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Notes & Queries

Jon Awbrey 03:15, 15 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

no independent existence?

It seams to me that the "representations of that self having no independent existence" deserves a bit of explanation. :)

so metaphysical solipsism basically means each person who edited this article, the people who originally thought of metaphysical solepsism, and the references on this website don't exist, and the only thing that DOES exist is me? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Gmrepoli (talkcontribs) 11:43, 11 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Yes, and that everything is a figment of your imagination. Other conscious persons don't exist. That's what solipsists claim.--Orthologist 13:28, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So are you all just a figment of my imagination? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.230.81.198 (talk) 13:55, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In a dream, you are everything. It is your mind's creation, therefore everything in the dream is you. Not only the other persons, but even objects and the entire environment.

Merrily, merrily, merrily...life is but a dream.

And, to the point of why a solipsist would bother to communicate with others, what else is One to do? Talk to One's Self?  ;) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nosaj27 (talkcontribs) 07:03, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The first spontaneous argument that came to my mind was "if this is the case, then why does my body stop when it comes in contact with a solid object. I thought about it more and came upon an analogy that I think is decent. If you can imagine your mind as a video game (the actual hardware and software and programming except far more advanced) then everything, including your body, is a "coded" object in a video game. So while it may seem like this makes no sense, it does make sense if you think hard enough about it in terms of a sort of virtual reality, an extremely advanced virtual reality. Your senses are fabricated and the mind is just following along with what is coded to happen whenever you "sense" something. That is as best as I can put this analogy without sounding strange.
As I think further now, more questions arise: what is the mind? Is it somehow a brain in the "body" (it can't be, otherwise it doesn't exist. If we could open our bodies and remain alive, we would find the brain, which places it in the virtual reality. We could then destroy it. Since the programming of the reality shows that the destruction of the brain means death in any given individual, then what should happen next? Either the game shifts to the "afterlife" level or we're stuck in a void of consciousness without senses). Is it some kind of other entity floating in some kind of outside dimension? Is it a dimension itself? Does this theory assume a "spiritual" mind (not dependant on a brain) or a physical mind (dependent on a brain or other "hardware" since the true existence of a brain is now in question)?
I could be going about this all wrong, but this is how I interpreted the article. 68.193.113.198 (talk) 01:02, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You hit the nail on the head, as a solipsist, you created the physics of the world, every phrase within it is a creation of your mind, even insanity and sanity, which are rules of this world you have created along with physics to limit yourself from just having constant hallucinations. These thoughts are the basis of the world a solipsist created for himself. It is logically sound because it is impossible to disprove, you can't prove your own existence to another person. The previous person summed it up the same way hood rats some it up. Life's a game, I'm a player. Your character is ultimately tied to the game, to his own subjective reality, but he has to conform to the rules set up by his gaming system. It is a logically acceptable possibility, but to accept it is an extreme form of narcissism. It's insanity, which is why people blow it of as even being possible. we form attachments to this world. To think people, pets, and things are around just because you want them to be, because you subconsciously force them to be, is insane. Why set up pain for oneself? You'll drive yourself crazy thinking about being creator of the universe, lol. I think their are true solipsists in the world, they just believe they have self control, and the ones who are sane enough to believe it and stay sane while still expressing it simply have that ability because they have self hatred and they want to destroy the program they created. Like a built in computer virus in a game or a bug in a game or something? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.58.61.74 (talk) 04:07, 23 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Neutrality

It really seems strange to see a wikipedia article stating "this is logically sound and cannot be refuted with logic". And there is no further elaboration on why this is considered a fact. It seems logical to me that the world can exist. The world can either exist or not exist, you can't really prove or refute either. 68.193.113.198 (talk) 01:02, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It is not a fact. It is simply a logically valid argument. WillMall (talk) 19:44, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to remove the tag. there are arguments for and against on the page. The article can be expanded though. WillMall (talk) 20:01, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]