# Overcoming Solipsism **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 29, 2020, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overcoming-solipsism/852778 "2020-04-29T01:00:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2020, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overcoming-solipsism/852778/61 "2020-06-12T01:57:19Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > That’s not really an understanding of what solipsism is. It’s the idea that, beyond the self, nothing can be known for certain. There are different degrees of that but that is the core, and alas it is true. I cannot for sure verify that there are “other people” with minds and that the world isn’t a figment, it’s not arrogance it’s just the limits of our ability to know things. Of course you can verify that there are “other people” with minds. You encounter them every day in person. You spend your time posting here. Every minute of your life, especially the time you spend posting here, is proof that other people exist. They made the computer or phone you type on, they made the internet, they made the electricity and/or batteries to run your devices, they made the message board software, they made the chair you sit in, built the house you live in, the light you see by, the clothes you are wearing. Proof that other people exist is the single most abundant thing in your universe, more all-encompassing than air. All attempts to deny this are futile nonsense, not even worthy of being disproven. This is so absolutely gigantically true that it creates a paradox. If other people exist, why would they waste any time blasting this ridiculous notion to oblivion? Well, why do people crush ants? Same answer. Both are tiny annoyances so easily dispatched from reality that the effort is too trivial to count as wasting time. If you claim to be so easily swayed by people speaking truth, then how can you possibly justify denying this truth, the bedrock truth to all other truths? ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2020, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overcoming-solipsism/852778/62 "2020-06-12T16:48:29Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > That’s not really an understanding of what solipsism is. It’s the idea that, beyond the self, nothing can be known for certain. There are different degrees of that but that is the core, and alas it is true. I cannot for sure verify that there are “other people” with minds and that the world isn’t a figment, it’s not arrogance it’s just the limits of our ability to know things. > > Extreme versions of solipsism say nothing else besides me exists which is something they can’t prove or know so that is ridiculous, but the “softer” forms of it are true. And that is what bothered me about the comment that he said it was true. “Normal” versions of solipsism posit that only the self exists. I suppose people can posit wimpier versions, but last I heard that wasn’t the standard. But let’s talk about wimpier versions. If the entire universe is not created by the self, then (logically) it must be being created by something else. Something else that is _real_, specifically, because imaginary things can neither create reality nor gigantic elaborate staged reconstructions of reality. So you’ve got either stupid solipsism, or that which we observe is derived from some form of reality. So let’s talk about what it means to be “not real” for a moment. There are a few possibilities. 1. It doesn’t have the properties it appears to have: the hammer isn’t real; it’s made of rubber. The sword isn’t real; it has dull edges. That’s not really Professor X; that’s Patrick Stewart. 2. It isn’t made of what it appears to be made of, despite having all the properties you think it has. A realistic computer simulation of a room, a table that is made out of molecules and atoms rather than having wood grain down to microscopic levels and beyond. 3. Tabletop roll-playing games, and characters in books and stage plays. We can rule out type-1 unreality on the face of it, because our understanding of how reality operates is based on interacting with it. It really has the properties and behaviors we expect of it, because our expectations are derived from interactions with its properties and behaviors. Regarding type 2 unreality - I dispute that it’s unreality. Sure, the table is made out of atoms rather than “just wood”. I don’t consider that to mean it’s not real. That just means that it has subtleties to its composition that are not immediately obvious at first glance. That doesn’t make it unreal. _And the same thing goes for if it’s a computer simulation._ If wood being made of molecules doesn’t make it unreal, and molecules being made out of atoms doesn’t make it unreal, and atoms being made of subatomic particles doesn’t make them unreal, then subatomic particles being made out of data doesn’t make them unreal either. Within the world defined by the molecules/atoms/protons/bytes, interactions between the things in question have predictable effects defined by the rules of the world - that world’s ‘physics’. If our world is a simulation, the interaction of the data underlying it has real consequences. If I permakill your character, they’re _dead_. For real. Oh, and we’re not in a book, play, or role-playing game either, for relatively obvious reasons. If the reasons are not obvious to you then I can discuss them, but this post is long enough already. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overcoming-solipsism/852778/63 "2020-06-13T00:58:36Z")
**begbert2** : I’m not sure you’re giving enough weight to “weird” vareties of the self-created reality. You might be creating the world…and have no awareness of it at all. Dreams are created by our own minds – but when you’re dreaming, you usually don’t know it. “It’s just a dream” is a form of solipsism that cannot be refuted, and which doesn’t reduce well under logical analysis, because dreams are not logical. