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I have a fundamental (note: slightly more than Wikipedia and significantly less than an expert) understanding of solipsism, set theory etc etc... And you immediately made it abundantly clear that you have weird misunderstandings of all of the above. Etc and above. That's a broad scope of misunderstanding.
Can you pick your misunderstanding? Solipsism is the main culprit... because egotistical Gen Y... Don't sass us about solipsism.
I know a guy who says he's a solipsist. He literally thinks that he's the only thing in the universe that's real and everything he perceives is an elaborate hallucination or some shit. He's also a hardcore conspiracy theorist and self-absorbed little twat.
The solipsist claims there's some ghost in his own machine, a sort of "observer" existing in there, somehow. This doesn't mean its mechanism can be understood thru science, as it could be immutably hidden, sort of like light that falls outside what the human can see, except there are tools equivalent to those which allows ppl to see infrared, ultraviolet, etc light. Thus the mechanism allowing the solipsist to be conscious it would remain hidden, at least until the death of the solipsist. My 1st question is what makes the solipsist unique? If there's a mechanism, why can't it proliferate, allowing for multiple observers? Sure, at one point there was only a single train engine or computer in existence, but as soon ppl knew how to make them, more were made. So 2nd question is, would an omnipotent being be able to nullify solipsism by creating more observers? My 3rd question is, would an omniscient being be able to confirm whether solipsism is true or not?
But non of this matters if omnipotence & omniscience are incoherent, impossible, etc. As a 4th question, can a being that exists temporally/within space & time be omnipotent &/or omniscient? I've been reading a bit lately about how omniscience is supposedly incoherent due to set theory, sth about barber's paradox & set of all sets & cantor's proof. I'm still reading up on it but in short it just seems to me like the ideas of omniscience & omnipotence are rather... problematic. & if one can't be truly omniscient & omnipotent, then I don't see how solipsism can be refuted.
The point of having those attributes would to be create an inescapable absolute, an upper ceiling which even solipsism can't get away from. After all if you aren't omniscient, there's always the chance you're just a simulation, ensuring solipsism remains coherent. So it could be turtles all the way down, an infinite regress. But could there be a way to stop the infinite regress? For example if our universe A is actually caused by universe B which is actually caused by universe C which is actually caused by our universe A then we come full circle. In a sense our universe would be self-caused, altho we wouldn't know what's going on in universe B or C. It seems to stop the infinite regress, but it raises my 5th question: so what? Does this ouroboros actually change anything or is it still all the same at the end of the day? I suppose an omniscient being would have to know the contents of universe B & C....
The 6th question I want to ask is about the divide of conscious/subconscious mind that solipsism seems to imply... like the subconscious is creating everything. But would this imply the subconscious has its own consciousness too, in a weird way? If there's some kinda synergy, feedback process between the subconscious & the conscious, wouldn't the consciousness of the consciousness sort of "echo" back into the subconscious? Or would any consciousness in the subconscious just be a "fake", kinda like how a mirror reflects a similar image to the real deal?
7th, final question... If solipsism is true, then it is likely the solipsist has numerous lives, possibly even a googoplex of them... Which would mean even sad, pathetic, meaningless existences would be experienced by the solipsist, such as being born into a world where he only exists to be helplessly tortured for centuries on end before he finally perishes. If every single combination is to be explored, then we have a combinatorial explosion at our hands. After all, there doesn't seem to be any "end" to time, so one could have reincarnations where the torture lasts 1 second longer, then the next lasts another second longer, ad infinitum... Is there any reason why absurd scenarioer like that are impossible, at least that we, who don't know the contents of the subconscious, can tell? I have a hunch all those absurd scenarios would be impossible, because its like we're viewing it from very high up, making it seem like a lot more is possible then it truly is. Like if we could get down to grassroots level we'd realize there are a lot of constraints. Perhaps if the subconscious is conscious, it'd prefer to create more interesting "works of art" then just simple torture.
"The solipsist claims there's some ghost in his own machine, a sort of "observer" existing in there, somehow. This doesn't mean its mechanism can be understood thru science, as it could be immutably hidden, sort of like light that falls outside what the human can see, except there are tools equivalent to those which allows ppl to see infrared, ultraviolet, etc light."
Solipsism stems from the inability to prove that what we experience correlates—at least in a direct fashion—to an external reality. It ranges from "we cannot know what there is" (which is true), to the extreme position of "I am all that I experience," which posits that what is referred to as external reality exists as cognitive content without reference to actual entities. I do not see how science could affect either of those forms of solipsism; after all, the science you conduct would be within the domain of what is either unknowable, or would otherwise be entirely self-contained phenomenal experience.
"Thus the mechanism allowing the solipsist to be conscious it would remain hidden, at least until the death of the solipsist."
Solipsism does not postulate mechanisms. It simply states that our experiences are all that we know for certain that exist. We assume feel conscious during our dreams, just as we assume we are "conscious" when we are awake, owed to how things seem to be sensible. But we feel sensibility in our dreams as well. All we know is that we "experience." Perhaps wakeful consciousness is in fact a more elaborate dream. We cannot know these things because they are beyond the ability of examination.
"My 1st question is what makes the solipsist unique? If there's a mechanism, why can't it proliferate, allowing for multiple observers?"
