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Thu 3 Dec, 2015 05:45 am
The solipsist claims there's some ghost in his own machine, a sort of "observer" existing in there, somehow. This doesn't mean its mechanism can be understood thru science, as it could be immutably hidden, sort of like light that falls outside what the human can see, except there are tools equivalent to those which allows ppl to see infrared, ultraviolet, etc light. Thus the mechanism allowing the solipsist to be conscious it would remain hidden, at least until the death of the solipsist. My 1st question is what makes the solipsist unique? If there's a mechanism, whycan't it proliferate, allowing for multiple observers? Sure, at one point there was only a single train engine or computer in existence, but as soon ppl knew how to make them, more were made. So 2nd question is, would an omnipotent being be able to nullify solipsism by creating more observers? My 3rd question is, would an omniscient being be able to confirm whether solipsism is true or not?
But non of this matters if omnipotence & omniscience are incoherent, impossible, etc. As a 4th question, can a being that exists temporally/within space & time be omnipotent &/or omniscient? I've been reading a bit lately about how omniscience is supposedly incoherent due to set theory, sth about barber's paradox & set of all sets & cantor's proof. I'm still reading up on it but in short it just seems to me like the ideas of omniscience & omnipotence are rather... problematic. & if one can't be truly omniscient & omnipotent, then I don't see how solipsism can be refuted.
The point of having those attributes would to be create an inescapable absolute, an upper ceiling which even solipsism can't get away from. After all if you aren't omniscient, there's always the chance you're just a simulation, ensuring solipsism remains coherent. So it could be turtles all the way down, an infinite regress. But could there be a way to stop the infinite regress? For example if our universe A is actually caused by universe B which is actually caused by universe C which is actually caused by our universe A then we come full circle. In a sense our universe would be self-caused, altho we wouldn't know what's going on in universe B or C. It seems to stop the infinite regress, but it raises my 5th question: so what? Does this ouroboros actually change anything or is it still all the same at the end of the day? I suppose an omniscient being would have to know the contents of universe B & C....
The 6th question I want to ask is about the divide of conscious/subconscious mind that solipsism seems to imply... like the subconscious is creating everything. But would this imply the subconscious has its own consciousness too, in a weird way? If there's some kinda synergy, feedback process between the subconscious & the conscious, wouldn't the consciousness of the consciousness sort of "echo" back into the subconscious? Or would any consciousness in the subconscious just be a "fake", kinda like how a mirror reflects a similar image to the real deal?
7th, final question... If solipsism is true, then it is likely the solipsist has numerous lives, possibly even a googoplex of them... Which would mean even sad, pathetic, meaningless existences would be experienced by the solipsist, such as being born into a world where he only exists to be helplessly tortured for centuries on end before he finally perishes. If every single combination is to be explored, then we have a combinatorial explosion at our hands. After all, there doesn't seem to be any "end" to time, so one could have reincarnations where the torture lasts 1 second longer, then the next lasts another second longer, ad infinitum... Is there any reason why absurd scenarioer like that are impossible, at least that we, who don't know the contents of the subconscious, can tell? I have a hunch all those absurd scenarios would be impossible, cuz its like we're viewing it from very high up, making it seem like a lot more is possible then it truly is. Like if we could get down to grassroots level we'd realize there are a lot of constraints. Perhaps if the subconscious is conscious, it'd prefer to create more interesting "works of art" then just simple torture.