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overcoming-solipsism/852778/64 "2020-06-13T03:43:46Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > **begbert2** : I’m not sure you’re giving enough weight to “weird” vareties of the self-created reality. You might be creating the world…and have no awareness of it at all. > > Dreams are created by our own minds – but when you’re dreaming, you usually don’t know it. > > “It’s just a dream” is a form of solipsism that cannot be refuted, and which doesn’t reduce well under logical analysis, because dreams are not logical. But it’s also meaningless to anyone and everyone else for exactly the same reasons. ---
**Author:** ![Machinaforce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@Machinaforce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machinaforce)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overcoming-solipsism/852778/65 "2020-06-13T05:33:54Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Of course you can verify that there are “other people” with minds. You encounter them every day in person. You spend your time posting here. Every minute of your life, especially the time you spend posting here, is proof that other people exist. They made the computer or phone you type on, they made the internet, they made the electricity and/or batteries to run your devices, they made the message board software, they made the chair you sit in, built the house you live in, the light you see by, the clothes you are wearing. Proof that other people exist is the single most abundant thing in your universe, more all-encompassing than air. > > All attempts to deny this are futile nonsense, not even worthy of being disproven. This is so absolutely gigantically true that it creates a paradox. If other people exist, why would they waste any time blasting this ridiculous notion to oblivion? Well, why do people crush ants? Same answer. Both are tiny annoyances so easily dispatched from reality that the effort is too trivial to count as wasting time. > > If you claim to be so easily swayed by people speaking truth, then how can you possibly justify denying this truth, the bedrock truth to all other truths? Well no it’s not abundant. It’s still a belief, just like the belief that you are the only one. Nothing you said is proof at all. Posting on here is me believing there are other people with other minds. The dream example is one that refutes your entire argument. The people in your dream are not real they are figments but you cannot know that without waking up. ---
**Author:** ![Tusculan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecd19e/32.png) [@Tusculan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tusculan)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overcoming-solipsism/852778/66 "2020-06-13T12:20:17Z")
As you see, half of the posters who reply agree with your piont that it is not certain that other minds exist. The point is: so what? Actually it is not certain either that _you_ exist. Read Descartes, or rather the commentaries on Descartes: the only thing that is absolutely, incontrovertably certain is that some thinking thing exists. Nothing can be deduced from that with equal certainty. There is no logical reason why it should matter that the existence of the person you call you, the existence of other persons and the world at large, is not absolutely certain. And you haven’t provided a single reason why it should matter to you either. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overcoming-solipsism/852778/67 "2020-06-13T17:53:54Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > But it’s also meaningless to anyone and everyone else for exactly the same reasons. Oh, definitely. Exactly so. Here’s another favorite: what if “cause and effect” doesn’t actually work. Instead, things work the way they seem to be an _enormously_ improbable series of coincidences. We think, “I got a virus infection and that caused my flu symptoms,” but, in fact, the two are totally unrelated. The notion can never be disproven. It always sits there, the vulture at the feast. It _might_ be the truth. But it’s madness to try to work with it as a meaningful explanation for reality. Footnote it, laugh wryly, and get on with life. (One day, many years ago, my doctor gave me a new med, and warned that it might cause diarrhea. That night, I had just about the worst runs of my life. And…I hadn’t taken the med yet! If I had, I would have been _certain_ it was the cause. As it is, I know that “just coincidence” is the correct explanation.) ---
**Author:** ![Machinaforce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@Machinaforce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machinaforce)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2020, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overcoming-solipsism/852778/68 "2020-06-14T07:42:52Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Oh, definitely. Exactly so. > > Here’s another favorite: what if “cause and effect” doesn’t actually work. Instead, things work the way they seem to be an _enormously_ improbable series of coincidences. We think, “I got a virus infection and that caused my flu symptoms,” but, in fact, the two are totally unrelated. > > The notion can never be disproven. It always sits there, the vulture at the feast. It _might_ be the truth. But it’s madness to try to work with it as a meaningful explanation for reality. Footnote it, laugh wryly, and get on with life. > > (One day, many years ago, my doctor gave me a new med, and warned that it might cause diarrhea. That night, I had just about the worst runs of my life. And…I hadn’t taken the med yet! If I had, I would have been _certain_ it was the cause. As