@Leadfoot,
Leadfoot wrote:
Quote:Solipsism is the belief that external reality doesn't really exist outside the mind.
I’m sure there is someone somewhere that fits that definition, but no one among the sane. Otherwise, they would be enlightened the first time they banged their head on something they didn’t see.
Do you have to see something to bang your head against it in a dream?
Quote:Of course this from someone who thinks he has invisible friends.
It is very naive to think you can disprove solipsism empirically, as naive as thinking you can prove or disprove the existence of God empirically.
You should realize that not just God-belief requires faith but also every other belief regarding what 'exists' and what doesn't. Existence itself is a concept. If you perceive or think something, you have to conceptualize in what sense it exists or not.
If you just assume that things perceived by the senses exist because otherwise they wouldn't be perceivable through the senses, you're ignoring the fact that every bit of information that comes to you via your senses comes from outside your body and you are locked up inside your body where the only method of communication you have without whatever's outside your body is through the senses.
That is the whole reason solipsism exists as a philosophical possibility to begin with.
Every belief involves a leap of faith, including the materialist belief that what we perceive outside our bodies with our senses simply exists as a material reality that includes our bodies. That belief seems so immediately obvious that it shouldn't require faith to believe it, but it does; only such faith can pass unnoticed more easily than other kinds of faith where the objects/beliefs of faith are questioned.
