Experience and Existence
Hello, so if this seems crazy or has flaws (I have a strong sense that it might) please point them out. Even if some of my claims are debatable, I think my philosophizing is constructive (to philosophical understanding) and I'd appreciate it if you'd read what I have to say.
It is self-evident that experience exists, whatever it might mean for something to exist. At this instant in time you are having an experience, the qualia of seeing these words, of a chair pressing against your body, of taking a breath, whatever it may be.
It’s also very apparent that solipsism is unfalsifiable and so you cannot take for granted that other consciousnesses exist. But unfalsifiability can be taken even further: there is no self-evident principle that allows you to infer that anything besides your experience exists.
My claim is quite digestible except I anticipate two likely objections: (1) logic surely exists, and (2) time surely exists. My response to (1) is that you merely experience the sense that logic must surely exist and experience a vehement opposition to the concept of logic not existing. In order to understand why (2) is false, first consider the classic “you can’t prove that the universe wasn’t created five minutes ago” issue and notice that the past cannot be known to exist. Second, you can’t know that there is a future that you will experience and this brings us to the classic “if a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one to hear it, will it make a sound?” If the past doesn’t surely exist and the future doesn’t surely exist, then all that’s left is the present. But I’m not sure if it means anything for a point in time to exist without anything before it or after it—a point is just a mathematical concept and its usefulness as such is probably contingent on other points existing within the same so-called metric space.
Let’s suppose that your experience is all that can be known to exist. Would it be meaningful to ask if things exist or do not exist if they can’t be known to exist or not exist? Maybe, maybe not. If not, then why do you have a strong sense that other things exist? It’s all a model. A lamp, other people, spacetime, it’s just your way of making sense of the world. Does the model exist? Only as part of experience if experienced. Do you exist? If by “you” what is meant is your experience, then yes.
It is self-evident that experience exists, whatever it might mean for something to exist. At this instant in time you are having an experience, the qualia of seeing these words, of a chair pressing against your body, of taking a breath, whatever it may be.
It’s also very apparent that solipsism is unfalsifiable and so you cannot take for granted that other consciousnesses exist. But unfalsifiability can be taken even further: there is no self-evident principle that allows you to infer that anything besides your experience exists.
My claim is quite digestible except I anticipate two likely objections: (1) logic surely exists, and (2) time surely exists. My response to (1) is that you merely experience the sense that logic must surely exist and experience a vehement opposition to the concept of logic not existing. In order to understand why (2) is false, first consider the classic “you can’t prove that the universe wasn’t created five minutes ago” issue and notice that the past cannot be known to exist. Second, you can’t know that there is a future that you will experience and this brings us to the classic “if a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one to hear it, will it make a sound?” If the past doesn’t surely exist and the future doesn’t surely exist, then all that’s left is the present. But I’m not sure if it means anything for a point in time to exist without anything before it or after it—a point is just a mathematical concept and its usefulness as such is probably contingent on other points existing within the same so-called metric space.
Let’s suppose that your experience is all that can be known to exist. Would it be meaningful to ask if things exist or do not exist if they can’t be known to exist or not exist? Maybe, maybe not. If not, then why do you have a strong sense that other things exist? It’s all a model. A lamp, other people, spacetime, it’s just your way of making sense of the world. Does the model exist? Only as part of experience if experienced. Do you exist? If by “you” what is meant is your experience, then yes.
Comments (3)
After all, you get the idea that "your experience is all that can be known to exist" from your experience, so why not get the idea that "other things exist besides your experience" from your experience?
Isn't this "I think, therefore I am?" It is my understanding that Descartes was trying to decide what the absolute minimum undeniable truth is.
Quoting Kelly Miles
I agree with your analysis of Item 1). For those of us who are not idealists, logic is a human invention. The universe doesn't recognize it.
Quoting Kelly Miles
Short-term memory covers about half a minute. From a human perspective, that seems like a good indicator, or at least a stand in, for the present. 30 seconds is enough time to experience something. Everything else can be either longer term memory or imagination and speculation.
Solipsism isn't a question of being able to prove or disprove something because in order to entertain the concept you really need to refuse to take your experience at face value. There is nothing about this which leads to solipsism being a logical position because you've limited yourself to a position of complete ignorance as you believe your experience is not to be trusted.
There's no point in asking yourself anything, you can never know anything, you're like a blind, deaf, ethereal entity in a void of nothingness wondering what's out there.
Once you are required to be proven wrong, all kinds of madness ensues, solipsism is only one result and the only limitation is your imagination.