Cogito Ergo Sum vs. Solipsism
[quote=Wikipedia]Solipsism (/?s?l?ps?z?m/ (listen); from Latin solus, meaning 'alone', and ipse, meaning 'self')[1] is the philosophical idea that only one's mind is sure to exist. As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist outside the mind.[/quote]
How is solipsism, specifically the part where you deny the existence of other minds, tenable when cogito ergo sum can be used to confirm the existence of all thinking beings?
If I can say the mind of an other is uncertain then that other may say the same thing of my mind, and so on, making every mind of uncertain existence and yet anyone, everyone can say, truthfully, "cogito ergo sum".
How is solipsism, specifically the part where you deny the existence of other minds, tenable when cogito ergo sum can be used to confirm the existence of all thinking beings?
If I can say the mind of an other is uncertain then that other may say the same thing of my mind, and so on, making every mind of uncertain existence and yet anyone, everyone can say, truthfully, "cogito ergo sum".
Comments (53)
Cogito ergo sum does establish that "Thought" exists now: There is thought now, is how I like to generalize that aphorism. However the "I" seems like an add-on. Maybe the "I" is illusory, erroneous, or doubtful (to use the Cartesian language). So possible Cogito Ergo Sum applies to some kind of "universal mind" of which egos are illusory sub-units. This would be a consistent solipsism. I don't really think this is true, myself, but it is at least arguable.
Well, in what way do you suppose that the "I" is illusory? To the extent that I've understood, I = personhood, and personhood has to do with memory which preserves a record of an individual's experiences and doesn't that indicate the existence of an "I" that experienced what's recorded in memory?
If you think carefully, even memory doesn't quite prove the existence of an "I". Memory is, in essence, a record of the past - a history as it were. The mere existence of history cannot mean the existence of a permanent "I" that remained constant through that history. Why? Think of the history of humans. There's a record of our history that stretches many thousands of years into the past. It is the preserved memory of humanity and yet humans in the course of that time have been born and have met their deaths like in a relay race, passing the baton (memory) so to speak from one participant to another. Memory, by itself, is insufficient to infer the existence of an "I" that remains constant throughout life and beyond.
Yet, in a certain sense, we could say that the memory itself is the "I": the recorded history itself constitutes the "I" instead of presuming that an "I" exists that has memories. Such a conception meshes well with our beliefs that where memory goes, the "I" goes. To make matters clearer, the conventional concept of an "I" is much like a memory card - distinct from the contents and viewed as a receptacle of memories. Yet, this view is fails to cohere with the belief that the "I" is defined by its memories: the contents of the memory card is the "I" and the memory card itself is nothing more than a temporary storage device for the memories, the "I".
It is a standard objection or caveat to "Cogito Ergo Sum" which you can investigate by looking at the Wikipedia entry. Personally, I formulated the modification independently.
"The objection, as presented by Georg Lichtenberg, is that rather than supposing an entity that is thinking, Descartes should have said: "thinking is occurring." That is, whatever the force of the cogito, Descartes draws too much from it; the existence of a thinking thing, the reference of the "I," is more than the cogito can justify. "
So if Cogito Ergo Sum does not implicate an "I" it has no direct ramifications for Solipsism, and could be conformant along the lines I suggest.
Why are you saying that solipsism denies the existence of other minds?
Read your definition (I've seen others which I consider much better)...and nothing in it suggests that solipsism denies the existence of other minds.
Is it stupid to think you're the only one? Then great danger may be before you...
Cogito ergo sum only confirms the mind of the thinker. Other thinkers and their minds do not necessarily exist. Your opinion is an invalid inference of Cogito Ergo Sum.
Ok. I understand that the I can't be inferred to just from the fact that cogitation occurs. Yet, the fact that thinking occurs must mean there's a thinker. What's the difference between the I and the thinker?
Quoting Frank Apisa
It says so in the wikipedia entry on solipsism: [quote=Wikipedia]Denial of material existence, in itself, does not constitute solipsism.
A feature of the metaphysical solipsistic worldview is the denial of the existence of other minds[/quote]
Frankly speaking, if radical skepticism a la Descartes permits one and only one conclusion - that one can be certain of only the self as a thinker and nothing else - then it follows that the existence of other minds is doubtful.
