Solipsism and representative realism

What I wish to be discussed here:
Solipsism is no more or less faith based than representative realism.

Often times I’ve heard that if anyone takes for their own selves Descartes meditation that they will indubitably be lead into solipsism. Yes, his arguments for salvaging corporeal things either run into a circle, or if they don’t, they are weak. But the gnostic position here that results from the meditation is not solipsism, which is to say that all that exist, exists as nothing else but an idea in my mind, and nor is it representative realism. I believe both positions are based on faith, and neither of the two positions is really better warranted from the meditation–please note that I am not speaking of the book, but of the actual act of meditating on the matter.

Let me take a moment to define my terms here a bit further. By solipsism I mean the position that states that anything that a person has and can have before their minds are real only in their minds, and that they [ideas, mental states a person may or does have] do not represent anything outside. Basically, the mind and it’s ideas are all that ontologically exist. By representative realism I understand the position which states that our idea of an apple tree, for example, represents something outside our mind that exists as we picture it to be. And furthermore RR (at least as read in Locke) states, though a bit irrelevant here, that the thing outside our mind caused us to have an idea of it.

The reasons for my position, viz that both representative realism and solipsism are both faith based positions and neither of which is any more warranted than the other, are I think simple. Anybody with any education in philosophy will have to admit that we are, in our mind, privy only to ideas, and not of the things themselves. Both positions I target agree with this thus far. The problem this realization poses during a meditation is that gap develops between our ideas and what they supposedly represent. Meaning if all we have in our minds is a model of the world, then does the world actually exist, and if it does, does it exist as we ideate it to be?

This gap is unfulfillable and so it must be leaped, not walked across, for I see of no way in which a man may prove conclusively that the ideas present in his mind are representative of a world outside of his mind that resembles his model for it. We are in effect left in a state of dubitability, of agnosticism. And so to say that the ideas, or mental states if you will, we experience in our minds are real only in our minds, and then to go on to say even further that these ideas do not represent anything externally and independently to our minds, is a leap of faith just as saying that our ideas do [accurately] represent something external and independent to our minds. This is because neither position has a way by which to know that, as in the case of solipsism, nothing exists outside the mind, or as in the case of representative realism, that something does exist outside the mind. The gnostic position here is that ideas exist within the mind. It is the only position one may walk to. Any position furthering upon this has to leap over the gap. What say you?

Furthermore, and this cannot be ignored, it seems that we believe in RR out of mere convenience. Meaning that we believe there exists a world outside our selves simply because this belief brings about within us ideas which we think we have control over. In that, for example, when I encounter the idea, or mental state, of thirst, I cannot extinguish it by simply willingly conjuring up an idea of water going down my throat, ie imagining myself drinking water. To extinguish this mental state I have to first believe that there exists water and my hand, and my throat, stomach, sweat, etc, and then follow up upon this belief by experiencing the idea of my hand grabbing a glass of water, and the idea of that water going down my idea of my mouth and then finally notice that my previous mental state of being thirsty is gone. The question that needs to be posed here is, is whether this convenience is relevant? Does it do anything to bridge the gap? I don’t have an answer to this.

Perhaps the flaw lies in what is doing the perceiving. If the perceiving mind and the world are coextensive, many of the problems you’ve presented in RR collapse.

Check these out:

The quest for textual accuracy

A Tu’s Worth

Keeping in mind the “text” in question is reality.

It really is incredible which way someone leans faithwise. I like faith, not in the god sense, because it is irrational, and for all the reason based activity we encounter, I believe it is the irrational that is all encompassing.

I believe everything is an idea because i have no way of stepping outside of my senses. I also find the believe in solipsism benificial so i use it to my own use. I dont like material or my body. I am egocentric. So ideas become supreme.

Oscar Wilde I think said, one should wake up and and believe something incredible, or irrational just to blah blah blang. You know, that old ah cha cha. Do I make cents.

Xunz, most of that stuff goes over my head, so I’ll just respond to your first sentence…sort of.

