Is God a solipsist?
If you accept God: omnipotent, omniscient, eternally omnipresent.
Solipsist: Nothing outside the mind should be believed to exist. If ones own mind is the sum total of existence, then all perceived experience and existential things(i.e. the universe) are all merely internal processes of the mind.
So, does that make God a solipsist?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism
Solipsist: Nothing outside the mind should be believed to exist. If ones own mind is the sum total of existence, then all perceived experience and existential things(i.e. the universe) are all merely internal processes of the mind.
So, does that make God a solipsist?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism
Comments (53)
God can't be a single person, if he she or it was, it would emphatically be, just a dude.
Once you become more then one consciousness, your identity melts, you stop existing, i.e. you die.
Interesting topic.
If the notion that everything is in God's mind, the closest thing we can relate that to would be a dream, whether or not it's a sleeping dream or daydreaming or imagining I can't say.
But even IF this were true and God were the original Structure, it would mean it needs a context preceding it.
The original context is lack of context, which is the structure from which all things come from.
The original structure and/or context (It's hard to explain with language especially over the internet.) Is a Non-Nothing.
Stick with me. There is no such thing as nothing, but now there is because I said there is.
If existence is A and nothingness is B but A is dependent on B that means A and B are essentially arbitrary. Yes, I read a couple chapters of On Being And Nothingness, and no I didn't read the whole book because it's dense in unnecessary pedantic words.
The Structure and Context are FACILLITATED by nothing, not CREATED by it.
What facilitates nothing? Everything. What facilitates everything? Nothing.
This is The Tao postulated by Lao Tzu.
It's pretty easy to see what my biggest influences are.
The notion that we are in God's dream makes sense at first. However, if you have ever tried to read or look at a watch or clock in a dream you will likely not see any kind of symbols that mean anything to you.
This indicates there is a contextless origin of structure, i.e. A Non Nothing.
Think of nothing, now it is something.
The original Structure and/Context are totally arbitrary although self evident in it's own way.
What facilitates nothing? Everything. What facilitates everything? Nothing.
It is not original creation, and even if it were it would be facilitated. If it were not originally facilitated it would be a thing that was already created.
Think about infinite space. What do you think of? Outerspace? Space can also be that which OCCUPIES space. Meaning a full solid structure. Both are fully justifiable as space.
If you can imagine something that was either nothing or something it is now that something in your mind. You can imagine "nothing" but what do you think of? Blackness and empty space? Those are both something.
This is the Tao, the ever expanding perspective. Wherever you look, it goes farther, whenever you make it larger it becomes smaller.
I have come to the conclusion that God is the only true solipsist. However, given that God can do anything imaginable and unimaginable (omnipotence), there is a way to counter her solipsism. I am going to utilize a naive understanding of epistemic logic to this goal of showing that God is both a solipsist and not a solipsist. I welcome anyone to comment on the coherence of this pseudo-proof, which I am working on formalizing. This will be an informal proof of showing that God is capable of being a solipsist and not a solipsist, both at the same time.
Now, given that God is omniscient, and knows everything since she is one and the same with the world itself. The world is everything that is both the case and not the case. By "the world" I intend to mean, that God inhabits every possible world that may or may not be actualized.
The hinge proposition that allows me to assert that God is a solipsist is the following: "A solipsist cannot doubt". Now, given this proposition, the implication is that a solipsist cannot doubt due to living in a world full of certainty. Where there is a certainty, doubt cannot arise. Furthermore, given certainty, this implies epistemic closure, which any skepticist would decry as heresy. However, omniscience implies epistemic closure in any given set of world'(s) or singular world.
The flipside is reconciling omnipotence with omniscience. If God is indeed a solipsist, then she cannot doubt per the above. Yet, God is omnipotent. So, how does one, in some sense, escape the boundaries of absolute omniscience, or epistemic closure? The answer is that God is not an individual agent since she is equated with the same knowledge of inhabiting every possible world. Thus, God's knowledge is not limited to one possible world; but, an infinite many. Thus, God has the ability to expand her knowledge to infinite many possible worlds.
