They just move under the illusion that they know even though they don’t.
Also Occam’s Razor doesn’t really apply here. If there is no external reality then the things you do don’t matter, nor do other “people” then.
And yes humans do freeze once they know they can’t explain anything, you’re just not there yet.
The irony is that philosophy actually undoes everything you just said. Human rights is a vague term that means anything people want it to, no one even knows what exactly constitutes a “right”. Some argue that they are just privileges.
Questioning whether reality exists does nothing, morality is just a popularity contest as right and wrong aren’t objective. Philosophy can undo modern society if it was given a bigger place than it already has. Because when you question why you should treat people better, or why you should even care about others, you realize there is no “obvious” truth there. It’s just something we do, but do we have to? It also doesn’t do a good job of arguing against suicide or why to stay alive. For all the talk about the big questions it doesn’t do a thing about any of them.
By questioning my own assumptions I realized that I didn’t “have to” do anything. There isn’t a “moral obligation” towards others, I could be free to not care. You also learn that might makes right in any situation and that those with the power make the rules.
Justice is really just an opinion as well, there will never be true justice as the definition will always change. Even the notion of progress is arbitrary as there is no objective level of better or worse. All philosophy is just someone’s opinion.
Your “concrete visible results” are little more than simply sand castles.
And you’ve just touched on some important philosophical issues. How did you do that without your ability to think philosophically?
I read it in a book. I didn’t think about these things. But what you said is beside the point as such questions have no answer.
I am pretty sure the op is just whooshing now but I’ll still play.
So the op espouses a philosophy that eschews “analysis paralysis” and that promotes trusting what you think you know and acting on it. His cartoon caricature of a student of philosophy is Chidi from “The Good Place” … or Buridan’s ass. The knowledge of which allows one to get a joke in Big Bang Theory before they explain the crap out of it. 
Of course that is a philosophical perspective and one that has significant and deep historical roots continuing into more modern philosophers.
Support for the op’s philosophical perspective can be found all over: John Stuart Mill “A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury.”; Lao Tzu “Stop thinking, and end your problems.”; and my favorite, Terry Pratchett "The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.”
But OTOH: Albert Einstein “The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”; and “Don’t be a dumbass” My Dad.
Of course the real world choice is not between shooting (acting) without aiming (thinking) and aiming without shooting. Neither of those but the venison on the table.
Thinking is a skill. You want to practice skills so they become easy, so automatic that you can do them without thinking. Uh oh. Has this become a set M that consists of all sets that do not include itself? Damn you philosophy! Maybe QtM and DrPaprika can help us? Nooo - they’d be the paradox.
As with many of your threads, there are answers but you just don’t like to accept them. Not all answers are universal.
Strange that you’d throw out these philosophical statements in a thread being dismissive of philosophy, but fine, since I enjoy studying philosophy I’m quite happy to debate on this.
My opinion on “real” and “illusion” is that it’s a mistake to consider them attributes of entities. For example, if I have a dream about a vampire, the conception some people have is that the entity “vampire” has the property “illusion” but looking at things this way becomes problematic, with just one example being: “What if everything is an illusion, what does that mean?”
What I think, is that real and illusion are just labels for interpretations of events. At any time the interpretation that best explains events, and makes the best predictions, is “real”. All others are illusions.
The solipsism hypothesis right now doesn’t explain anything, and in fact adds an explanatory gap, because we need to know, for example, why other humans behave as though they have the same rich inner experiences as I do. There is no apriori reason why that would be the case.
And in terms of the Simulation Hypothesis, that’s asserting that there is a better interpretation without saying how it better explains the totality of events, or offering any empirical evidence. Right now it is occam’s vulnerable.
So I’m not a True Scotsman philosopher. Can you name someone who is?
I’m not a huge fan of philosophy and a lot of it does seem to be mental/verbal masturbation. Socrates especially was pretty flawed in his “logic”. That said when I read Plato’s Republic I was really impressed how applicable his dialogues of the city he describes relating to oligarchy, tyranny, etc. were to a lot of modern politics and government and the guy did seem way ahead of his time in many ways, the stuff he talked about then is still relevant and prescient of what was to come.
I recommend “Primary Philosophy” by Michael Scriven. He gives a nice summary of the field, and covers both sides of largely contended ideas. He explains monism and dualism, for instance, without actually taking sides. For theology, he introduces the notion of “a basic god” so that, at very least, we can all be pointing at the same thing when talking about “God.” (A response to the predictable retort, seen here often, “Define ‘God.’” Okay. He does so.) Very readable, and rather fun.
Is anything worth studying? You might study something because you find it interesting, or because it has practical value, or because you have to.
I have studied basic philosophy and like some philosophers, and not others. Sometimes it provides subtext to history or religion. Though ethics and logic are important, philosophy is not the only royal road to these topics. The few people I knew who majored in philosophy were argumentative and pedantic, and I think the practical value of studying a lot of philosophy is modest. But I never took a formal philosophy course perhaps to my detriment.
But if the other people are fake/imaginary then it doesn’t mater what happens to them right? There would be no reason to treat, regard, or feel for them in the same manner as one would if they where real.
Well first of all it depends what scenario we’re talking about.
But yes, if we’re saying other people have no subjective experience, that they’re just p-zombies or simpler, then sure it doesn’t matter if you murder someone, say.
Note this runs contrary to your original point though. Because if we’re saying “What difference does it make?” well clearly it does make a difference. And if we’re saying “It’s unknowable whether solipsism or the simulation hypothesis is true” well, how would we know it’s unknowable without having done philosophical study?
The best response to solipsism was given centuries before its most famous proponent was even born.
“If God had asked me for advice, this would be a lot simpler” - Alfonso X of Castille.
At the risk of hijacking (and I think I’m already the lead poster here…), this is one aspect of philosophy that I don’t like.
The whole thing that studying philosophy means studying philosophers, and famous philosophical treatises, and not just ideas and concepts on a particular topic.
There should be a distinction between History of Philosophy, and Philosophy, IMO.
Yep, that’s what the OP does in threads like this.
**Machinaforce ** you are trying to dismiss the value of Philosophy using arguments grounded in Philosophy. Now what?
You clearly think about stuff to the point of overthinking. I bet a bit of philosophy training would do you good.
If other people don’t exist, I’m still not going to murder them, because I don’t want to be a murderer. That experience would, I believe, do me harm. So it didn’t matter to me whether other people really exist, because I’m still going to act like they do.
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I don’t overthink things until I had training in philosophy. It’s because of the thinking treadmill of philosophy that I’m stuck.
How would that be a response to solipsism?
You’re engaging in philosophy: congratulations.
Because philosophical study itself is the problem. It asks this question but it doesn’t need have an answer to it or any way to find it out. In fact it explicitly states that it is impossible to know the answer yet stupidly asks the question. It doesn’t even answer what to do if the world is imaginary, what then? What does that say about the pursuit of knowledge or of morality? All those would be moot if others are just a figment of the mind. Solipsism is just one of many examples of the failure of philosophy. A question with no answer or way to figure out and all it does is create massive doubt about the world to the point of it being crippling.
You also didn’t answer my question about if they are just figments of the mind then it doesn’t matter what you do, philosophical questions about the world and everything don’t matter, it’s all just in your head. It is essentially how philosophy commits suicide.