Latest / Stuff You Should Know / Solipsism: This Is All In My Mind?

Transcript

Solipsism: This Is All In My Mind? · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
0:11
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
0:13
Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's not here. We are and we're pretty
0:17
Speaker 2: sure that both of us are here. But it's possible
0:21
Speaker 2: just be this here, and this is stuff you should know.
0:24
Speaker 3: That's right. Diving into philosophy again, this one sollipsism, perhaps
0:31
Speaker 3: the most naval, gayzy, sort of unintelligible aspect of all
0:37
Speaker 3: of them, which is that sort of old classic stoner
0:41
Speaker 3: college dorm room thing. How do we know if anything
0:45
Speaker 3: is real? What if it's as all in this part
0:47
Speaker 3: of it? What if it's all just a simulation?
0:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's one example of what it could be. But
0:54
Speaker 2: there's a couple of things about this one, as annoying
0:56
Speaker 2: as it is, because if you're if you're arguing for solypsism,
1:01
Speaker 2: and I don't want to say you're syllopsist, because there's
1:04
Speaker 2: basically nobody out there who's an actual syllopsist, Like you
1:10
Speaker 2: can just keep saying like, but yeah, how do you know?
1:12
Speaker 2: But yeah, how do you know? There doesn't seem to
1:15
Speaker 2: be any more reducted argument in all of philosophy, all
1:22
Speaker 2: other philosophy can essentially be argued against by solyopsism. And
1:28
Speaker 2: the reason why is because the basis of solypsism is
1:32
Speaker 2: that there is no reality. It's just you, you hearing this.
1:38
Speaker 2: I don't exist, Chuck doesn't exist, this podcast doesn't exist.
1:42
Speaker 2: Nothing exists except for your mind. And that's the basis
1:47
Speaker 2: of everything that you think is real. And none of
1:50
Speaker 2: us are actually doing anything that you're not projecting out
1:54
Speaker 2: of your mind. That's sollpsism and it sounds mind blowing,
1:58
Speaker 2: but like I said, it's also annoying, and it's also
2:01
Speaker 2: extremely simple, so much so that it can deceive you
2:05
Speaker 2: into thinking that it means more than it does. It doesn't.
2:08
Speaker 2: It's it's as basic as that. But again, as annoying
2:12
Speaker 2: as it is, it is in some ways a useful
2:15
Speaker 2: argument because if you really want to make a philosopher
2:18
Speaker 2: rigorous in their argument, have them take on sollipsism or
2:22
Speaker 2: some form of it.
2:23
Speaker 1: Yeah.
2:23
Speaker 3: I think Olivia found something online that said, like, no modern,
2:28
Speaker 3: like legitimate philosopher even takes part in these arguments because
2:32
Speaker 3: it's just such like, hey, get off the couch with
2:35
Speaker 3: your brong and maybe talk about something some real philosophy well.
2:40
Speaker 2: Also, the other part of it too is if you
2:42
Speaker 2: were a genuine philosopher and you genuinely believe that nothing
2:45
Speaker 2: was real except in your mind, there's zero point for
2:49
Speaker 2: you to do anything like write a philosophy paper for solipsism,
2:54
Speaker 2: because nobody's out there to read it in actuality. So
2:57
Speaker 2: what's the point. You're by yourself in the entire universe
3:01
Speaker 2: so much so that the universe doesn't even exist outside
3:04
Speaker 2: of your mind. You're by yourself in some incomprehensible form
3:08
Speaker 2: of existence. It's just weird and depressing in a lot
3:12
Speaker 2: of ways.
3:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure we should mention the skeptics a little
3:17
Speaker 3: bit because that's sort of that sort of lays the
3:19
Speaker 3: groundwork for solyopsism a little bit. The skeptics started around
3:25
Speaker 3: the third century BCE. The word itself came from the
3:28
Speaker 3: Greek term meaning inquiry or examination, and they were basically like, hey,
3:34
Speaker 3: it's not possible to have like some knowledge to make
3:39
Speaker 3: definitive judgments, arguing against the stoics, who said, no, you
3:44
Speaker 3: should be able to test claims using, you know, stuff
3:48
Speaker 3: that we can see and hear, using our senses, and
3:52
Speaker 3: the skeptics and this sort of laid the ground of
3:53
Speaker 3: what was to come for solopsism basically said like, hey,
3:56
Speaker 3: we can all be deceived, though, what about the case
3:59
Speaker 3: of idea nical twins? You could you could be deceived there,
4:03
Speaker 3: or you could have a sensory experience if you're talking
4:05
Speaker 3: about trusting your senses that aren't connected to reality, Like
4:08
Speaker 3: that's what a dream is. Yeah, And dreams sort of
4:11
Speaker 3: play into the whole thing, at least at the beginning.
4:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, the skeptics said, you ever had a dream dingus? Yeah,
4:18
Speaker 2: how are you gonna how are you going to trust
4:19
Speaker 2: your senses with that? And so skepticism, like you said,
4:23
Speaker 2: is kind of an extension of it, a basis of it.
4:27
Speaker 2: It's not quite there, but enough that sollipsism is often
4:31
Speaker 2: thought of as an extreme form of skepticism. Sometimes it's
4:35
Speaker 2: also called global skepticism, like your skeptical everything and then uh,
4:40
Speaker 2: it's also sometimes called mondo scepto.
4:44
Speaker 3: Uh. Speaking of the dreams, though, there was a Taois
4:47
Speaker 3: philosopher named juang Zi that in this also sort of
4:50
Speaker 3: like the groundwork was, Hey, if I wake up from
4:54
Speaker 3: a dream and I was a you know, an a
4:57
Speaker 3: will debeast in that dream, how to I know that
5:00
Speaker 3: I'm not really a will Tobeaston that this is the dream.
5:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, and all this again, yes it does seem kind
5:06
Speaker 2: of bongish or bong adjacent for sure, But this is
5:12
Speaker 2: the kind of stuff that philosophers care about. Like it's
5:16
Speaker 2: called epistemology. Epistemiology I like to add a lot of
5:21
Speaker 2: syllables sometimes, so I'm not quite sure which one. But
5:24
Speaker 2: it's the basis of how we know what we know,
5:27
Speaker 2: how we gain knowledge. And the point of this, of
5:31
Speaker 2: all this stuff, as people were kind of building on it,
5:34
Speaker 2: is to say, like we need to kind of figure
5:36
Speaker 2: out how we do know, because if you really stop
5:39
Speaker 2: and think about it, we're not quite sure exactly how
5:41
Speaker 2: we know anything. And that whole thing was picked up
5:44
Speaker 2: in the seventeenth century by Descartes and his very famous
5:49
Speaker 2: quote I think therefore I AM came out of this right.
5:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's you know, basically saying like, hey, I
5:58
Speaker 3: know that I am. I'm doing the thinking. I have
6:03
Speaker 3: a brain, and but that's about all I know. They
6:07
Speaker 3: you know, Descartes was the first one that came in
6:08
Speaker 3: and said, hey, maybe we should get a system called
6:11
Speaker 3: methodic doubt. Great band name to determine if like, hey,
6:16
Speaker 3: you're saying something is truth, like one of the truths.
6:19
Speaker 3: We should be able to test this, but things are fallible,
6:24
Speaker 3: like math, you can make mistakes in you can't look
6:26
Speaker 3: at tradition of a culture because you know, people might
6:31
Speaker 3: disagree with that kind of thing. And then the idea
6:34
Speaker 3: of an evil demon coming in and basically kind of
6:39
Speaker 3: taking hold of your consciousness and saying that you're you're
6:42
Speaker 3: having all these illusions and that's inhabited inside of you.
6:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that evil demon thing too. It's like, as
6:51
Speaker 2: we'll see, it's been updated in much more modern form.
6:54
Speaker 2: But Descartes was the first one to really kind of
6:56
Speaker 2: say it's possible. Especially we should say cart believed in God,
7:02
Speaker 2: that the extension of that I think therefore I am,
7:06
Speaker 2: is also that anything I can just intuitively know is real,
7:11
Speaker 2: like God is real. So he believed that there definitely
7:15
Speaker 2: was God. So he was arguing like, okay, if we
7:19
Speaker 2: believe in God, then there we have to entertain the
7:23
Speaker 2: possibility that it's not just you know, our minds that
7:28
Speaker 2: are projecting this, but that we're we're being diluted, that
7:31
Speaker 2: we're like an entire universe is being created for us
7:34
Speaker 2: by this evil demon. This is his seventeenth century application
7:39
Speaker 2: of it, but it's it's like we, like I said,
7:42
Speaker 2: it kind of formed these or it's been updated in
7:45
Speaker 2: modern forms, and that really kind of that's where it
7:49
Speaker 2: gets super tough, because it's like, Okay, yeah, it's ridiculous
7:52
Speaker 2: that you're you're the only person who exists and all
7:55
Speaker 2: the rest of us don't exist, or even more creepy,
7:59
Speaker 2: this is where it gets it to me. Okay, like
8:02
Speaker 2: when you start to try to argue against sollipsism, one
8:06
Speaker 2: of the ways that you're going to go is that
8:09
Speaker 2: other people have experiences and thoughts and emotions too, so
8:14
Speaker 2: that totally discounts the idea that you're the only entity,
8:19
Speaker 2: you're the only self in the entire universe, and that
8:22
Speaker 2: all of this is just in your mind. But then
8:26
Speaker 2: you have to ask, like, well, wait a minute, how
8:28
Speaker 2: do you know other people have experiences in thoughts and
8:31
Speaker 2: feelings like you do. There's no way for you to
8:34
Speaker 2: know that, and there's actually no way for them to
8:38
Speaker 2: get that across to you in any provable way. And
8:41
Speaker 2: then you just kind of go like, oh, it's a
8:43
Speaker 2: little scary. At least I do it's the kind of
8:46
Speaker 2: thing that keeps me up at night.