Can you give me a sort of POV experience of this. Like “I (blankdido) therefore I am entitled to conclude that my ideas represent something real and independent of my mind.” Or I (blankdido) therefore I (blank).

Kev,
I don’t even know how to respond to that.

Elir, did you ever hear that berkley’s friend shut a door on him and told him to think his way thru the door. I was hoping he’d just think a little harder.

OK, so if the mind and the world are coextensive, the dualism between external and internal breaks down. From this, we are left with either the conclusion of solipsism or that the internal world doesn’t really exist, a rejection of the ego.

The ego itself is a faith-based contruct that can simply be left out, and then no faith is required for the formulation to work. Now all you are left with is causality.

Erlir

I disagree with the above, but I agree that your conclusions are pretty much inescapable if someone did agree. The only quibble I would have is that the solipsist is in a slightly strong position because while it's true he can't know he's alone anymore than the non-solipsist can know he's embedded in a world, the solipsist enjoys the benefit of not supposing any entities he has no access to.

How do you go about showing that the mind and the world are coextensive while in this meditation?

How do you figure this?

Why?

I have no idea what you’re talking about.

Erlir

Well, because I’m a direct realist, like Thomas Reid. I don’t think we percieve ideas, I think we percieve actual objects, like trees, other people, and such. I think that the argument that lead us to thinking that we only percieve ideas doesn’t work, or at least, doesn’t lead the conclusion most folks suppose. I dunno, we can get into it if you want, but it seems a bit of a sidetrack from where you wanted to go.

As to the second thing I said, I think you're right that both the solipsist and the realist are making a guess about whether or not something exists outside the mind (on your notion of ideas, anyway).  But like Berkeley pointed out, at least the solipsist isn't proposing the existence of something he knows nothing about!

Ok. Gotcha.

Both parties are proposing the existence of something they know nothing about, and that’s my point. The solipsist position is not simply neutral with regards to an external world, ie the thing you refer to as being the thing one knows nothing about. The solipsist does in fact pose a gnostic position with regards to the what he knows nothing about But I’ll grant you this point, though I think it’s a point only because solipsism is such a poor philosophy in comparison to RR.

The gnostic position here is not neither rr nor solipsism. The gnostic position here, once the major premise is accepted, is that of neutrality, that is of simply accepting that there is no more land to be walked upon, and that any position after this one, whether it may be rr or solipsism has be leaped to.

Now, as to whether what you said is relevant. Off course it’s relevant. It’s the major premise. If what we have before our minds are not ideas, then what sense does my op make?

Erlir

Yeah, I think Solipsism falls apart in a number of ways, but I can see your point here, too. The solipsist goes too far in affirming that the external world doesn't exist, eh?  I can go with that. 

None at all.  But, direct realism is a fairly minority viewpoint last I checked, and I wouldn't blame you if you wanted to take RR as a given- I mean, the whole question of solipsism doesn't really get off the ground if you consider direct realism.  Anyways, yeah, I don't think ideas exist in the sense of being the immediate objects of perception as opposed to external things.

Assumed, but it it damned powerful and it works. How do you show a division? You can try, but it is weak, contingent, and doesn’t really work all that well.

What is the self? It lacks continuity, location, substance . . . why would anyone ever assume such a thing exists?

how does one sense anything beside impressions on the nerves?

there is no thing in itself…

-Imp

If by coextensive you mean that the mind and the world are of the same material, meaning furthermore that the mind is but a piece of reality, then I agree with you. Fact still remains though that were anyone to go under the meditation that D went through, they would most likely come up with a dichotomy between the real world and our interpretation of it. I don’t see how monism solves this problem. It’s still a leap from idea to representation. No?

I think it’s easier to ask and answer “what is the self” than it is to ask and answer “what am I.” A conclusion such as “the self is an illusion” is easier to accept and espouse than “I am illusionary.” The “I” exists in some way, as a mode of substance. Maybe illusionary, but something is having this illusion. Maybe faith-based, but something has this faith. Yes, it lacks essence as the Christian might conceive of the self, but this lacking does not make the “I” non-existent, I don’t think.