Quoting Qwex
:chin:
Quoting Pfhorrest
It's the simultaneous doubt about and certain knowledge of the existence of our minds that's the problem. Using the cogito ergo sum argument everyone's existence is certain but solipsism would have the existence of everyone in doubt. We can actually use the cogito ergo sum argument against solipsism by saying that because everyone doubts the existence of others, a doubter, obviously a thinker/I exists in everyone.
Well, yes, that is the question.
The problem begins when one identifies with this “thinker” and nothing else. Doing so one has no choice to believe in solipsism as a logical conclusion because the body is a sort of buffer or shroud that exists between him and the rest of reality. So, despite all evidence to the contrary, he believes himself to be not unlike a little man in his own head observing the Cartesian theater. We need not prove these little men, these “thinkers” and “doubters”, and leave solipsists to their own devices.
Doubt and certainty are epistemic, and so relative to each thinker. Each thinker has certainty about their own mind's existence and doubt about all other minds' existence. So each thinker finds themselves concluding that they are the only mind that exists. It's only from our non-solipsistic perspective, assuming that all of these bodies we see talking about this stuff, all have minds inside them like ours, that we can talk about this kind of thing. From any individual solipsist's point of view, theirs is the only point of view, so whether "other people" would find themselves certain of their own existence is irrelevant, because that solipsist doubts that any "other people" exist to begin with. A figment of my imagination can't be certain of its existence, because it doesn't have a first-person point of view to think the cogito from. So if "everyone else" are all figments of my imagination, the cogito doesn't prove anything about their existence.
You have nothing to say on that point?! :chin:
Quoting NOS4A2
:chin:
Is there no contradiction in re cogito ergo sum and solipsisim?
1. Solipsisim: doubt the existence of other minds
2. Cogito ergo sum: I'm certain I exist AND I am an other mind to someone at least.
3. As an other mind my existence is doubtful but by cogito ergo sum, I'm certain of my existence.
4. My existence then is certain and also doubtful. A contradiction, no?
This is the problem. The Cogito doesn't establish that there are other someones for whom I am an other mind. I'm only certain that I exist. If there are other minds like me, they're probably certain that they exist, but (with only the Cogito to go on) I am doubtful about that there are any such other minds to begin with.
If there are a bunch of different minds, all of them solipsists, then they are all in contradiction with each other. But if I start off doubting everything, including that there are such other minds, and I find certainty that I exist via the Cogito, then my picture of the world is still consistent with itself: it's of a world in which I am certain I exist and doubtful that anybody else does. I might be wrong, but not because I'm inconsistent with myself.
Empiricists used this failure to discredit rationalism. Indeed, the latter was forced to admit solipsism or to accept another criterion of evidence. The first is not to anyone's liking. The second leads to an empiricist criterion of truth. But it is not so clear that empiricism nullifies solipsism. As Berkeley shows.
This is just an epistemological battle. No blood. Only wit.
It is apparent that the cogito argument proves that even if we were to be radically skeptical, there is one thing we can never doubt: we can be certain of a doubter, call it I/self, for to doubt implies a doubter; thoughts, ergo a thinker. We agree on this.
If I am to marry solipsism with Descartes' cogito ergo sum argument, then because Descartes proves that the only certain truth we can know of is our own existence and nothing else, it follows that the existence of other minds is in doubt or is doubtful.
Imagine now that I'm a contemporary of Descartes. Descartes, cogito ergo sum, claims that he's certain of only one truth: that Descartes exists. Now, I read his argument and following the same logic come to the conclusion that I, TheMadFool, exists. Neither Descartes nor I is certain of the existence of the other. In other words, there are not one, as solipsisim requires, but two doubters i.e. there are at least two minds. We can extend this logic to everyone, generating as many doubting minds as there are people and where there's doubt there's a doubter, an other mind.
I'm relying on a more general notion of doubt, not necessarily confined to the self as in the cogito ergo sum argument, but also about other minds. If every mind can doubt the existence of every other mind it implies that every mind is doubting and where there's doubt there's a doubter.
