Split Thread Science cannot explain consciousness, therefore....

[Darat]

OK, I get you now.

But then I would not be thinking. I would not even be a person, I won't have a mind, I would be a figment of a solipsists imagination.
I am taking from a first person perspective, a figment cannot have that.

Why ever not? What is this limit you seek to impose on the solpolist? Why can't the solpolist have imaginingings of people and that those imaginary people think they are real people actually thinking? The solpolist can hold ideas as diverse as the uncertainty principle and plank scales and the extent of the oceans and time scales of billions of years and of billions of people existing all at the same time, imagining people who think they are thinking doesn't seem a particular stretch for this all powerful being!

 

[Cheetah]

I think you would have to explain how something that does not even exist is able to think and have a perspective at all.
I say it can not.

 

[Darat]

I think you would have to explain how something that does not even exist is able to think and have a perspective at all.
I say it can not.

You have simply been programmed to think you think, you have no way to demonstrate even to yourself that you are doing "solopolist real thinking" rather than being a figment of the solpolist's mind that is capable of "real" thinking. (It's really a form of the infamous p-zombie.)

I think you are struggling to find a deep philosophical point to this - there isn't one - well there is but only as deep as any silly philosophy is, remember all it is doing is demonstrating how LarryS's assertion that his "mind reality" doesn't have to start with an assumption like the "non-mind reality" he derides does.

 

[Cheetah]

Why can't the solpolist have imaginingings of people and that those imaginary people think they are real people actually thinking?

Because they are figments of his imagination they are per definition not real.

I don't believe anything that is not real in any sense is able to think.

You keep dodging my question.
Why do you think it might be possible?

 

[Darat]

Because they are figments of his imagination they are per definition not real.

I don't believe anything that is not real in any sense is able to think.
Why do you think it might be possible?

You demonstrate the exact assumption that LarryS was doing, it's an argument from personal incredulity, not a fact based argument.

(Again - I don't think this is the case, I think ideas like solpolism can be good for a bit of chewing the fat but is in the end valueless when it comes to reality.)

 

[Cheetah]

Now I am making a straightforward claim, nothing at all to do with solipsism or any other philosophical stance, just a claim from me, personally.

I don't believe that a nonexistent thing is able to think and have a mind.

That is what I'm saying, you seem to disagree, would you please explain how you think that might be possible, because it really does not seem unreasonable to me. It is a very rationalist, materialist view.*

 

[David Mo]

You have been arguing in support of the solipsist case all the way through this thread, and also through previous threads. So do not keep telling us that you are not a solipsist.

Well, I can't argue with someone so closed in himself. Perhaps you are the true solipsist in this forum. Because either you don't seem to care what others say or you don't hear it.
Let me know when you are going to tell something new, please.

 

[Cheetah]

You have simply been programmed to think you think, you have no way to demonstrate even to yourself that you are doing "solopolist real thinking" rather than being a figment of the solpolist's mind that is capable of "real" thinking. (It's really a form of the infamous p-zombie.)

I believe I have spotted your problem.
You have claimed that p-zombies actually do have minds and can think, that's a contradiction.
Then they would not be p-zombies, but people and would exist.

 

[David Mo]

But how would you know that? In this kind of solipsist world, how would a thinking person distinguish itself from a perfectly simulated figment that doesn't realize it isn't thinking?

Your question is absolutely meaningless. I can logically doubt that I am a ghost, a computer, an intelligent dog, a devil of Satan, a man or a drunken god. But whatever I could be, if I am thinking or being deceived by someone else, I exist. Or can you fool someone who doesn't exist? How can that simulated figment think that it exists and doesn't exist meanwhile he is thinking? Either someone is cheating or someone is cheated but you cannot conjugate the verb deceive without a subject that is thinking.

You guys are writing words that don't mean anything, caramba!

 

[ynot]

Then he (the solipsist mind) is demanding that he himself must “prove” it!

That is – if you are saying that the “we” and “us” are just figments in the imagination of a solipsist mind, then you are now claiming that the same solipsist mind is the one demanding the proof from itself!

And that's exactly what I have put to you 15 times or more – if all that exists are thoughts in a single solipsist mind, then all the posts here are also just from that same solipsist mind, in which case it is the solipsist's own mind that is demanding that it itself must prove that no "we" or "us" exists! … and that is the very definition of a monumental self-contradiction in any claim of solipsism.

Exactly!

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

Then he (the solipsist mind) is demanding that he himself must “prove” it!