8:50
Speaker 3: Well, the word itself, if you want to break it down,
8:53
Speaker 3: it first appeared in eighteen sixty nine from Kant and
8:58
Speaker 3: I think it's Latin for solace from a loone in ipsy,
9:03
Speaker 3: meaning self. And this isn't the kind of thing where
9:07
Speaker 3: like at the beginning, people are like, wow, this is
9:09
Speaker 3: really holds a lot of water. From the beginning, it
9:12
Speaker 3: was pretty ridiculous, and philosophers thought it was pretty ridiculous. Oh,
9:16
Speaker 3: here's a quote no great philosopher has espoused solypsism. It
9:21
Speaker 3: is the quote that Lvia found. Because you know, if
9:25
Speaker 3: you believe that there's nothing, then there you can't have
9:29
Speaker 3: an argument about anything, because, like you said at the beginning,
9:33
Speaker 3: a solypsis would just come in and go like, well.
9:35
Speaker 1: How do you know prove it?
9:36
Speaker 3: You can't prove that because you even your proof isn't
9:38
Speaker 3: proof because it's not real.
9:40
Speaker 2: Yeah. One of the other things too, just to kind
9:43
Speaker 2: of get this into perspective, is like you can't even
9:46
Speaker 2: say that you have a brain because everything you know
9:49
Speaker 2: about a brain, you've you've basically you're not born with
9:52
Speaker 2: the concept of a brain. You learn that from the
9:55
Speaker 2: external world, and if the external world doesn't exist, then
9:59
Speaker 2: maybe brains don't exist, Like maybe you just don't can't
10:03
Speaker 2: even conceive of who you are, and that's the ultimate problem.
10:06
Speaker 2: You just you can just keep reducing it, like you
10:08
Speaker 2: can't prove how you know what you know. And I
10:12
Speaker 2: feel like that's really kind of set us up for
10:16
Speaker 2: a break. Who do you think?
10:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll be right back.
10:42
Speaker 2: So one of the things I kind of talked about
10:45
Speaker 2: earlier before the break, Chuck, was that the as far
10:49
Speaker 2: as philosophy goes, like if you're trying to actually apply
10:51
Speaker 2: this to philosophical arguments or maybe like real world kind
10:55
Speaker 2: of stuff, is that it has to do with other
10:59
Speaker 2: minds and the fact that we can't ever fully understand
11:04
Speaker 2: what other people are thinking. And then as relates to sollipsism,
11:07
Speaker 2: we can't really prove that other people are thinking. And
11:11
Speaker 2: there's actually some not just philosophers, but neuroscientists who've kind
11:17
Speaker 2: of investigated this because it is an interesting question, Like
11:21
Speaker 2: it's that same kind of question like how do I
11:24
Speaker 2: know that we both experience the same color green in
11:28
Speaker 2: the exact same way, and that what you call green
11:31
Speaker 2: I actually think is blue? Like, I experience it as
11:35
Speaker 2: what you would experience blue, but I call it green
11:37
Speaker 2: because I think that's what you're talking about too.
11:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, And in terms of neuroscience, you know, you're talking
11:44
Speaker 3: about maybe a technology where you could brain splice and
11:47
Speaker 3: you could literally maybe get someone inside someone else's head.
