The Stanford Dictionary of Philosophy's Article on Solipsism (January 16, 2021)

Page 1 Quote: "Understanding solipsism will allow you to understand one of the most central problems of philosophy: the boundaries between the self and the world." Are we able to escape the internal confines of our consciousness, directly or indirectly interacting with people and things that exst out there and are meaningful. I believe so. Another quote: "Psychologists believe that we all start life as sophists."Babies self-conceive that they are the center of the universe. Solipsism is an infantile psychological state, and a mature adult should be far beyond that. When we are alone in the woods, in a cabin far from others, for 6 months at a time, we would adopt solipsism as our outlook, that we are alone in the universe. It is perfectly natural but this egocentric predicament can be transcended, for we are not alone and we know it. The trick is to maverize, be a loner, live apart from others, and yet accept that others exist, and that the external world exist, and we are to get on with living, exploring, working, fulfilling our destiny. Another quote: "Types of Solipsism--Solipsism exists in all three major branches of philosophy. Epistemological solipsism: . . . solipsism is the idea that we cannot know anything outside of our minds. . . Ethical solipsism: "In ethics solipsism is the idea that the selif is the only thing that matters morally--I add Stirner is close to this position--." This ethics may be labeled ethical or subjective egoism, averring that ethics is persona and relative in the extreme, there is no community standard for no community exists or is knowable. This could lead to gross immorality on a communal level. Page 2: "Metaphysical Solipsism: . . . solipsism is the idea that only the self exists . . . then clearly I am the only things that matters ethically, and also the only thing that can be known." What a false, sad, sick and corrupting worldview. Whether one is an altruist or an egoist, we must stay connected to the world outside as well as the world inside; objective reality can be reached by going deeply, spiritually inward, or by transcending this world out there and making contact with beings and Forms in heaven. They exist and we must partake of their widom and love if we are to find happiness and meaning at all. Another quote: "III. Solipsism vs. Nihilism--People often confuse solipsism with nihilism, but in fact they're quite different philosophies. When people say 'nihilist,'they often mean 'moral solipsist.' Bit nihilism is one step further beyond solipsism: for solipsism, only the self matters; for nihilism, not even the self matters.Nihilism is the view that absolutely nothing matters. . . .nihilism is almost impossible to believe in consistently. . . nearly every 'ninilist' is actually a solipsist, not a nihilist at all." I refer to moral nihilism or spiritual nihilism when one is so filled with rage, hatred, resentment, fury and an all-binding craving for destruction and annihilation to take revenge on a world so tragic and filled with malevolence (channeling Jordan Peterson), that their entire focus is wiping out the world and ending all life. These are very sick very dangeorus people--to be opposed with main force. Spiritual nihilism would be the drive to end all life in the ordered cosmos, seeking to replace it with nothing once the cosmos and its inhabitants are blown to smithereens. Satan and Lera, in their naked, pure loathsomeness embrace pure destruction for its own sake. Another quote: " . . . we cannever fully escape the distortions and limitations of an individual perspective, so our knowledge is always somewhat solipsistic, no matter how hard we try to perceive the world objectively." This seem true to me. Another Quote: "V. The History and Importance of Solipsism--The first recorded example of solipsism comes from Gorgias, a Greek philosopher who lived around the same time as Socrates. Gorgias is said to have based his philosophy on three claims: 1. Nothing exists 2. Even if something exists, we can't know anything about it 3. Even if we could know anything, we can't communicate our knowledge. . . . Gorgias was considered a sophist, or someone who was trained to make elegant, attractive arguments but not to pay attention to whether or not they were true." I think that something always or usually exists. I think we can have some knowledge about everything and anything. Little of it may be absolutely certain knowledge, but much of our knowledge would meet the test of probable certainty. I believe that we can know something about everything, and thoughts can be rather clearly and distinctly expressed in words, so we can, for the most part, communicate our knowledge. As we have been describing it, Epistemological nihilism would be similar to pure nescience to the left of solipsism, in which no thought, no instinct, no feeling, no existence, no soul, no life could occur or be. Another quote: "As