Thus, I conclude, and this is the important part, that if God is equated with the sum total of all possible worlds, then she is still a solipsist. Therefore, either God is a solipsist under this assumption or the other alternative, that God transcends the world in an unimaginable, unspeakable, and ineffable sense and is not a solipsist. Or to put this more succinctly, God cannot attain (absolute) epistemic closure, given that this would imply solipsism.
Any thoughts, criticisms, and questions welcome.
My first question is why bother with all this.
The emptiness of the creator is the root of many myths formed around the idea.
An interesting quality of Taoist writings is that the teaching is purely ostensive. We cannot talk about what we want to talk about.
Because it's an interesting thought experiment. Despite the amusing quality of having God as a solipsist, which seems inherently true, how do you go about addressing the skeptical argument? I mean, in Descartes writing the evil demon who prods the individual to doubt is an ad hoc proof that one does not live in a solipsistic universe.
I meant why should any creator bother with all of this. If we are the creatures trying to get a clue what is going on, the signs on the road are mostly posted by us, the clueless people on the road.
Yes; but, God is a solipsist or not?
Quoting Wallows
The idea is only worth entertaining if he/she is not.
Please expand. What do you mean?
Of course, God as conceived in the Western, Judeo-Christian scheme of things, made the world separate from himself. (It's all there in Genesis.) So the Western God of Abraham can not be a solipsist, because the world (cosmos, universe, multiverse?) isn't one and the same as God.
At least, that's the way I understand it.
Now, you wouldn't be the first person to deviate from the standard God paradigm. Some westerners, yea, even unto North Dakota and farther afield, thought/think that everything is in God, and God is in everything, such that everything that is what it is is*** God.
See that beautiful rose? God. See that bright star? God. See that manure pile covered with flies? God. See me? God. Want to see God? You are already there.
*** Just a bow to the man who made "It is what it is" famous, hereabouts.
We are the created. That such a thing happened is of great interest. But the way we talk about that captures some things and misses others.
Yes, that is my starting premise.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Yes, this is where I think Spinoza's pantheism fails or at least implies solipsism. In fact, any form of pantheism leads to the above conclusions. I've always identified myself as a pantheist so hence the above reasonings.
Quoting Bitter Crank
*Head explodes*
Yes, we are. As to the implicit question as to why there is something rather than nothing... Well, that question is such a tongue twister, that I dare not address it.
So, whereof one cannot speak, thereof one ought to remain silent?
And here we are, not sure if that is the right answer.
I do like the proposition because it does not claim what it cannot describe.
if it is good to be a solipsist the why not be one? I believe God puts a tremendous amount of thought in everything he/she does. i believe he is is a he.. The book of Job says God built this universe with wizdom.
Not true. God is the ultimate solipsist. You are merely an avatar posing as God.
Then God can't be omnipresent.
But I don't know that I'm really an avatar posing as god, therefore god can't be omniscient. All I know is that I have a mind, and if solipsism is true, then I am the solipsist by default and you are just an internet forum post because solipsism is the state of affairs where there are no other minds other than my own.
If you are claiming to be an avatar with a mind too, then solipsism cant be the case, or you would have to at least redefine what a mind is.
No, no, good Sir. Only God is a true solipsist. So, we are all just figments of God's imagination, until God wakes up and decides to start playing peekaboo with Itself or musical chairs or some such game.
Well, you, we, all of us, seem to miss the point about there being no "self" in a solipsistic world. Thus, "minds" kinda go *poof*.
If God is the only one with a mind then how is it that you even know what a mind is to say that God has the only one if what you experience and "are" isn't a mind? Again, what is a mind, if God is the only one and we aren't?
Hypothetically, yes. Although, the act of endowing us with a free will would contrive with this line of reasoning. Again, I'm basing all of this on the Tractatus version of Spinozian pantheism.
