Why is solipsism a flawed idea?
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Well, solipsism would basically be treating the world like a video game, nothing you do matters if nothing is real. The problem is that reality doesn’t care whether you believe in it or not, you can’t just load a prior save to avoid the consequences of your actions.
If solipsism is true, what can one do about it? How does the knowledge of its truth help us one bit? We still have to live and exist and function within this society and reality we find ourselves in, and even if none of it is real at all that in my mind it’s real enough. Whether or not the world as we perceive it exists independently or not we cannot escape this perception except by death, so it’s best to act as if the world is independent of our minds.
I think the biggest flaw is that it’s unknowable. Subscribing to a solipsistic philosophy requires a certain disregard for how we as individuals can negatively impact the world around us. If solipsism is true, then that’s fine – it doesn’t really matter if we hurt the planet or other people because none of it is “real.”
However, since there’s no way to *know* that it’s true, there is a chance that the solipsistic person is causing real damage to a real world with real people in it.
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