted by gaychessplayerThe anecdote illustrates only the absurdity of straw-man arguments and of those who blindly and fatuously employ them.
Perhaps the following anecdote will help to illustrate the absurdity of solipsism: According to Bertrand Russell, a lady, who claimed to be a solipsist, wrote him a letter and asked him why he thought that more people weren't solipsists.
Solipsim is one of the few philosophies that has less intellectual credibility than astrology. In fact, one po ...[text shortened]... at I exist?" The professor, not missing a beat, quickly yells back: "Who wants to know?"
Your middle paragraph appears to come from an old Britannica article I once read.
The joke about the boy and the professor makes no sense and does not pertain to solipsism. If the boy had asked of the professor "How do I know that you exist?" it might conceivably have had some relevance.
14 Apr 08
1 edit
Originally posted by gaychessplayerThe answer to your first question is: because I feel like it and because it suits my own purposes. Since I am not inclined to explain this to you, AND because there is actually nobody aside from myself to explain this to, I won't.
You'd only be replying to non-existent beings anyway, so why do you give a sh** anyway?
BTW, if you ever stop at a stop sign when you are driving, then you are admitting that there are other people who will run you over and perhaps kill you. One might be able to entertain some sort of intellectual committment to solipsism, but being a so ...[text shortened]... isted, so what is the "cash value" (to use William James' term) of being a solipsist anyway?
I admit nothing about the existence of other sentient beings when I stop at a stop sign. I also avoid falling rocks, but no reasonable person would regard this as an admission that I imagine the rocks to be sentient.
The value of being a solipsist is manifold. First, I am interested in the truth as regards fundamental things. Second, someone who operates from a position of sound knowledge is more likely to make practical gains than someone who is not.
14 Apr 08
Originally posted by Conrau KI did NOT avoid the question. If your interpretation of amannion's question involves personal trivia about my payment of taxes or attitude toward state law, that is too bad.
You again avoid the question put to you: how do you as a solipsist behave and interact in the world? As a solipsist, who contends reality is a deception, do you pay taxes? Do you abide state law? As a solipsist, surely you would have no inhibitions about genocidal massacres because they are not real anyway.
As for inhibitions about genocidal massacres, I do not know what this means. My universe consists solely of the class of sensory experiences I call "external". If I have not experienced something then it has not occurred in my universe. That includes genocidal massacres, the American revolution, King Louis XIV, and the Pleistocene era.
If you are asking me whether I feel free to indulge, myself, in genocidal massacres, this rather absurdly presumes that the urge to commit genocidal massacres is a natural one which is held in check only by a belief in the reality of other beings. Again, this indicates to me a complete lack of comprehension on your part of how the sentient mind works, of the nature of morality and its interplay with free-will, and so forth.
It is true that I would like to get rid of the so-called other humans because they have been so much trouble and made themselves so offensive. I can see that they are a corruption of a very fine idea, but at this point I am tired of them and would not accept them even if they were they to begin behaving perfectly tomorrow and be guaranteed to continue to do so. I need a long break from pseudo-sentients and until I learn what went wrong and how to avoid this, and obtain proper control over phenomena and my environment, as well as come to understand and gain control over the pathological forces which have corrupted my universe, I will not accept the existence of pseudo-sentients in general, and pseudo-humans in particular.
14 Apr 08
1 edit
Originally posted by vistesdI also interact with apparently sentient (but actually nonsentient) and apparently independent (but not actually independent) "other beings" in sleeping dreams, who also assert their reality and claim or imply past histories independent of me. That is not evidence of their reality or sentience! Nor, then, is your written statement here, under the circumstances.
Mark’s solipsism seems to be of the full-blown ontological variety.* The interesting thing for me is that I seem to recall posting on these forums for some years before he showed up, and there appears to be at least circumstantial evidence that I in fact did so. Now, if I am simply a projection of Mark’s consciousness, then my memories of such events are s o the universe that is his consciousness either. At least he has not been clear on that point.
*I* suggest that you are a slanderous and deceitful pseudo-sentient, who seems threatened by the existence of anyone sane and smart enough to perceive the truth and brave enough to speak it. (Of course, your pseudo-sentient traits are merely behavioral, but none the less tendentious for that.)
14 Apr 08
2 edits
P.S. vistesd, I have also seen the same "news" articles, movies, magazine covers, etc., repeat themselves more than once, separated by an interval of years, and presented the second time as though they had never occurred the first time, with all archival evidence of the first occurrence seemingly edited out of reality. Understanding the conventional nature of "deja vu" as I do, I made dead certain that the recurrences were exact and not merely similar. I also waited until I had accumulated numerous high-quality observations of such phenomena before I accepted this conclusion as fact. Would you care to dismiss THIS in terms of a "personality disorder" also? (I'll bet you would, but you can't.)
14 Apr 08
1 edit
Originally posted by vistesdThis is quite bizarre and absurd. I do not have "multiple personalities" and the problems I alluded to would come from the strictly so-called (and actually non-sentient) "other humans" populating my world.
I might suggest that his impairment quite likely includes multiple personality disorder of some sort...The comment that “I seldom speak honestly of my views since that could lead to problems for me” is also interesting in this context, for the “problems” could only come from his other personalities.
Note how devious vistesd was in making this claim: he interwove a reference to "various personalities (including 'us'😉" into his original paragraph, so as to attempt to conflate the pseudo-sentients ("other humans" ) with me, apparently to allow him make the slanderous suggestion of "multiple personality disorder".
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14 Apr 08
Originally posted by Mark AdkinsI did NOT avoid the question. If your interpretation of amannion's question involves personal trivia about my payment of taxes or attitude toward state law, that is too bad.
I did NOT avoid the question. If your interpretation of amannion's question involves personal trivia about my payment of taxes or attitude toward state law, that is too bad.
As for inhibitions about genocidal massacres, I do not know what this means. My universe consists solely of the class of sensory experiences I call "external". If I ha ...[text shortened]... ill not accept the existence of pseudo-sentients in general, and pseudo-humans in particular.
No my interpretation was headed in the initial question "How do you behave and interact in the world?" This was what amannion was asking. For example, "Why bother responding to posts on a website?" and "How exactly do you work with and live with others?"
Once more, you evade my questions. I did not ask whether your personally experience genocidal impulses; I asked that, given you do not believe people really exist, do you have an inhibition (or, to clarify, a moral aversion) to genocidal massacres? If I were a solipsist, people who have zero moral value. So I would not have any inhibitions against genocidal massacres. Is this true for you?
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14 Apr 08
Originally posted by Mark AdkinsYou are the source of your dreams (reality is a figment of your imagination); you do not, however, consciously engineer these dreams; therefore, an unconscious component of your mind is the source of your dreams. In your formulation of solipsism, this unconscious has the power to invent languages, construct the Western literary corpus, and produce a complex social order. That is another ego.
I said nothing about an "other-ego" much less "one that makes me dream reality". Nor did I attempt to postulate or give details of any mechanism. Please stop dropping your misrepresentational pantloads, or else leave the room.
Your unconscious sounds really smart. Can I speak to it from now on?