11:52
Speaker 3: But even then, it's not like some sort of full
11:55
Speaker 3: proof solipsistic argument, because even if you were sending signals
12:00
Speaker 3: from one brain to another, it's still going to be
12:03
Speaker 3: a subjective experience and you wouldn't have any idea even
12:07
Speaker 3: though you're getting the signals from their brain, like the
12:09
Speaker 3: subjective nature of it, like you can't you can't gauge
12:13
Speaker 3: subjectivity scientifically.
12:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, And there's this example of like, Okay, one person
12:20
Speaker 2: that you're connected to the brain of is saying like,
12:23
Speaker 2: I'm thinking of a red apple, and the other person
12:26
Speaker 2: with the other connected brain is like, yep, I can
12:29
Speaker 2: see the red apple that you're thinking of. But again
12:32
Speaker 2: that to that person, red is what the other person
12:35
Speaker 2: would think of as blue, and you can't possibly know
12:38
Speaker 2: that that person is thinking of what would be actually
12:40
Speaker 2: a blue apple and calling it red. But the thing
12:43
Speaker 2: is you can you can just be like, okay, person
12:46
Speaker 2: number two. Now you think of a red apple, and
12:48
Speaker 2: we'll see what person number one thinks of it if
12:51
Speaker 2: it matches their conception. It'd be really easy to find
12:54
Speaker 2: that out if you ask me.
12:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, and if that was a test subject, they'd say,
12:58
Speaker 3: why is Chuck walking into traffic?
13:01
Speaker 1: What's going on?
13:02
Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean we should say here, like all of
13:05
Speaker 2: this does require brain implants, and I just don't feel
13:08
Speaker 2: like there's anybody trustworthy to put an implant in your
13:12
Speaker 2: brain right now.
13:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's true.
13:14
Speaker 2: There's also this concept of a philosophical zombie, right, They're
13:18
Speaker 2: called p zombies, and it kind of ties in with
13:20
Speaker 2: what I was saying, Like, we can't ever say that
13:25
Speaker 2: somebody else is thinking or emoting, because we can conceive
13:28
Speaker 2: of something that looks like a human, acts like a human,
13:32
Speaker 2: has all the same thought processes of a human, maybe
13:36
Speaker 2: even has emotions and all that stuff, but they're missing
13:39
Speaker 2: what it means to be a human, which is the
13:43
Speaker 2: experience of experiencing something. Right, So, like that person can
13:48
Speaker 2: eat an apple and taste what an apple tastes like,
13:51
Speaker 2: but they will never feel what it feels like to
13:54
Speaker 2: taste an apple that's like really delicious, You know what
13:56
Speaker 2: I'm saying, and some people come up with it, came
13:59
Speaker 2: up with the idea of a p zombie, a philosophical
14:02
Speaker 2: zombie to try to investigate like what it is that
14:04
Speaker 2: makes humans humans? And that's kind of what they came
14:07
Speaker 2: up with.
14:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, and if you you know, as AI comes on
14:11
Speaker 3: more and more, and I know you tackled some of
14:13
Speaker 3: this in the End of the World your special podcast
14:17
Speaker 3: series for that. But the idea of like AI becoming
14:22
Speaker 3: sentient or conscious or whatever, Like, how were we going
14:25
Speaker 3: to know if that's even happening, because it's not just
14:28
Speaker 3: if it knows so much stuff it can you know,
14:31
Speaker 3: AI can learn facts and things, but like it's that
14:36
Speaker 3: that subjectivity of a human or a I guess just
14:40
Speaker 3: an experience because it wouldn't be human. And like, how
14:43
Speaker 3: do we know if that's happening to an AI?
14:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, or a person too, you know, like it's just
14:49
Speaker 2: and again, like I think you kind of nail it
14:51
Speaker 2: on the head, like all this seems like navel gazing,
14:53
Speaker 2: but there is like some utility to it.
14:56
Speaker 3: Well, let's talk about some of the I guess varieties
15:01
Speaker 3: of solypsism that they've come up with over the years.
15:04
Speaker 3: There's one called metaphysical solepism. That's basically that an individual
15:11
Speaker 3: is like yourself is all that there is nothing else
15:14
Speaker 3: has any independent reality at all.
15:17
Speaker 1: Then there is.
15:18
Speaker 3: Epistemological solypsism, and that is it is not even possible
15:24
Speaker 3: to know where anything outside our individual consciousness exists or
15:28
Speaker 3: is real.
15:29
Speaker 2: And that one is actually like kind of a step
15:31
Speaker 2: down from metaphysical. They're like, we're not saying that nothing
15:34
Speaker 2: else in the universe exists but your mind, but we're saying, like,
15:40
Speaker 2: like you and I were just talking about with p
15:41
Speaker 2: zombies and AI, like we can't prove that anybody else
15:46
Speaker 2: has those thoughts some feelings besides the thinker.