we've been describing it, solipsism is a unique feature of Western philosophy. However, many Indian and Chinese philosophies/religions have notions of the self that seem similar to solipsism. For example, Zen Buddhism teaches that there is no boundary between the self and the world; the goal of Zen meditation is to forget the distinction between 'I' and everything else. At first glance, this might look like solipsism, but really it's the opposite. Whereras solipsism reduces the universe to the individual mind, Zen meditation dissolves the mind into the universe. In other words, solipsism questions the existence of everything outside the self; Zen questions the existence of the self." So, under Zen Buddhism there is no boundary between the self and the world, and meditation enables one to do away with this distinction. As an existential, spiritual and ethical egoist, I proclaim that the boundary between the self and the world, the self and other egos, the boundary between the self and the Good Spirits, and betwen oneself and the Divine Couple does exist and must be maintained as one is called by De to individuate. The Zen Way to achieving oneness with God is a laudable, acceptable way to find unity with the Divinity or the Divinities, but it not the preferred or first resort to select. I also reject the solipsistic route which expresses that there is no boundary between the world and the self because the world is but the property of the self's consciousness which is false, corrupting and absurd. We do have solipsistic urges, especially when isolated or alienated from the workd, and others, but this feeling of isolation and utter aloneness does not correspond with the existence of other isolated egos out there suffering and feeling sorry for themselves over the egocentric predicament that they too are suffering from. We have to man up, take responsibility for our lives, and use our objective, realistic attitudes, powers of experience and observation, and whatever limited reasoning powers granted us by the Great Spirits, and soldier on, loving ourselves, other persons, the spiritual superiors of ours, and operating in that objective realm, both internal and external. Another quote: "VII. Controversies--The Problem of Other Minds. How do you inow that other people have minds? . . .In philosophy, this is know as the 'problem of other minds.' So far no one has come up with a way to prove that other people have internal consciousness. But philosophers are divided on what exactly this means. For some, it suggests that some form of solipsism must be true. If you can't prove that other people have minds, then you can't know they do. This would suggest that your are the only being in the universe capable of knowledge! There are many responses to this view, but two are particularly persuasive: first, you might say that consciousness is observable. Some philosophers and neurobiologists argue that we will eventually understand the biological mechanism that produces consciousness, and so eventually we will be able to scan the brain and prove that the person is having conscious experiences. Alternatively, you could make a more pragmatic argument for the existence of other minds. If it doesn't make a difference in practical life then it doesn't make a difference at all according to the philosophy of pragmatism. So the pragmatic argument basically goes like this: OK, assume for the sake of argument that other people do not have conscious minds. Will this change your behavior? Will you live your life any differently? A pragmatist might say 'no'--the presence or absence of other minds makes no difference to our behavior as long as other beings around us behave as though they have minds." It seems obvious to me the this "The Problem of Other Minds" is a real brain teaser, taing us right back to two basic epistemological axioms ruling epistemology at this time: first, we can neither prove or disprove tht solipsism is not our egocentric predicament. This allows the second axiom to arise--if I cannot rule out solipsism as my personal mental state,then scepticism is an ineradicable feature of knowing something or nothing, and certain knowledge remains elusive. With this reality in mind, I will go with the pragmatic approach, based in probable certainty or the universal principle of applied moderation, and conclude that I know enough to build a life upon, continue to study, ponder, dialogue and research solipsism as predicament, but not an insurmountable one. \ Time, technological advancement, advances in telepathic communication and the growth of Mavellonialist science of access to divine reason and language, thus allowing us to discover, have revealed to us, and thus to formulate (not invent) natural laws that governms what consciousness is, how it comes into being, and how it operates in this world and the next, and this is about as good as we can do with something as solid and yet as ineffable and airy as consciousness. This was a fine article.