You base theory on "How do I Know?" - "it could be" - "the logic would be different" - "I don't know it yet."
No-one is here with the scientific answer for their solipsism.
Is this all in your mind - is the logic bent? The logic has not presented itself as bent.
What shadowy essence keeps you here?
Well I'm not a solipsist. In fact, I believe that mind is a community phenomenon, and being an adherent of Systems Philosophy I embrace the maxim, unity through diversity. It seems evident to me that consciousness functions through concepts that are fundamentally inter-subjective. The ends or objectives of thought become trivial unless they involve a community of minds I think.
What is the highest doubt that can be entertained? That nothing is real, but even then one can't doubt that there is a doubter, viz yourself that is doubting. In short one is absolutely certain that one, as a doubter, really exists. Incipient in this is the uncertainty of, what you term, other minds. After all, if one can be certain of only one truth and that truth is one's own existence, then everything else must be uncertain or doubtful and that includes other minds. I'm repeating myself here but I'm trying to grasp the logic so kindly accommodate me.
Therefore, the cogito erg sum argument actually puts in doubt, a la solipsism, the existence of other minds. That implies everyone is free to doubt the existence of other minds but in doing so, do they not doubt [the existence of other minds] and does that not mean the existence of a doubter, and does that not, in turn, mean that everyone exists, being the doubters they are?
How would a solipsist reply to this?
S/he might say that since the existence of other minds is itself in doubt, there is no way we can posit that there are doubters out there. Radical skepticism still in place concerning everything outside and beyond the self, I can't rely on the testimony of others to confirm that they too have used the cogito ergo sum argument to establish the certainty of their own existence - it could be an illusion.
Let's begin at a point that is beyond doubt: that we have access to 1) our internal selves and 2) the external behavior of others. Our internal selves can be directly experienced but the internal selves of other minds can only be inferred from their external behavior. The cogito ergo sum argument basically uses our ability to get at our own internal selves and since that is all that's possible in an indubitable sense, the value of the external behavior of other minds is vastly diminished to be almost useless in inferring anything at all. Yet, if we give ourselves some leeway, and assume that external behavior can be used, to some degree, to infer the inner selves of other minds, we see that there is a substantial amount of correspondence between our own behavior and that of other minds i.e. we can match thoughts to behaviour in us to thoughts and behavior in others. Ergo, allowing for some inference from external behavior, we may conclude that other minds do exist because they, crucially, exhibit behavior consistent with a sense of doubt about reality and where there is doubt, there's a doubter.
Actually, every mind is sure to exist, insofar as every mind thinks its own certainty.
Community of individuals.
How do you know they are being truthful? How do you know they are thinking? That's the point of solipsism. If you already give that there are other minds that can truthfully say cogito ergo sum then, of course, it won't be compatible with solipsism
Other to what? If you accept solipsism you are the ONLY mind. There is no "other"
Actually, it doesn't.
Here is the entry:
Solipsism (/?s?l?ps?z?m/: from Latin solus, meaning 'alone', and ipse, meaning 'self')[1] is the philosophical idea that only one's mind is sure to exist. As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist outside the mind.
Solipsism suggests that the only thing one CAN BE SURE of is self...or more particularly, one's own mind. Everything else MAY NOT exist.
And of course, that is a possibility. I know "there is something going on" which I call "my thinking" or "my mind."
But how can I possibly be sure that you exist...or anyone else?
Scary as hell!
If I were all that exists...the first thing I would do is to create an illusion world where I would be just a tiny cog in a great OTHER. The idea that "I" being all that exists is the ultimate horror. Being GOD would be the ultimate terror.
"Therefore, it might be", is something uncertain itself.
I am certain my mind(What is Mind?) exists (and is solitary; is this right?) but can't be certain other minds exist.
What is mind? Is a good question; do you think your mind is solitary?
The only thing I'm sure of is my genetic build.
Solipsism is either weakness, in regards to being in reality, or a theory of an alternate reality(that is usually incomplete).
The viability of the power of math to solve problems is not anchored upon what that activity might be in some narrative of existence but because it does not care.
The certainty that is desired is not about confirming our personal existence. We are stuck with that. It is the least interesting thing.
