Solipsism

This was the very first request I received for a topic.

To boil it into the most oversimplified and basic words, Solipsism says that the only thing we can know for certain exist is our own minds.

If everything must be filtered through our minds from our senses then we have no means of corroborating any piece of data. Because there is no way to know that our sense are not lying to us. It's in interesting idea, and has some merit as a thought experiment perhaps. And leaning towards the deep end of the pool when it comes to thoughts that get hard to track.

When talking about Solipsism with a dear friend of mine he mentioned a quote he attributed to a fictional orangutan librarian. "If you can't trust your own senses, then whose can you trust?"

To put it another way, what if you're crazy? Not just I feel sad or see spirits crazy, but proper "a cabal of Giraffes from each of America's Zoos are running the new world order in order to make sure that there are no leaves and some animals will die" crazy. What then? If you can't trust your own mind then how can you know anything at all?

It's the problem that I see with the idea. Given the parameters there's no way to prove anything. At it's most logical extreme nothing really matters cause it's all in your head anyway. You can't confirm anything. Once you start doubting reality there's no way to stop it. There comes a point when you have to draw a line in the sand and say, this is real. It has to be.

Now there is something to be said about not knowing the mind of another. I mean, we broadcast our inner most thoughts many different ways. Body language, pheromones, pitch and tone of voice, energetic vibrations, intuition, Twitter, Facebook, sharpies on the forehead, there's too many to count if you stop after seven.

But the thing is that if you get enough different points of perspective all saying the same thing, they don't all have to be completely reliable.

There's a poem I'm reminded of. One that illustrates the point I want to make quite well.  The Blind Men and the Elephant. Between the six of them they all build a quite vivid picture of what an elephant looks like.

You can't always trust your perceptions. Drugs, madness, and your position on the elephant will all change what your own perceptions tell you. However if you get enough people around the elephant and all talk about what they perceive you can get an idea of what actually is.

Relying on enough outside perspectives and you can do two things:

1. You can figure out what's real within a reasonable doubt.
2. You can dodge some of the extreme ego-centrism that this philosophical construct can encourage.

I mean, if it's not real, then why are we wasting time paying bills?