I agree.

“there is no thing in itself” is a far cry from “I don’t know whether there is a thing in itself.” Based on the ideas you have accumulated via the impressions on the nerves, how is it that you can come to such a position?

That’s just it. I’m not taking rr as a given. I’m putting it on par with solipsism. A question now is whether convenience accounts for anything here. Does convenience bridge the gap I mentioned earlier?

Well, you’ve got me intrigued by direct realism. Can you spell it out for me as to how solipsism doesn’t get off the ground once one assumes direct realism.

You must mean when one is in immediate contact with the external thing, because I can’t imagine you actually believing that when you think about a tree in retrospect that you have a tree before your mind instead of your rendition of the tree. Then again, you did believe some crazy shit last I checked.

Erlir

Well, it's hard to explain direct realism, because I'm not proposing anything radical that needs an explanation- I simply believe that when you see a tree, you [i]see[/i] a [i]tree[/i].  I can criticize the reasons why more philosophers aren't direct realists, though. :slight_smile: 
It seems to me that representative realism comes from a series of arguments or observations about the senses, usually vision.  When we see a tree, we notice a few things. 

1.) We don’t see the core of the tree, or the roots, or the back from where we’re standing.
2.) From the top, it appears round and green, from the side it appears tall and mostly brown, etc.
3.) If we’d never seen a tree before, we’d be utterly stupified by it’s nature, and would probably notice some things more readily than others, as compared to someone who was familiar with trees.

So, it appears that where we’re standing, how our eyes work, and who we are forms as much of our image of the tree as the tree, if not more! And so, we say that when we see a tree, we’re really seeing an image in our own mind.

 I agree with 1, 2, and 3, but I disagree with the common conclusion. The way I see it, we can say we see the tree incompletely, or perhaps even incorrectly in some cases, but there's no justification there to propose the existence of an entirely new thing we call an 'idea', which is the true object of the senses in these cases.   Thomas Reid's argument against representational realism was to point out that all of Berkeley and Hume's doubts about external reality could be applied that much more strongly to (Locke's?) ideas- just as Berkeley saw no reason to believe in reality outside ideas in a mind, a direct realist would have no reason to believe in invisible, undescribable 'ideas' wedged between him and the objects of his perception.  The only difference between Berkeley and Hume on one hand, and Reid and the common understanding of vision on the other, was that the former had been convinced by Locke that ideas were the immediate objects of perception, and thus external objects were for them a fifth wheel in understanding the world.  But if you look at Locke's evidence for the existence of these ideas, it pretty much isn't there; like I described above, we have plenty of reason to believe our seeing is incomplete, and no reason at all to make existential claims about a new kind of object. It was taken as true without being scrutinized enough, and the skeptics run us all into the ground with it's consequences. 
It seems to me that solipsism only makes sense (to the degree it does) when contrasting it to merely representational realism.  The solipsist says "If all I'm seeing are images in my mind, why suppose there is anything but my mind?" Natural.  But if the options are solipsism or direct realism, then what's the motivation for solipsism?  "I see that tree over there, ergo solipsism is false".  That's all.

the only thing that exists (sensibly) are the impressions…

there is no thing in itself or anything (sensibly) beside impressions…

what makes the impressions? the external world? the forms? the evil demon? god? the solipsist’s mind itself?

let’s see who can invent the best fairy tale and run with it…

I vote for the purple wombats…

-Imp

“The “I” exists in some way, as a mode of substance. Maybe illusionary, but something is having this illusion. Maybe faith-based, but something has this faith. Yes, it lacks essence as the Christian might conceive of the self, but this lacking does not make the “I” non-existent, I don’t think.” - Erlir

There is no thinker, there is no experiencer, there is no entity I.
Somewhere along the line awareness came to this organism; It became self-conscious; it began to think. Up this point there was no “I” and/or “me” . Thought created “I”.