:chin:
Quoting Mww
Quoting khaled
That's true and I mentioned this problem in another post.
Quoting Frank Apisa
:up:
Quoting Coben
To All
Descartes began his musings with radical doubt and realized that doubt must entail a doubter; cogito ergo sum. Of everything else, Descartes wasn't sure or was uncertain/doubtful for he couldn't rule out that it was all an illusion.
Solipsism is essential Cartesian in that it to states that one can be only sure of one's own existence and that the existence of other minds is doubtful.
The crux of the matter is that, being a radical skeptic, nothing can be taken for granted: we doubt everything, our senses and our minds too. To use computer terminology, both the input devices and the processor are unreliable. Nevertheless, that there's some processing going on (thinking/doubting), it follows that there's a processor (thinker/I). Beyond that, everything is totally dark for the radical skeptic for he can't trust his own mind nor his senses.
My main concern is whether there exist other minds, like Descartes, capable of coming to the same conclusion of their own existence by employing the cogito ergo sum argument? Even if there are other minds capable of Descartes' argument, Descartes himself can never be certain of the existence of other minds for the evidence that other minds exist must pass through his senses and be processed by his mind, both of which, for the radical skeptic, are unreliable except when inferring the existence of Descartes himself using the cogito ergo sum argument. Radical skepticism creates an unbridgable gap for knowledge of the external world, the world that is beyond the self in general, and other minds in particular.
Consider now the options that are available to us: either other minds exist or other minds don't exist. What would either option entail and what does our world look like? The general intuition we all function under is that other minds do exist. Perhaps, unlike radical skeptics like Descartes, we trust our senses and minds just to the right degree to enable the inference that other minds exist: each one of us seems capable of thought and our behavior matches with beings capable of thinking. Now, if the solipsist claims that it's doubtful that other minds exist, he must mean either that our senses and minds are unreliable or that the evidence for the existence of other minds is compatible with their non-existence. The first possibility is obvious; after all if we can't rely on our senses and minds, we must doubt every sensation and inference. The second possibility is slightly different for it claims that all the behavior that we exhibit which we consider to be indications of thinking is also compatible with the non-thinking beings, beings that only appear to be thinking but are actually not thinking at all: P-zombies?
The only thing separating our minds from the simulation is our bodies; otherwise every spirit would say "I am [this part of the] simulation".
(Something needs to be added here but I'm not intelligent enough, yet.)
In the simulation are other bodies, but I cannot tell if they have minds.
However, other bodies have consciousness potential, whether they're 'online' or not, it still makes logical sense; they fit into both normal reality and alternate realities.
Therefore, I think part of this existence is theorizing alternate realities.
The mind problem exists by way of a complex body continuum, and it begs the question, what alternate realities might/do exist?
This is my argument, tredding in the mucky waters.
I'm my mind, but I'm at the Super Store, taking in only a percentile of the available sensory data.
Is there another mind at the Park?
If there are no other minds then there is a lot of waste in the production of my reality.
I would consider it an attack...
Is it okay to think only some are P-zombies? Why would high quality lives not be conscious?
I think you guys seem to accepting a false premise here. That is, I would say that the whole premise that you have any sense of certainty of knowledge or existence within one’s own mind cannot happen without knowledge of one’s embodiment within some external context. The “I” cannot exist unless it ‘knows’ what it is separate from. Humans form a mob of one mind because they are programed to turn their “I” into copies of the group “we”, where the “I” is lost, usually temporarily sometimes permanently. When a human becomes part of such a mob and shares common mind and actions then he/she ‘knows’ his mind is not alone or the only sentient “I” around, maybe much like as if they became that fifth state of (cognitive) matter, a (cognitive) Bose-Einstein condensate with the other minds.
IMHO, the “I” is no one thing but is formed mostly by many layers which we think as robotic automaton stuff, unified by some transcendental aspects that bring the qualia of conscious experience of “I”. Yet, I seriously doubt that qualia of conscious experience of you as “I” can happen without resonating with other external embodiments/minds. Otherwise, such a state of disconnected being is like having no language or models to describe (imagine) what “I” am about, so I’d be more like a reptile (just acting) than like a human (self-reflecting/introspection).
