have had a dreadful fear of solipsism and the brains in a vat scenerio. im in limbo as to what to beleive or disbeleive. this in addition to the fact that i have had a history of anxiety and a symptom of anxiety is depersonalization/derealization. and this feeling combined with the intrusive ideas of solipsism is just a mess.
and i know that when the ideas are brought up wittgenstein seems to be brought up as well as a good attack against the ideas.
and im wondering, would wittgensteins “on certainty” be a valid source for arguing against solipsism and brains in a vat and help to elleviate all this anxiety stemming from it?
its a horrible feeling wondering if your loved ones actualy exist or not. its isolating. i feel like im going crazy!
Solipsism is fun to bat around your head for roughly fifteen minutes. If it is causing you anxiety I am sorry. I can offer you no certainty that I am simply a figment and that you are not truly alone. I would suggest reading Wittgenstien, Godel and any other brilliant man and ask yourself truly if your brain could have produced all of this, throw in some music and art and perhaps try to have sex with someone. Enough variety of experiences will quickly lead you to believe in a high probability of the reality of other people and material experience. Good Luck.
If it feels real, looks real, sounds real, then its real. Even if its not, you’re never going to know, why worry about it? How could you possibly achieve a state of certainty that you aren’t a brain in a vat? You couldn’t, in both cases your experience of the world is exactly the same hence its a priori impossible to tell them apart. In my opinion I don’t see how you can even evaluate possibility, as you just don’t have the info to compute any type of probability. I just don’t think it matters very much.
All of the arguments designed to defeat this kind of skepticism are as silly as the original worry. This is a scenario about which we could never, ever, know, just by the way it is set up.
Try taking a break from the internet. Like a drug, it can encourage paranoia and solipsistic feelings in many people. Also try getting more exercise and generally paying more attention to your body - literally, as in when your mind is caught up in abstract thought, bring your attention back ‘down’ to bodily sensations. A likely major contributor to this problem is an overemphasis on discursive thinking.
“On certainty” is a good book. A good point W brings up which I think is applicable here is that doubt is good only to the extent that it becomes a burden. For example, if I doubt the existence of the floor and don’t have the courage to get out of bed in the morning, I become captive to my doubt.
But one thing I’ve noticed about thinking too much is that you can’t really fix it by thinking more.
No, I imagined you imaging him imaging himself as a real person, but only I am real. You’re all just a figment of my imagination to reinforce the illusion that reality exists.
Cirtainty is an impossibility in my mind. All we can do is build the most likely situation in our own minds, what makes you think that solipsism is true? A possibility yes but likely? I would say not
I suggest reading I and Thou by Martin Buber! I am an atheist and Buber was a Hasidic Jew but I found much value in this quasi-theological book. Not only will it assert the reality of other beings in the world, but it will encourage direct confrontation with the other as the only thing of true value in the world. Buber would find solipsism to be and “I and It” relationship, and a turning away from reality.
Any way the loved ones you talk about are a image or perception of who you think they ought to be .
RE:
Consider the wolf; a great slick magnificant wolf bounding through the woods. To a naturalist that wolf is a natural brother. To a hunter that wolf is a trophy or fur-coat. To a scientist that wolf is a dispassionate object to be studied. To a rancher that wolf is a competetor. The wolf is all of this AND none of this.
The problem is the preferrential viewpoint from this people and not knowing. Knowing that your point of view may not be the truth is part of awareness, or enlightenment.
Your loved ones are not who you [size=85]think[/size] they are.
