Guybrush

Oh yeah, I can see how that is a real worry ..

Let's hope the homeless and the starving don't suffer from solipsism.

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Something Completely Different

littleknowitall

The way my brain works my friend...you'd be surprised :p

cardboard adolescent

Must know his name...

Most idealism seems pretty solipsistic to me, but obviously there's different levels to it.

Those lucky bastards have so much distracting them...

sleepy jack

I have been reading Ludwig Wittgenstein's work - the dichotomous idealism was what initially intrigued me - which has led me to further study linguistics and language in general to work through some things. I am prefacing this now because I'm going to passingly reference some of Wittgenstein's ideas and this is, in many ways, the building block of the rest of my what I'm going to say and my mindset in general.

There's this argument presented, we'll call it the Image Theory, and the basis is that for language to have meaning and the ability to connection to reality every word has to be associated with a picture. To expand on this, language in general has to be associated with some sort of emotion. Which means that language is strictly an associative thing, which would of course amount to language being no more than the outcome, or to be more specific giving coherent noises, than a singular individual perception of reality (solipsism basically.)

But there's the second argument (here's the other half of the dichotomous bind) that for language to even exist it has to happen between persons, which means language is now dependent on the community. This of course, could mean that you are still alone but I'm not inclined to believe that. This would require a sort of schizophrenia I believe myself to be incapable of. I understand the argument that you could only enjoy things as your perception of them is but certain things, particularly language, that expand and alter perceptions to an extent that I would find impossible to do with my own mind. There are conversations I have had that have uplifted me to a certain point or brought me down to a certain point that I, no matter how extremely bipolar I could suddenly become, could create that kind of emotional ecstasy/depression. By making language dependent on the community (this of course, could point towards a bisolipsism or communal solipsism but I believe that to be increasingly improbable depending on the amount of people within the community which would continue to grow with the more people you encountered) this leaves up with two options.

Those two ideas leave us with two options obviously. One is to treat language as mimesis and nothing more then that. Option two is to expand the trap, making the linguistic subject (since we can create words and assemble different noises to sound out these words) infinite and everything.

I prefer to follow the latter option, with the former Image Theory approach, of language being something of individual expression and forced manifestation, it still leaves you with the problems of solipsism. The latter of course, makes the language the basic for existence/community and multiple persons in a world. This avoids the problem of solipsism but leads to the classic postmodern and poststructural problem of having no existence outside of language (so essentially this doesn't eliminate the horror of solipsism but rather it shifts the specifics and makes less likely.)

I don't know if any of this makes sense; it's nearly four in the morning and it's basically a quick summary of my attempt to understand language, in regards to the necessity and importance of it. I've basically tried to deconstruct it, and reconstruct it in order to understand how it operates and it's constraints as well as lack of constraints. However you can't objectively study language since you are trapped inside of it and living within it and from the moment your born into a community you can't even attempt to escape it or maybe I've been busy with too many substances lately and I'm full of shit.

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Yukon Cornelius

sounds like a whole lotta stupid to me

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Attempting to find a cure for Stupid...

sleepy jack

As always your intelligence is unparalleled. I want to thank you for your constant valuable input and insight.

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Yukon Cornelius

Lets all stand by for the best person in the world

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Attempting to find a cure for Stupid...

sleepy jack

Hey man I just wanted to say I appreciate you. Don't let it go to your head.

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SATCHMO

Their is nothing scientifically sound that suggests that what we loosely refer to as reality is anything more than the manifestations of our thought processes and whatever subsequent biases we have as a result of them.
Now, having said that, there are people in this world who use this theory as a way to compensate for the fact that they have no control over their lives, as if they could simply wish there Ideal life circumstances into existence. It's not quite that simple.
Do I believe that "Life is but a dream"? absolutely and unapologetically. I also believe that this philosophy does not alleviate one from taking full responsibility for ones life, in fact I believe if understood correctly it makes one more mindful of their actions and the subsequent consequences, good or bad, that result from them.
Understand that this is not new age fluff. It is, in fact, science. It may contradict our present paradigm of understanding reality, and it is certainly signaling the end of physical science as we have come to know it.

sleepy jack

I don't think solipsism is a scientific theory or even hypothesis; as there's no way to prove or disprove it through the scientific process. The idea, or rather fact, that everything you experience in your life is ultimately your experience is but that isn't solipsism exactly as it doesn't necessarily point towards everything's existence being dependent on your own mind.

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