No, but I think my mind is IN solitary. 66 years so far, and some more to come, as it is a life-sentence.
Quoting Coben
A conglomerate of minds. I wonder if the parts, the sub-minds talk to each other? I think they do since we, the parts, do communicate with each other - language..
Quoting Coben
Yes, I think Descartes had the notion of clear and distinct ideas which he put to the task of inferring the rest of philosophy: his own existence, god and pretty much everything else followed from these two, including the existence of other minds. It was an imperative for Descartes to restore faith in his mind and senses and I think god's existence, being that god is truthful, allowed Descartes to do that - he came to the conclusion that he wasn't being deceived.
Quoting Coben
Quoting Coben
Hard solipsism, if there's such a thing, would deny the very existence of other minds and that's exactly one more step from where Descartes would've found himself without the aid of his clear and distinct ideas, especially god's existence and undeceiving nature. Descartes could only doubt the existence of external reality, inclusive of other minds and never arrive at certainty of its and their non-existence. Hard or strong solipsism, if it claims the non-existence of other minds, must furnish further proof of how it came to be certain that other minds don't exist. What is this proof?
Any such proof would require that we have unequivocal evidence that the world is "different": only you exist and the external world is an illusion or everyone else is a p-zombie. It's impossible to know whether the world is an illusion or not because our mind and our senses, the only access points we have to knowing the truth, are unreliable. So is everyone except you a p-zombie? Since you can't trust your mind or your senses, it follows that you can't know that either. So hard solipsism is untenable - certainty on the matter is impossible.
:chin:
Quoting TheMadFool
I tend to agree with that. It is not too different, IMHO, from Earthlings saying that we are the only sentient life in the whole universe, and the religious going even further saying the whole universe was created to serve us. No matter what illusions your belief system operates under, we can all agree on the math of probabilities makes such beliefs exceedingly improbable.
More generally, I'd say the only reason why we believe in our own consciousness as being real and existing is because we have no strong experiential evidence to the contrary. In my current model, consciousness is a resonant condition within the internal and external boundaries the “I” operates within. However, the self-awareness aspect of experiential/qualia consciousness also tracks the time evolution of this resonant consciousness wave function (currently, I’m modelling that as a quantum pilot wave) and we call that (quantum knot) history as defining our unique thinking existence as a coherent, self-consistent emanation of the same consciousness cognitive agent, so we are completely calling that time evolved resonant wave pattern the “I” ‘story’ and concluding that we exist at least as a thinking being. This is at least one way that I believe Descartes gets it wrong. For example, in brain with a multiple personality disorder, I’d says that they do not have a single resonant consciousness wave function that collapses into one coherent, self-consistent emanation of the same consciousness cognitive agent, but many. So, any one of the resonant consciousness wave functions will only resonate with the resonant consciousness wave function (of its multiple personality choices) that is a coherent time evolution (quantum knot) history with its own wave function signature. That resonant consciousness would still be aware of the other a time evolution (quantum knot) histories (of the other people/personalities in their head) but ascribe those to supernatural hijacking of their brains/thoughts (e.g., demonic possession, spirits, other ‘people’ in their brains, etc.), thus they would not say that those other, equally valid versions of themselves, are part of them, but foreign mental invaders.
In this way, I’d say that consciousness can never be self-assess as a snapshot in time, but has to be part of a self-consistent path history (like a story/narrative) that all points to the same resonant focal point/pattern that you call you. Mess with that, and your sense of self consciousness/identity should degrade and vanish into a chaos ideas, facts, memories but without any form, function, or purpose, which I not call that ‘thought’ or ‘thinking’, so a problem to the Descartes way of evidencing oneself.
Furthermore, under my framework, to establish one self-consciousness we have to be able to explore all our boundary conditions that ware resonating within and their nature must be accessible/determinable wrt their form, function, or purpose in influencing the landscape that the consciousness agent in question is resonating with and within. Then, the consciousness agent in question would have to observe a time-evolution history path where their ‘thought’ could in-fact modify those boundary conditions and that had a correlated, esp. if *expected*, effect on their conscious state of being to ‘feel’ they are alive and the executive center of the (resonating) system. Then, the consciousness agent in question would have to learn and use those associations as tools to manipulate itself (the best it can) to achieve goal states of being. Towards a definition qualia consciousness, I’m thinking that the degree that the consciousness agent in question can do the above, it has ever higher orders of qualia consciousness.
