[nileshtrivedi]

I think you missed his sarcasm. He feels that objective truth exists. :)

BTW, I have found Yudkowsky's "The Simple Truth" an effective argument against those claim that objective truth doesn't exist. If you walk in the way of a speeding train, you will die irrespective of your beliefs. Beliefs don't alter the reality. http://yudkowsky.net/rational/the-simple-truth/

[quinnchr]

Hmmm... yes let's disregard the last century of philosophical thought and the postmodernism movement as a whole because the dude who write's Harry Potter fan fic wrote a cute story.

How would you convince a Solipsist that there is an objective truth?

[nileshtrivedi]

> How would you convince a Solipsist that there is an objective truth?

I can't. But let me quote Bertrand Russell from "An Outline of Philosophy":

Solipsism (the theory that I alone exist) is a view which is hard to refute but still harder to believe. Solipsism is not really believed even by those who think they are convinced of its truth.

A solipsist would have no objection to jumping from a cliff, would he? But he won't actually do it.

[quinnchr]

Why would a solipsist have no objection to jumping off a cliff?

Just because you believe reality doesn't exist outside your own mind doesn't mean you can't die.

[nileshtrivedi]

That's not the point. If you really are a solipsist, why would jumping off a cliff have more probability of leading to death than not jumping (because the cliff doesn't really exist)?

[quinnchr]

Ummm... what?

All solipsism says is that you can't be sure reality exists outside of your own mind. You can question whether or not you would be dead outside of your own experience, but you'd still be dead in your internal world.

[philwelch]

The only reason to believe that jumping off a cliff leads to death is because that's what we observe happening to other people and we assume we are like other people. But the solipsist has no reason to believe this as the other people don't exist outside of his own mind therefore he is not like them.

[philwelch]

Considering that everyone is a solipsist these days, that's an interesting problem but it's not a philosophical problem. If someone else is a solipsist I know from experience that they're wrong, and I'm not a solipsist.

[Double_Cast]

> How would you convince a Solipsist that there is an objective truth?

"I refute you!"

Joking aside, I feel Solipsism is immature. Do you know which demographic also comprises Solipsists? Two year olds. "Mommy doesn't exist when I close my eyes." This gives Solipsists an excuse to stop thinking critically about things like ethics, et al. So in this sense, Solipsism's just a cop-out which justifies laziness. When someone says "objective reality doesn't exist", what I really hear is "everybody's equal; you all get a trophy; we all have a right to our opinions". You might recognize this as the Red Herring Fallacy. I think Solipsism is a subtle version of this same fallacy.

Paul Graham says something similar about the subjectivity of aesthetics * : "Your mother at this point is not trying to teach you important truths about aesthetics. She's trying to get the two of you to stop bickering." I think this applies to Moral Relativism, Solipsism, and generally most philosophies which deny the existence of objectivity.

* http://www.paulgraham.com/taste.html

Post Modernism is often said to have been a reaction to Modernism. But I think it's even more important to realize that Post Modernism is a reaction to World War I and II. After WWII, I imagine people realized "Science and objectivity gave us cars and electricity, but it also gave us mustard gas and nuclear weapons. Maybe this whole Modernism gig isn't so great after all..."

According to Literary Post Modernism, there's lots of conflicting narratives rather than a single objective perspective. During the chaos of World Wars I and II, I imagine war-stories naturally contradicted one another. I like the conflicting POV aspect because it can encourage the reader to question the author's reliability, like in Edgar Allen Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart. Unfortunately, Post Modernism can also have the opposite effect: encouraging readers to quit thinking too hard and to accept the text as it is since "it's all equally valid". This negative aspect fits really well with the self-esteem movement, which (I'll say again) I think is a cop out for thinking critically.

You may notice I'm not refuting Solipsism per se, but ulterior motives for believing Solipsism is valid. This is because going down the road of "formal proofs" probably won't yield anything convincing. We'd simply talk past each other, and in circles, and bicker over definitions. But at the end of the day, it's pretty difficult to disprove abstractions and ideologies sin finding an inherent contradiction. And I'll even admit, maybe Solipsism actually is true. Who knows? I won't claim outright that Solipsism is false. But in my own experience, I find it very unlikely that Solipsism is true * . And I do want to acknowledge a possible bias for believing "Solipsism is true" due to it's convenience.

* http://yudkowsky.net/rational/bayes

p.s. I do find the Harry Potter fan-fic kinda weird...

[quinnchr]

I wasn't necessarily saying that solipsism is a good philosophical framework. I personally think it's rather limiting. My point was simply that you can't refute centuries of philosophical thought with a story, you actually have to put in the effort to critically examine existing theory and and address the actual arguments of the ontological frameworks you are trying to refute.

"Unfortunately, Post Modernism can also have the opposite effect: encouraging readers to quit thinking too hard and to accept the text as it is since 'it's all equally valid'"

Isn't deconstructionism sort of a core component of Postmodernism? Doesn't the deconstructionist view say that you shouldn't accept the text as it is?

[vdaniuk]

Thats a good argument and may be generalized by quoting George Edward Box "Remember that all models are wrong; the practical question is how wrong do they have to be to not be useful."

[Double_Cast]

I occasionally reread Isaac Asimov's The Relativity of Wrong. While Yudkowsky's The Simple Truth is more rigorous, I find the brevity of Asimov's essay more refreshing. Another perennial favorite of mine is George Orwell's Politics and the English Language.

http://chem.tufts.edu/answersinscience/relativityofwrong.htm

https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm

[vdaniuk]

Great links, thanks.