it is, I know that “just coincidence” is the correct explanation.) Isn’t that the problem of induction? But I think it’s more to do with me believing someone when they say something is true if it hurts me, like the Quora comment. ---
**Author:** ![Ashtura](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ashtura/32/2963_2.png) [@Ashtura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtura)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2020, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overcoming-solipsism/852778/69 "2020-06-14T08:22:31Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > You say there would be no difference between the two but it could not be more wrong. Solipsism being true would render everything else pointless which is why I am scared of it (though slowly waning). I don’t think people grasp the problem of it. Reality does not require a “point”. The point has to come from you. There are lots of things I find pointless. Including pondering whether I exist or not Other people think differently, and that’s ok. I personally think we’re just living in the imagination of an autistic child with a snow globe, who happens to be very well versed in medical terminology and procedures. He gave me a big clue about it back in the 80s. I just don’t think about it too much since it really doesn’t matter. I can’t do anything about it one way it the other. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2020, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overcoming-solipsism/852778/70 "2020-06-14T10:41:12Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > How can you help others when you can’t even be sure that others even exist or have minds? Think it through, man. First thing: you gotta help them exist. Once you do that, the rest is easy. You got the power. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2020, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overcoming-solipsism/852778/71 "2020-06-14T19:03:01Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > But I think it’s more to do with me believing someone when they say something is true if it hurts me, like the Quora comment. Your problem has nothing to do with any particular philosophy or whether it is correct or absolute bullshit. You keep going down the wrong rabbit holes for the wrong reasons, asking the wrong questions and getting the wrong answers. And as I often say, if you wait long enough, every thread reveals its soundtrack: [WRONG](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhnrrLxQEVQ). ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2020, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overcoming-solipsism/852778/72 "2020-06-14T19:28:44Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Are you familiar with the tv show _The Good Place_? It explored philosophical questions with humor. Basically, the entire show revolved around the philosophical question of what it means to live a good life. > > Spoiler: You help others. Duh. > > Yes, that’s the most obvious answer in the world. But it’s the one you need to hear. > > Find a way to help other people. There are zillions; cast around until you find the ones that work for you and your abilities. You will find that other peoples’ problems and concerns are realer than any doubts you have and that you cannot simply dismiss them by claiming they don’t exist. The work you put in will take you out of your head. You need that desperately. Do not delay. Your happiness and theirs depends on it. You’ll soon find that their happiness is the only important thing. That is the way to make yourself happy, too. Glad The Good Place was brought up. I went looking for the clip to show, but [this](https://www.bustle.com/p/the-good-place-isnt-actually-about-figuring-out-how-to-be-good-18839900) was the best I could do. > [@](#): > > Next up is Simone. Even though it breaks her heart, Eleanor tells Chidi that Simone is his soulmate so that he’ll try to connect with her, and ultimately convince her that she’s not just laying in a hospital bed somewhere. The plan gets off to a good start. Over some Yogurt Yoghurt Yoghurté, Chidi tells Simone that her solipsism is a “pretty juvenile” form of philosophy, and that she might as well be nice to people in case she’s wrong and her entire reality isn’t a figment of her imagination. “Why not treat them better just in case they’re real?” he says. “What do you have to lose by treating people with kindness and respect?” She’s receptive: “Keep talking, probably-fake-but-maybe-real philosopher man.” ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2020, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overcoming-solipsism/852778/73 "2020-06-15T21:35:25Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > **begbert2** : I’m not sure you’re giving enough weight to “weird” vareties of the self-created reality. You might be creating the world…and have no awareness of it at all. > > Dreams are created by our own minds – but when you’re dreaming, you usually don’t know it. > > “It’s just a dream” is a form of solipsism that cannot be refuted, and which doesn’t reduce well under logical analysis, because dreams are not logical. I believe that reality as presented is too self-consistent to be a dream. Any given five minute period could be a dream, but over the long term dreams don’t hold up and by all appearances reality does. Or put another way - if reality was a dream, science wouldn’t work. > [@Tusculan](#): > > As you see, half of the posters who reply agree with your piont that it is not certain that other minds exist. The point is: so what? Actually it is not certain either that _you_ exist. Read Descartes, or rather the commentaries on Descartes: the only thing that is absolutely, incontrovertably certain is that some thinking thing exists. Nothing can be deduced from that with