In the context of the Cogito Ergo Sum vs. Solipsism points of view, I’d say that my above model applies to both, but both are malformed hypothesis b/c they lack to true mechanics of how consciousness works, so both are far to simplistic ways of forcing a circle into a square, and there will be arguments and evidence for/against each b/c neither is a suitable, complete model. To extend my largely Solipsism supporting framework to the Cogito Ergo Sum view, I believe I just extend the sensory motor boundary of one’s consciousness resonance condition to include other humans of like mind and all the same above mechanics work, and to the extreme case you get a mob, acting as one mind/ consciousness towards a unified form, function, and purpose. They lose individuality and together become the new consciousness of a superorganism much like individual atoms can become lost into a Bose-Einstein condensate fifth state of (consciousness) matter. Once they get out of the superorganism (Bose-Einstein condensate) consciousness state they almost have no memory or explanation of how they could come to think or act to kill/destroy/eradicate/etc. and go back to their comparatively boring mundane lives as individual consciousness agents. I’d say the human ability for this superorganism consciousness state of mind/being evidences against the purist Solipsism views.
I could go on and on, but these are my basic ideas so far on the subject.
Cheers!
The kind of people employing radical doubt like Descartes does tend to be justificationists, without even knowing what that word means: they think that you ought to reject all beliefs that you do not have good reason to accept. So being able to doubt something is, to them, reason enough to reject belief in it, to say it doesn't exist.
I applaud you for implicitly rejecting such justificationism, as your comment suggests that you think in terms of critical rationalism, the view that one ought to accept whatever beliefs one wants unless it can be shown that one must reject them. Which is the right way to think about things, because justificationism inevitably ends in nihilism, and nihilism is just giving up.
Maybe. I don't read philosophy, so maybe you can back this up with quotes from his writing?
I think, however, that a totally different thing happened. Descartes happened on this thought, irrespective of his motivations or where he wanted to go or what he wanted to prove, and he simply marvelled at the truth of his own almost randomly thought-up creation.
I can't prove this at all. It's just that the creative thinking process starts with the creation, and then it embellishes it. This seems to have happened, it seems to me, to Descartes.
I am not sure if you are applauding the rejection of hard or soft solipsism, or of Descartes "cogito..." maxim?
Hard or soft solipsism is hard to reject, in fact, impossible to rule out. There is no test to test it, much like there is no test to test the opposite of it, which is that we experience reality directly.
There is no assurance either way. You or anyone can decide for himself or herself to believe in this or that, but ultimately the two are equally likely to be the true case (but not at the same time).
Yes. Descartes also had a proof of god, an ontological proof. I looked up its wording somewhere, and it had a clause, something to the effect that "God made it, I don't know how, because god's ability to do this exceeds my meagre understanding compared to his." This was a cop-out, and it renders the proof completely meaningless and powerless. But people quote to me sometimes, deists and religionists, that Descartes himself proved that God must necessarily exist.
This I can't deny is justificationism.
But the Cogito Ergo Sum maxim is pure instant genius.
Yes, certainty on the matter is impossible. Totally, wholeheartedly agree. But where do you see that hard solipsism is untenable? It is possible, so it is tenable. Sure you can't know whether you can trust your senses. But knowledge has nothing to do with what reality is. Because, precisely because, you can't know. Hence the "unsure" in the first place.
Maybe we need to see what you mean by "hard solipsism". Can you differentiate it for me from "solipsism"?
The justificationist thinks that you should reject all beliefs from the get go, and then only let in ones that can be proven worthy, i.e. justified. This is the common, naive view of "rationalism".
The opposite approach, critical rationalism, says you should admit any beliefs you want (and agree to disagree with others who want to admit other ones), until they can be proven unworthy, or falsified.