Quoting Harry Hindu
For all I know, and that's not a lot, I assume that agency is irrelevant, given God's solipsism.
If agency is irrelevant then that is no different than saying that reality is unintentional which is the same explanation science provides.
Well, this goes deep into the realm of epistemology and what constitutes knowledge. But, not to profess sophistry, I suppose we can assert that epistemic closure is possible in a pragmatic sense, by which I mean that certainty is a fallacious concept apart from degrees of knowledge.
Quoting Harry Hindu
I'm not following you here, can you elaborate?
Why not? I don't see a problem in God being omnipresent in a cosmos that is separate from God.
If intentionality isnt a necessary component of mind, then if God's mind lacks intentionality, how is that any different from a physical universe that is shaped by mindless, unintentional forces, the way way science describes reality?
If intentionality can be a component of mind, but isnt a necessary component, then it can be said that there are multiple minds in which case solipsism isnt the case. We could have minds too as you havent defined what mind is. All you have said is what is irrelevant. Your primary concern should be in defining mind in a coherent fashion before you can make coherent claims about the existence of gods and the case for solipsism.
If there's something separate from God then there are places where God is not located.
If God is omnipresent, yes. That's a requirement for omnipresence. The other option is simply not to say that God is omnipresent.
Well, or you're part of God. (This is all of course, assuming that someone buys the notion of a God, buys omnipresence, etc.)
Quoting Bitter Crank
Because Omnipresent means "present everywhere." There can't be a location where something isn't present while the thing in question is omnipresent.
What would you suggest as an alternate definition of omnipresent?
Well, backtracking on my limited knowledge of Spinoza, this raises the concept of necessitarianism. If everything that is the case can only be true in one world*, then God is equanimous with a strict degree of agency pertaining to the current state of affairs of the world. So, human agency is essentially an illusion and God too has limited agency if we equate Him/Her/It with the World.
Quoting Harry Hindu
So, I'll assert that to have a mind is to have some degree of agency, or more succinctly, to have a mind is to have something called a free will.
* This still holds true for any multiplicity of world(s) or one world.
I take omnipresence to mean present in all places at all times. So, under this notion of omnipresence God is present at all times everywhere. Time, in other words, does not pass for God, since God is present at all times at once, everywhere.
That's what I think omnipresence means. If I believed in God (as I once did) omnipresence would be a plank in my platform of belief. For God there are no mysteries, because God is present at the beginning and at every moment there after. (Beginning of what? Beginning of the Cosmos? End of the Cosmos? God is presumably infinite, so there is no beginning or end, but lots of sub-units of creation last only a little while. Like our esteemed selves, for example. "Death, like an over-flowing stream, sweeps us away. Our life is but a dream, an empty tale; a morning flower, cut down and withered in an hour" That seems to be a paraphrase of one hymnodist's work by another.
But then Isaac Watts was borrow from Psalm 90:
1 Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home.
2 Under the shadow of thy throne
Thy saints have dwelt secure;
Sufficient is thine arm alone,
And our defense is sure.
3 Before the hills in order stood,
Or earth received her frame,
From everlasting thou art God,
To endless years the same.
4 Thy word commands our flesh to dust,
"Return, ye sons of men:"
All nations rose from earth at first,
And turn to earth again.
5 A thousand ages in thy sight
Are like an ev'ning gone;
Short as the watch that ends the night
Before the rising sun.
6 The busy tribes of flesh and blood,
With all their lives and cares,
Are carried downwards by the flood,
And lost in following years.
7 Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly, forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the op'ning day.
8 Like flowery fields the nations stand
Pleased with the morning light;
The flowers beneath the mower's hand
Lie with'ring ere 'tis night.]
9 Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Be thou our guard while troubles last,
And our eternal home.
Depends on how you contextualize this. If you equate His/Her/Its omniscience with the world, then there is nothing apart from the World and God is a solipsist.
What about us? We're not God, let's say for the reason we're capable of evil and god is all-good. Therefore God wouldn't be a solipsist since he would know us as distinct from himself.
