What is solipsism?
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Solipsism is often referred to as being self centred, as in doesn’t care for other people. A lot of time though, people with this condition have been shown to have difficulty in acknowledging that people around them have feelings as they do, oftentimes the person feels that they are the only one with feelings and that theirs matter because they are real to them.
If I were to tell you I was sad for something that held no weight for you, would you become upset as well? Not really, because you can’t feel my feelings. You may feel some sympathetic sadness, but our feelings are personal. People with solipsism just simply could not fathom that my sadness would be legitimate.
It’s the idea that the only thing you can believe with total certainty to exist is your own mind. You’re aware of your own mind, you know for sure that it exists, but what about everything else? Is everything else just made up by your own mind?
The belief that you, yourself are the only person who actually exists/has consciousness.
“I think therefore I am” -Descartes
Since I can think, I know that I exist, so how am I supposed to know that other people think like I do? I can’t see through their eyes, I don’t think their thoughts, so how do I know they think? They could either be automatons that react to certain stimuli, or they and the rest of the universe could just be a hallucination entirely withing our heads. The state the universe is in and the input from all of your senses is just entirely made up by your head, and the universe just follows a set of rules made up by your own head. Since you can’t exist outside of your brain, how are you to ever know this isn’t the case?
Solipsism is often referred to as being self centred, as in doesn’t care for other people. A lot of time though, people with this condition have been shown to have difficulty in acknowledging that people around them have feelings as they do, oftentimes the person feels that they are the only one with feelings and that theirs matter because they are real to them.
If I were to tell you I was sad for something that held no weight for you, would you become upset as well? Not really, because you can’t feel my feelings. You may feel some sympathetic sadness, but our feelings are personal. People with solipsism just simply could not fathom that my sadness would be legitimate.
It’s the idea that the only thing you can believe with total certainty to exist is your own mind. You’re aware of your own mind, you know for sure that it exists, but what about everything else? Is everything else just made up by your own mind?
The belief that you, yourself are the only person who actually exists/has consciousness.
“I think therefore I am” -Descartes
Since I can think, I know that I exist, so how am I supposed to know that other people think like I do? I can’t see through their eyes, I don’t think their thoughts, so how do I know they think? They could either be automatons that react to certain stimuli, or they and the rest of the universe could just be a hallucination entirely withing our heads. The state the universe is in and the input from all of your senses is just entirely made up by your head, and the universe just follows a set of rules made up by your own head. Since you can’t exist outside of your brain, how are you to ever know this isn’t the case?
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