That is – if you are saying that the “we” and “us” are just figments in the imagination of a solipsist mind, then you are now claiming that the same solipsist mind is the one demanding the proof from itself!

And that's exactly what I have put to you 15 times or more – if all that exists are thoughts in a single solipsist mind, then all the posts here are also just from that same solipsist mind, in which case it is the solipsist's own mind that is demanding that it itself must prove that no "we" or "us" exists! … and that is the very definition of a monumental self-contradiction in any claim of solipsism.

FWIW I don't understand how you see that consistency as a contradiction.

 

[Cheetah]

Yes, people seem unable to grasp the basic concepts.
So far there has been no discussion, just an endless attempt to explain the problem.

 

[ynot]

FWIW I don't understand how you see that consistency as a contradiction.

FWIW I don't understand how you see that contradiction as a consistency.

It’s like Walt Disney asking Mickey Mouse to prove he actually exists.

 

[Darat]

Now I am making a straightforward claim, nothing at all to do with solipsism or any other philosophical stance, just a claim from me, personally.

I don't believe that a nonexistent thing is able to think and have a mind.

That is what I'm saying, you seem to disagree, would you please explain how you think that might be possible, because it really does not seem unreasonable to me. It is a very rationalist, materialist view.*

But my comments are only about the assumption LarryS ignores when he makes his claims. I thought I'd made that very clear?
ETA: To your wider point, optical illusions are real even the illusionary part. Just how they are real is very different from how we experience them.

 

[Darat]

Yes, people seem unable to grasp the basic concepts.
So far there has been no discussion, just an endless attempt to explain the problem.

Because that is usually have you solve a problem, by understanding exactly what the problem is.

 

[David Mo]

FWIW I don't understand how you see that contradiction as a consistency.

It’s like Walt Disney asking Mickey Mouse to prove he actually exists.

Maybe Disney is gone crazy. So he thinks he is Mickey. Or Mickey is actually someone thinking that he hears voices. Anyway, somebody's thinking. This one is the "I" who thinks he is Mickey. Because the solipsist's argument is not that there is a talking parrot. But there's a mind that thinks. And you can't deny that from the moment you're thinking right now. Or do you read this without thinking about what you read?But it is impossible that there is nobody that is thinking. If there is a thought some mind -natural or man-made- is thinking this thought.

You don't realize it, but your example proves that the solipsist is right.

 

[David Mo]

FWIW I don't understand how you see that consistency as a contradiction.

You are quite right. This is one of IanS's most unfortunate arguments. There is no reason why the solipsist has to seek confirmation that there are ideas in his mind. If you are thinking X, you are thinking X, regardless X coul be true or false and regardless what you may be.
Sometimes I don't understand where IanS goes.

 

[Cheetah]

But my comments are only about the assumption LarryS ignores when he makes his claims. I thought I'd made that very clear?

Then I am at a total loss, whatever LarryS wrote really has nothing to do with me, I have not made any assumptions in this thread.

All I have been doing is stating basic facts and principles of philosophy and trying to explain them to people who for mysterious reasons disagree.

The "mysterious reasons" are what I'm trying to figure out, it really is a mystery to me.

 

[Cheetah]

This thread is the equivalent of someone posting an interesting equation in the mathematics forum and asking for ideas to try and solve it.
We want to discuss whether it is solvable at all and how you would go about doing it. If not, can we at least devise a partial or maybe an approximate solution?

People start commenting and contributing, but it is immediately apparent most have no idea what even +, -, * and / means. Without knowing the terms and understanding their meaning most of the contributions are nonsensical and contradictory.

So far we have not even gotten to discussing the equation, because all the effort has been in trying to explain what +, -, * and / means, it's frustrating.

In an ideal world, you would at least study the basics of mathematics before attempting to contribute to a mathematics thread, the same should hold for any subject.

 

[Darat]

Then I am at a total loss, whatever LarryS wrote really has nothing to do with me, I have not made any assumptions in this thread.
All I have been doing is stating basic facts and principles of philosophy and trying to explain them to people who for mysterious reasons disagree.

The "mysterious reasons" are what I'm trying to figure out, it really is a mystery to me.

You've lost the thread of the discussion then solpolism was only raised in this thread (as I may have mentioned once or twice) to illustrate the silliness of LarryS's assertion and to demonstrate how the criticism he makes of what he terms "realists" and the assumption of a world that exists beyond his consciousness also applies to his own assumptions.