15:49
Speaker 3: Right, not the famous statue, but you know, a real thinker.
15:55
Speaker 3: There's methodological methodological soism. I got that extra ow in there,
16:01
Speaker 3: and that means it's not possible to even start to
16:04
Speaker 3: analyze the world except through your own individual consciousness and lens.
16:09
Speaker 1: Which that makes sense.
16:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, it does. But I saw that it really gets
16:14
Speaker 2: tricky with research because at base, methodological sollaptism says you
16:18
Speaker 2: don't need to mess with data or other people's research,
16:21
Speaker 2: just what do you think about the subject, And that
16:24
Speaker 2: doesn't really hold water for like a research paper, because yeah,
16:29
Speaker 2: I mean that's a good place to start. You can't
16:31
Speaker 2: just dive in, or I guess you can, but it's
16:34
Speaker 2: also like, what are your conceptions about this, and let's
16:37
Speaker 2: start from there and then go figure out if that's correct.
16:40
Speaker 2: Like this is just sticking with the what do you
16:42
Speaker 2: think about this? And write the research paper. So it's
16:45
Speaker 2: not a really good idea, frankly, and then also, Chuck,
16:48
Speaker 2: there's just a straight up bad idea. Ethical solypsism also
16:53
Speaker 2: called pos sollopsism. Yeah.
16:57
Speaker 3: I think there's a professor from m team name a
17:01
Speaker 3: Plosis or rather or maybe teaches philosophy named Casper Hair
17:07
Speaker 3: and he had a book in two thousand and nine
17:09
Speaker 3: called On Myself and Other Less Important Subjects where he
17:14
Speaker 3: was he was arguing a lesser version of ethical sollipsism,
17:18
Speaker 3: which is the idea that other things and people might exist,
17:22
Speaker 3: but we have no obligation to any of those people
17:25
Speaker 3: or ideas except for our own.
17:27
Speaker 2: No, And I think ultimately at the end he's like,
17:29
Speaker 2: but for us, for the person, the individual, to lead
17:34
Speaker 2: a fuller life, you kind of do need people here
17:36
Speaker 2: or there, So you don't want to just completely screw
17:39
Speaker 2: over everybody for yourself. But that's the basis of what's
17:42
Speaker 2: called ethical solaptism, that you have no moral obligation to
17:47
Speaker 2: anyone except yourself. And then the other thing that really
17:50
Speaker 2: stuck out to me, Chuck, was that you have no
17:53
Speaker 2: moral obligation to anybody but yourself right now, So you
17:56
Speaker 2: don't even have to look out for your future self.
17:59
Speaker 2: All you need to care about is your present self.
18:02
Speaker 2: And that's why I call it pos solypsism.
18:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, piece of what piece of s.
18:10
Speaker 3: There are also lots of little sort of side ideas
18:12
Speaker 3: that come along if you're gonna gaze at your navel
18:15
Speaker 3: about solypsism. And one is the famous brain in a
18:19
Speaker 3: vat or the futurama or the matrix idea, which is
18:24
Speaker 3: all you are maybe is a brain floating in a
18:27
Speaker 3: jar with some life sustaining liquid and it's hooked up
18:30
Speaker 3: to a computer and everything you see is a simulation.
18:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is where we kind of get into
18:37
Speaker 2: the modern updated versions of Descartes evil demon right, Like,
18:41
Speaker 2: what's keeping you in the brain in vat? What's running
18:45
Speaker 2: that simulation for you? Yeah? There's also the simulation hypothesis,
18:50
Speaker 2: which came from Nick Bostrom, which I did do a
18:53
Speaker 2: whole episode on End of the World on because it
18:56
Speaker 2: just fascinates me. But it's a lot of people confuse
19:00
Speaker 2: it with the brain and a vat. But it's different
19:02
Speaker 2: because in the simulation hypothesis, which is that if if
19:09
Speaker 2: civilization becomes advanced, like say, are we're there ancestors, there
19:13
Speaker 2: are descendants, they just keep getting more and more technologically advanced,
19:17
Speaker 2: that they can invent simulations that are indistinguishable from reality,
19:24
Speaker 2: and they run a bunch of simulations over and over again,
19:27
Speaker 2: like say, they sell copies of the simulation game, so
19:30
Speaker 2: one hundred million simulations are ever created over the course
19:34
Speaker 2: of history. Then, mathematically speaking, since we can't distinguish between
19:38
Speaker 2: reality and a simulation, it makes it's much likelier that
19:43
Speaker 2: you and I exist in a simulation rather than the
19:46
Speaker 2: actual one version of reality that the simulations are based on. Right,
19:51
Speaker 2: And the thing that people get mixed up with the
19:54
Speaker 2: brain in a vat is that the brain in the
19:56
Speaker 2: vat in reality, your brain in a vat in the
19:59
Speaker 2: simular in reality, your reality simulated. But to you it's reality.