If there is a mechanism, we would be entirely ignorant of it. Again, solipsism comes from the position that we cannot know anything except that we experience.
"So 2nd question is, would an omnipotent being be able to nullify solipsism by creating more observers?"
No. Why would a consistent solipsist believe he could know for sure that the omnipotent being or other observers are not creations of his own mind?
"My 3rd question is, would an omniscient being be able to confirm whether solipsism is true or not?"
By the definition of omniscient, yes.
"& if one can't be truly omniscient & omnipotent, then I don't see how solipsism can be refuted."
It can't be. In fact, we can't know anything objectively. We believe in those things which are most sensible to us.
"After all if you aren't omniscient, there's always the chance you're just a simulation, ensuring solipsism remains coherent."
I would say that our perceptions could possibly be a simulation, but I don't think I, who experiences, could be a simulation given that I experience.
"So it could be turtles all the way down, an infinite regress. But could there be a way to stop the infinite regress? For example if our universe A is actually caused by universe B which is actually caused by universe C which is actually caused by our universe A then we come full circle. In a sense our universe would be self-caused, altho we wouldn't know what's going on in universe B or C. It seems to stop the infinite regress, but it raises my 5th question: so what? Does this ouroboros actually change anything or is it still all the same at the end of the day? I suppose an omniscient being would have to know the contents of universe B & C...."
Can you elaborate on that, perhaps with concrete examples?
"The 6th question I want to ask is about the divide of conscious/subconscious mind that solipsism seems to imply... like the subconscious is creating everything. But would this imply the subconscious has its own consciousness too, in a weird way?"
It creates our dreams, and influences our thoughts and actions. I don't think that's an outlandish idea.
"If there's some kinda synergy, feedback process between the subconscious & the conscious, wouldn't the consciousness of the consciousness sort of 'echo' back into the subconscious?"
They absolutely influence one-another.
"7th, final question... If solipsism is true, then it is likely the solipsist has numerous lives"
What makes this likely?
"Is there any reason why absurd scenarioer like that are impossible"
No, but that seems rather random. Solipsism was formulated by deductive reasoning. I think one would be hard pressed to find good reasoning to explain how there could be multiple lives for a solipsist.
If you were the end-all, be-all to existence... If you were the sole recipient of self-conscious awareness... What would you do for fun? How would you want to spend your eternal existence?
...Wait, immortality wasn't exactly addressed right? There was mention of "multiple lives" of some sort, right? If one were the source and nexus of all that is real (insofar as you know, of course), then death makes existence (ALL existence of any sort whatsoever) a temporary blip on the absolute void of nothingness. A tiny bubble blown up and popped really quickly throughout the long infinities of nonexistence. (Anyway, I don't want to digress too far down that path, for it is part of the existential feedback loop I get myself stuck in, currently.)
How could one, whom is intrinsically the whole shebang of everythingness, escape the fetters of absoluteness? How do you remove the tangles of determinism and omniscience? How do you make action meaningful despite omnipotence? Etc., etc., etc.? You play a game, of sorts. You go into a willing self-agreement to certain rules and accommodations which enable you to partake of existence and gain experience of it. The quality of the experience is almost inescapably linked to the degree with which you believe it to be real.
Welcome to paradox. Welcome to duality from monism. In this game, you can believe that there are external objects and separate entities. You've already stacked the evidence against yourself for when you let yourself be immersed in it. You give yourself a tail to chase. While your apparently temporal existence seems fleeting and urgent, you somewhere sometime know that eternity is absolutely true and, therefore, the game need never end. You can willingly allow yourself to get lost in it forever, it really doesn't matter. You can even find yourself, learn your true scope and existence as an absolute, infinite and eternal "I AM" and then forget all over again. Over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over... One of the fun consequences of this is the fact that because these apertures of experience are temporary and limited, it can simply never be capable of fully "groking" this truth in its entirety. That existence you let yourself be put in is inherently incapable of knowing otherwise, since the attempt would actually break that existence of its illusion, therefore it simply CAN'T EVER know. KNOWING would erase BEING.
And though this little rant here may sound like it's some grandiose knowing, it isn't. It is thinking. It's only knowing if experienced and it can't be experienced as this (whatever it is) right now, right here. Ever.
I've likened the idea thus:
Imagine an artificial intelligence or robot or whatever that basically runs an entire server of its own. Essentially, it is a God to that digital "reality." It has total admin functions. (Of course, the analogy breaks down because the AI has to be embedded in some sort of substrate, from what we know of technology right now...basically, there would have to be a computer to hold the AI, but who made the computer?) This AI has total control of the software that the system derives its entire simulated reality from. It even has control of its own programming to some degree. The AI can set up a system of admin levels of access, the physics and natural laws, and all else that comprises everything. It can then meddle with its own programming. It can enable the fact it won't have access to memory and admin functions. It can make itself forget it's admin and has access. It doesn't necessarily have to remove its own access, but just making itself forget will kinda build its own strata of action and knowledge which can fundamentally have it "learn what it already knows" while thinking it's finding out secrets. Being a digital reality, the AI can distribute its self in so many different ways, functionally across all "space" AND "time." It can even make everything that happens or could ever happen be determined, and then forget that and it would then feel as though it was choosing and doing things because THAT'S WHAT IT MAKES ITSELF THINK.
And blah blah blah...
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