February 13, 2019
What Is Solipsism, in Simple Terms
What is solipsism? In simplified terms, solipsism is the philosophical hypothesis which affirms that you know nothing outside your own mind.
You might have heard of cogito, ergo sum (I think, therefore I am), by René Descartes. Solipsism is a parallel proposition. However, the repercussions of what solipsism affirms are more interesting.
What Is Solipsism in Simple Terms
As we saw above, solipsism is a hypothesis in regard to our knowledge of the world. In particular, solipsism points out that you can’t ultimately be certain of anything apart from your own mind – that is, that you exist. OK, so far so good. Now comes the fun part, which is what is solipsism’s claim to fame (or rather infamy).
Taking the above hypothesis to its skeptical extreme, solipsism claims that the world and other minds apart from yours do not exist.
At first this might sound ridiculous. “Surely,” you will say, “my mother, my spouse, my children, and all the rest of the people around me exist. Not to mention, the entire universe”. That’s not the real implication, though. Indeed, it is almost certain that solipsism is wrong and the world around you, including other minds, is (at least to some extent) what it seems to be. However, the operative word here is “almost”.
What solipsism truly implies, is that you can’t disprove you are not the only mind, imagining every other. In other words, solipsism is the keyword underlining the fact that, in a secret, almost forgotten corner of your mind, a tiny cell wonders: what if?
What Is Falsifiability
As I explained, solipsism is – simply put – the idea that only you are real and everything else is a construct of your mind. In order to understand why such a proposition exists, we need to talk about falsifiability.
Famously, when the physicist Wolfgang Pauli encountered an appalling paper by a young student, he noted down Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig; es ist nicht einmal falsch! – translated from German as “not only is this not right, it is not even wrong!” In other words, something can be so preposterously bad, that it cannot even be called wrong. Consider the following three propositions:
- 2+3 = 5
- 3+3 = 8
- 4+3 = green
One statement is right, one is wrong, and one is “not even wrong”. This is where falsifiability comes into play.
Falsifiability is a major aspect of the scientific method. In order for a scientific theory to be scientifically valid (that is, to belong in science and not metaphysics or something entirely different), it must be falsifiable.
A typical example is the black swan observation. The statement “all swans are white” is falsifiable, because to find a single black swan would prove the statement wrong (indeed there are black swans, and the statement is wrong).
Consider however the statement “there is a unicorn flying over the house, but it’s invisible and otherwise undetectable” (also see the only game in town fallacy example). This sentence is not falsifiable. It cannot be proven wrong (or right). It’s not scientific, and not even a true logical suggestion (because you could exchange “unicorn” with “goblin”, or “smiling mouse”).
But what does falsifiability have to do with solipsism?
Is Solipsism “not even Wrong”?
It should be easy to see that solipsism is not falsifiable. There is no test, method, or argument which can disprove it. It’s a bit like the Matrix hypothesis (I highly recommend David Chalmers’s The Character of Consciousness, by the way). You can’t prove you’re not in the Matrix, though you kinda think/hope you aren’t.
Similarly, you don’t really believe you’re the only mind that exists – rendering your friends, spouse, or… Queen Elizabeth – simply a prop set up by/for your mind – but the magic thing about solipsism is that you can’t disprove it either.
Solipsism is not falsifiable. But is it “not even wrong”?
I would say no. Solipsism might not be falsifiable, but that doesn’t make it incoherent. I would say, in simple terms, that’s one major difference between “not even wrong” and not falsifiable. The unicorn flying over the house is not falsifiable, yet we can’t exclude that, indeed, it might be so that there actually is such a creature. We just choose to disregard the hypothesis, in order not to descend into chaos. Similarly, we basically disregard solipsism. And yet, there is a clear difference between these two following propositions:
- Everything you experience is a construct of your mind, which is the only thing that exists. There are no other people.
- Adding a crocodile to a green dream equals the square root of a chair.
One might be right or might be wrong; we can never know because it’s not falsifiable. But the other is… not even wrong.
4 Comments
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The ‘tautologies aren’t useful’ argument holds when we’re considering predictive value, but not when we’re considering descriptive accuracy; all descriptions are inherently tautological (the thing is the thing because it’s the thing). While solipsism is impossible to disprove, this is not necessarily a fatal strike against it, and one could very well flip this and claim that the impossibility of measuring something outside of consciousness is a hard argument in its favor. It is indeed absurd to be told that your consciousness does not exist, as that becomes immediately false, but claiming that only consciousness exists (thereby eschewing metaphysical ‘ideal forms’ and the like) is a much firmer stance to take. To make this stick, one has to discard the distinction between the self and the environment (or, more broadly, not-the-self) when deploying the term ‘consciousness’, which then takes on the nature of a Zen koan. Reason is made from the same stuff as trees, hearing has something in common with climbing a mountain, and thought is as spontaneous as a smell. This is of no use as a predictive tool, but I, at least, find it a relaxing thought to entertain whenever I have time to sit down and take it seriously.
Well articulated, interesting thoughts. Cf “measuring something outside of consciousness”, qualia (subjective experience) comes to mind. It truly is impossible to measure/quantify the subjectivity of “seeing red”, yet hardly would one claim red is imaginary. Furthermore, we assume “seeing red” is about similar for all of us, more or less (excluding color-blind people), but there is no way to disprove that your red is my green and vice versa.
Thanks for your comment!
C…you ever read Nagel? If so, what do you think? If not, check out The View from Nowhere. Quick read, great guy, pivotal book for me. You might dig in regards to this post.
Burl
No, I haven’t read any of his books. Perhaps unfairly, I have formed a somewhat negative opinion through criticism of his work – though that some of this criticism is coming from Dennett, whose arguments I often find lacking, is a mitigating factor. Thanks for the suggestion.