equal certainty. Looking at wikipedia’s list of refutations, I don’t think that any of them stand up against what I call the D&D argument. One of the ways we could be living in a simulation of reality is if we’re characters in a D&D game. In such a game there are players, who are real, and avatars, who are being controlled by the players. The avatars do not have minds of their own; their players declare what they think and feel, and also what they see and smell and touch. The avatars experience a simulation contained within the descriptions of the players and the DM; they do not notice the many gaps and errors and omissions in the simulation because their players do not include noticing such errors in their avatars’ thoughts. So, could we be avatars? The answer is no, and here’s why: we have what I’ll call a locus of consciousness, and that locus has the direct experience of its thoughts and perceptions, and _only_ its thoughts and perceptions. Avatars don’t have this; the only loci of consciousness in the D&D scenario are found in the players and DM, and those loci experience the players’ reality, not the avatars’ reality. This does not conform to our experience, thus we cannot be avatars. Similarly, we cannot be roles in a play or characters in a book. We _could_ be agents within a simulation, where portions of memory and processing power are partitioned off into separate limited spaces. (Though, as I noted, a simulation is qualitatively identical to reality from the perspective of its occupants and thus _is_ real.) Of course this argument only applies to ourselves - everything we perceive could be being manipulated or fed to us, including our perception of the people around us and their behaviors. And all of these other people could be being controlled by a single conscious loci, a master computer running our reality and simulating the other people in it; or in a more pedestrian scenario all the people around us could be separate people each acting out artificial roles to fool you. It’s impossible to prove that other people are real in the same way you are real, or that they are what they seem. ---
**Author:** ![Machinaforce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@Machinaforce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machinaforce)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2020, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overcoming-solipsism/852778/74 "2020-06-16T05:12:11Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > I believe that reality as presented is too self-consistent to be a dream. Any given five minute period could be a dream, but over the long term dreams don’t hold up and by all appearances reality does. > > Or put another way - if reality was a dream, science wouldn’t work. > > Looking at wikipedia’s list of refutations, I don’t think that any of them stand up against what I call the D&D argument. > > One of the ways we could be living in a simulation of reality is if we’re characters in a D&D game. In such a game there are players, who are real, and avatars, who are being controlled by the players. The avatars do not have minds of their own; their players declare what they think and feel, and also what they see and smell and touch. The avatars experience a simulation contained within the descriptions of the players and the DM; they do not notice the many gaps and errors and omissions in the simulation because their players do not include noticing such errors in their avatars’ thoughts. > > So, could we be avatars? The answer is no, and here’s why: we have what I’ll call a locus of consciousness, and that locus has the direct experience of its thoughts and perceptions, and _only_ its thoughts and perceptions. Avatars don’t have this; the only loci of consciousness in the D&D scenario are found in the players and DM, and those loci experience the players’ reality, not the avatars’ reality. This does not conform to our experience, thus we cannot be avatars. > > Similarly, we cannot be roles in a play or characters in a book. We _could_ be agents within a simulation, where portions of memory and processing power are partitioned off into separate limited spaces. (Though, as I noted, a simulation is qualitatively identical to reality from the perspective of its occupants and thus _is_ real.) > > Of course this argument only applies to ourselves - everything we perceive could be being manipulated or fed to us, including our perception of the people around us and their behaviors. And all of these other people could be being controlled by a single conscious loci, a master computer running our reality and simulating the other people in it; or in a more pedestrian scenario all the people around us could be separate people each acting out artificial roles to fool you. It’s impossible to prove that other people are real in the same way you are real, or that they are what they seem. Well it’s also impossible to prove you are real. You could exist but be a dream of some other being after all. All you can really prove is thoughts but not a perceiver or thinker, Buddhism essentially did a refutation of what you are claiming along with many other schools of thought. The only thing you really know is an experience and that’s about it, you can’t even be sure you are real. Which of course blows a hole in the argument of the solipsist as they assume they are real and exist without being able to prove as much. But that is not the problem I am having, it’s to do with people saying that things that hurt me are true like the quora guy I quoted. ---
**Author:** ![Tusculan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecd19e/32.png) [@Tusculan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tusculan)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2020, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overcoming-solipsism/852778/75 "2020-06-16T07:31:54Z")
Given your last post, it appears your issue is not solipsism but something else which is not entirely clear to me. > [@](#): > > But that is not the problem I am having, it’s to do with people saying that things that hurt me are true like the quora guy I quoted. I don’t understand what the problem is, and I’m not sure the quora poster you quoted actually did say something like that. As you refer to ‘hurt me’ it’s more about your feeling, not a simple intellectual exercise. And you seem awfully hung up on truth. Maybe you could benefit from reading Nietzsche, possibly through a sympathetic commentary like Alexander Nehamas or Walter Kaufmann? In brief: there are only gradations of truth/certainty, people often claim absolute truth as a power play, whether you are able to deal with not having a solid ground of absolute truth is an issue of mental strength: you have to learn to dance instead of having to stand immovably with two feet on the ground (in Nietzsche’s metaphor). This doesn’t mean that truth doesn’t matter, but it may help you to cope better with disagreeable utterances. When someone says something disagreeable there is often a personal issue behind it, and it may be empowering to be aware of these issues instead of what is being said (which usually is not simply true either). The truth thereof only matters insofar as you can become stronger by it, improve yourself. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2020, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overcoming-solipsism/852778/76 "2020-06-16T17:21:49Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > . . . But that is not the problem I am having, it’s to do with people saying that things that hurt me are true like the quora guy I quoted. Guy goes to the doctor, bends his wrist, and says, “Doc, it hurts when I do this.” Doc says, “Don’t do that.” ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2020, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overcoming-solipsism/852778/77 "2020-06-16T17:30:59Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > Well it’s also impossible to prove you are real. You could exist but be a dream of some other being after all. All you can really prove is thoughts but not a perceiver or thinker, Buddhism essentially did a refutation of what you are claiming along with many other schools of thought. The only thing you really know is an experience and that’s about it, you can’t even be sure you are real. > > Which of course blows a hole in the argument of the solipsist as they assume they are real and exist without being able to prove as much. Nope! I believe that the D&D argument proves that the “I” itself is a coherent existent entity. You may think that Buddhism has disproven that, but they haven’t. Simple as that. They’re capable of being wrong, you know. Or, wait, let me put it this way: “It is true that buddhists are capable of being wrong.” > [@Machinaforce](#): > > But that is not the problem I am having, it’s to do with people saying that things that hurt me are true like the quora guy I quoted. I don’t know what your beef with the quora quotation you posted is. ---
**Author:** ![Machinaforce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@Machinaforce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machinaforce)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2020, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overcoming-solipsism/852778/78 "2020-06-16T17:57:11Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Nope! I believe that the D&D argument proves that the “I” itself is a coherent existent entity. You may think that Buddhism has disproven that, but they haven’t. Simple as that. > > They’re capable of being wrong, you know. > > Or, wait, let me put it this way: “It is true that buddhists are capable of being wrong.” > > I don’t know what your beef with the quora quotation you posted is. Your argument sounds more like special pleading than anything else. Again it doesn’t prove there is an “i” as a coherent and existent reality. All that can be known is the experience, not the existence of a thinker or a “center”. As I have said Buddhism and many other philosophers disproved your argument a while ago. That the existence of the “i” isn’t real, and so the solipsist has a hole in their view from the get go. ---
**Author:** ![Machinaforce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@Machinaforce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machinaforce)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2020, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overcoming-solipsism/852778/79 "2020-06-16T18:45:18Z")
This is the quote: "It is true, but it is a dead end to be an overtly uncompromising and dogmatic solipsist. Indeed, all we can know is that we “experience”, that we are “aware” - beyond that there is no certainty of anything, as to true 100% certainty or empirical provability. Even any words or symbols we use are constraints. constructs, and false as well - we cannot recognize (“be aware”, ”experience”) we know anything beyond that we do “have experience”. Everything else is up in the air, in that only what is actually Real and True hath not nary a care. Simply as solipsistical as that." ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2020, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overcoming-solipsism/852778/80 "2020-06-16T18:55:00Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > Your argument sounds more like special pleading than anything else. You seem to go to the “special pleading” argument whenever you don’t understand someone’s point or you’re incapable of refuting it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overcoming-solipsism/852778.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/overcoming-solipsism/852778.md?page=5)