Pat Gunn

He appears to be a philosophy professor, and 7 years ago he did a video on solipsism. The video, "From Solipsism To A Liveable Philosophy". Gunn seems reasonable and solid. He strikes me as a fallibilist. He wants us to move away from solipsism, while accepting that it cannot be easily dismissed or explained away, neither proven or disproven. We cannot know for sure that others out there exist, or if there is an external world at all, or, if it exists, we cannot encounter it as it is for we are lock in our subjective consciousness. Gunn wants to move away from solipsism, to operating in this world and functioning. He accepts that cogito ergo sum is not watertight. We think, so we must exist. Gunn defines intelligence is a pattern over data and data is a set of brain states, a pattern over time is what they patterns are in the structure or electro-chemical signaling over the brain. Gunn advises that we must settle for pragmatic epistemological roots rooted in probable certainty. We need not objective reality but will settle for living and operating in apparent reality. Gunn is conservative about the existence of God and objective values of any kind, suggesting that we not launch from empiricism to deeper metaphysical claims. We do not need to know of logic is solid and build useful self-consistent systems. He is not willing to speculate and do metaphysics. Gunn suggests that we can't find ultimate answers but can weed out bad answers. I am more optimistic that Gunn is, and believe in God, and will do metaphysics. Gunn offers that we can get a livable, practical life philosophy without solid ground underneath it. There is no solid ground or has not been found yet, but settling for solipsism is to reject common sense. Gunn view is not bad, overall.