I was applauding you for pointing out that "hard solipsism ...must furnish further proof of how it came to be certain that other minds don't exist". The hard solipsist doesn't just get to say "you can't prove other minds exist, therefore they don't!" Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence: the person who says something doesn't exist isn't automatically right until proven wrong. It would be justificationist to think so, and I'm glad you're implicitly thinking otherwise.
A justificationist does not believe anything at first. A skeptic in the common sense of the word.
A rationalist believes everything. Accepting, inclusive, in the common sense of the word.
A justificationist will only believe that, which is shown to be justified or proven.
A rationalist will reject those beliefs, and those beliefs only, that are proven to be impossible.
Quoting Pfhorrest
I don't remember saying this, but let's go with it. This is a rationalistic demand. Exclude only that which can't be possible.
However, it is also rationalistic to say "other minds may or may not exist; we don't know." This inherently carries the possibility that no other minds exist -- a perfectly acceptable proposition for the rationalist.
Hard solipsism never claimed that other minds don't exist... it claims that the self can't be sure of it either way.
I am still struggling with the term and the conceptual meaning of "hard solipsism". It is not something I have ever considered or came across. It's either solipsism or not ... hard or soft, is a boiled egg, not solipsism.
However, let's assume hard solipsism claims that there are no other minds, let's assume this is what hard solipsism means. Then it is not rational, since it has not accepted all possible cases that are not excluded, but I daresay it is not justificationist, either, because a justificationist does not believe anything that is not proven positively and irrefutably. It has not been proven positive to him, that other minds don't exist... he is not a justificationist. He is not rationalist. He is just being simply irrational. (NOT an "irrationalist". Hezus. Let's stop the buck somewhere.)
I'm just shooting in the dark here but to me the difference between hard solipsism and solipsism is that the former claims that is certain that other minds don't exist and the latter just isn't sure on the matter.:lol: As is obvious the former would need proof but the latter just follows from Descartes' skepticism.
The proof would have to be an argument that other minds are incoherent, since empirically there is no way to prove such a thing. It would be similar to Berkeley's proof that matter is inconceivable, I would think.
The solipsist does not deny that the idea of the "I" is constructed in opposition from the idea of the world. What he claims is that I have evidence that I exist, but that the idea that the world exists is not evident. Usually the hard solipsist is supposed to go one step further and deny that the world exists.
As Schopenhauer said, the solipsist is like the one who locks himself in his castle and covers all the windows and knocks down the moat bridges. No one can attack him. But he can't get out. As soon as he takes a step he betrays himself. And he takes it from the moment he tries to defend his solipsism outside himself.
So we have a logical problem with no practical consequences. It's not the only one.
good explanation/summary, thanks. I can why you'd want to attack it this way, but I'm not so sure that is the best way b/c I do believe that consciousness exist internally w/o external reference. I believe there are (at least) two major problems/flaws w/ the cogito and solipsism (beyond the presumption of 'I'), that is they assume two things which break down in their framework. That is, they false define/assume what 'Thinking' actually is, and they mistake what cognitive agency is all about. Also, I believe there many levels of consciousness, which also depend of your level of cognitive development in an external world (or not). In my current framework, it is a complete illusion and misnomer to talking about 'thinking' implying 'existing' of anything. For example, among others, the existence of agency requires creative intention and the control of the flow and nature of the thought. In this aspect, I like your instinct to look for intentionality, but I would redirect it internally and add a few (maybe at least 2) other dynamic requirements to establish one's existence as an "I" without presupposing it.
I seriously doubt that qualia of conscious experience of you as “I” can happen without THE APPEARANCE OF resonating with other external embodiments/minds.
I fixed that for ya.
nope. That is not the hypothesis I am positing there. See my reply to TheMadFool for some detailed mechanics of my hypothesis on the qualia conscious experience.
I agree that the "I" portion of "Cogito, ergo sum" is gratuitous and very weak.
Specifically: If the conclusion is that "I exist", then how can "I" be used in the premise, since it was not yet established that "I" exists!
What I'm able to extract from that famous quotation is this:
"Because there are experiences, something exists."
(Thoughts are just one type of experience, so I see no reason to limit the interpretation to thoughts alone.)
Is "I" an appropriate axiom?