Back a long time ago in a forum far away, I began my philosophical beggings with the claim that we are all indeed god's* in a solipsistic manner. Have you ever lucid dreamed?
*Lower case g, as the late Mars Man taught me in that thread.
No but I'd like to. What's your point if I may ask?
Well, here's a rough draft.
We all dream. The world we inhabit within our dreams is a solipsistic one. Dream entities are created from our memories, and seemingly have an intent of their own. When one becomes lucid within a dream, one can do just about anything they desire. Fly, dance with their late partner, even do homework (something I tried to do; but, could never attain a sufficiently high enough state of lucidity to do). Essentially, you become a God within your own solipsistic dream (world/universe).
Lucid dreams are about as realistic (indirectly) a "proof" I have ever been able to entertain of there being such an entity as "God".
So how would you say that God wouldn't be the same as Paris if he's omnipresent?
Because I said so? Will that work?
Wouldn't God have a problem being the same as Paris and Akron, Ohio at the same time? I mean, there are limits on what is imaginable, even for god, right?
Look, when people conceived and developed this version of god, they used superlatives: Creator of all things, Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, Immortal, Invincible, God only wise, etc. Omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, omni-magnum-cum-laude--whatever you want. God "created" the world. The world-creating god existed before the world, and is not one and the same with the world. Is this contradictory?
If it is contradictory, it wouldn't be the only thing about religion that is.
I've decided I'm going to my grave thinking that god is not one and the same as Paris and Akron at the same time.
The idea isn't that every location is the entirety of God. But God needs to be present at every location for omnipresence.
But yeah, a lot of this stuff wasn't thought out very well.
I've been to both Akron and Paris. I recommend visiting Paris first unless you're really into rubber.
What would limited agency look like vs. the illusion of agency? In other words, how would God know that his agency isn't an illusion, and just limited?
Quoting WallowsRight, so what would the illusion of free will look like vs. limited free will? And how is limited free will not a contradiction?
Well, to go all Zen on you, let me answer by asking another question. Does agency matter at all in a solipsistic world? I mean, within the set or domain of discourse, there can only be one solipsist, yes?
Quoting Harry Hindu
Doesn't really matter if he/she/it is a solipsist, does it?
Yes, that's my understanding - God is present AT every location. Thanks for the tip on Akron, without which I almost passed up the all-expense-paid 2 week budget tour of Paris for the all-expense paid weekend luxury tour of Akron. What was your impression of Akron? When were you there?
Back in the 80's I read a good book on plant closings called "Magic City". The town wasn't named in the book but I'm pretty sure it was Akron. It was about how the plant closings affected the workers -- not positively. About the time I was reading the book, a large plant closed in St. Paul and the local PBS station did a series of interviews and follow-ups with a group of the workers. The electronics workers and the rubber workers had pretty much the same experience.
But all that is neither here nor there as far as this thread goes. How do you think God feels about Akron?
Right, but there can't be anywhere that God is not located then. Including every cell of bodies, ever elementary particle, etc.
Re Akron, I was born in Cleveland. I didn't actually live there that long--we moved to South Florida and I think of myself as being raised in South Florida instead, but I've got a ton of relatives all over Ohio still.
So, since God was the very first quantum mechanic, I am sure he has no problem being in the precise location of all those whizzy particles at once.
There are a lot of people all over Ohio. Had Cleveland crashed when you were still there (flaming rivers of muck, etc.)? Never been in Cleveland either. I've been in London, Ohio, and been across Ohio a couple of times. Why, oh why, Ohio. Song written by Betty Comden, Leonard Bernstein, and Adolph Green. It's from the play, Wonderful Town. "Wonderful" didn't reference any burg in Ohio.
This is just for your cultural literacy. Personally, I think the song sucks. Even if LB did have something to do with it.
I am a solipsist, in fact ... i am the solipsist, the only one. Is god a solipsist? i don't know, i only know that a solipsist understands that he is god.