20:04
Speaker 2: There's nothing different. There's no other like reality that you
20:07
Speaker 2: could wake up to that's just reality. It's essentially like
20:11
Speaker 2: a techno version of creationism. Essentially, like if you replace
20:17
Speaker 2: whoever came up with the code for the simulation with God,
20:21
Speaker 2: it's essentially saying the same thing.
20:23
Speaker 1: Yeah.
20:25
Speaker 3: There's also and this is sort of along those lines,
20:27
Speaker 3: the experience machine idea. There's a philosopher named Robert Nozick
20:32
Speaker 3: in a nineteen seventy four book that said, how about
20:35
Speaker 3: this for a thought experiment. I don't think that people
20:39
Speaker 3: are just basically hedonistic in life, And what if what
20:43
Speaker 3: would people choose if they could be attached to a
20:45
Speaker 3: machine they can simulate any experience, like as if it
20:49
Speaker 3: were identical and real and you thought it was real, Like,
20:52
Speaker 3: would it be hedonistic?
20:53
Speaker 1: Would you choose falling in love with you?
20:55
Speaker 3: Would you choose to write, you know, create a great
20:57
Speaker 3: piece of art or something like that? And then that
21:00
Speaker 3: you know, there are different versions of that, like what
21:02
Speaker 3: if it's for two years at a time, what if
21:04
Speaker 3: it's your whole lives? And the counter to that usually
21:08
Speaker 3: is somebody saying, yeah, but people, it's not reality, and
21:12
Speaker 3: people aren't engaged in reality. In humans inherently want to
21:15
Speaker 3: engage with reality.
21:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, and like to sweeten the pot. Noasick was like, like,
21:21
Speaker 2: you will have nothing but pleasure for the rest of
21:24
Speaker 2: your life, all all the pleasure you want. You will
21:27
Speaker 2: never be able to distinguish it from what life was
21:29
Speaker 2: like before. You won't remember that there was a life before. Like,
21:32
Speaker 2: it will be amazing. And something like seventy four to
21:36
Speaker 2: eighty percent of people who are posed this thought experiment
21:39
Speaker 2: say like, nah, I don't want to do that. Even
21:42
Speaker 2: though life is suffering in a lot of ways and
21:45
Speaker 2: sucks and can be boring and is definitely not one
21:48
Speaker 2: hundred percent pleasure all the time, most people still want
21:53
Speaker 2: to be engaged in reality. And that's again, like, it's
21:58
Speaker 2: not just a cool thought experiment. I use that to
22:00
Speaker 2: argue against the idea that humans are at bottom, just
22:03
Speaker 2: nothing but hedonistic creatures who seek out nothing but to
22:06
Speaker 2: increase their pleasure. Knowsick really kind of demolished that with
22:11
Speaker 2: that thought experiment.
22:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think, what in the matrix? What in Joey pants?
22:15
Speaker 3: Fully on board with the simulation.
22:18
Speaker 2: I don't remember. I don't remember that.
22:20
Speaker 3: I think he was because I think he was like
22:22
Speaker 3: eating the steak and they were like, yeah, but the
22:24
Speaker 3: stake's not real and he's like, yeah, but you know,
22:27
Speaker 3: it tastes, tastes real, tastes good to me, something along
22:30
Speaker 3: those lines. But yeah, that's pretty interesting.
22:33
Speaker 2: Do you want to take our second break and come
22:34
Speaker 2: back and talk about our favorite part of this criticisms.
22:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's journey into K three.
23:03
Speaker 1: All right.
23:04
Speaker 3: So when it comes to criticisms of sollipsism not from us.
23:07
Speaker 3: There are some famous stories, one of which very famous
23:12
Speaker 3: story in philosophy circles as at least you're not a philosopher,
23:16
Speaker 3: you probably would be like once I got kicking the
23:18
Speaker 3: rock for But it was an eighteenth century story about
23:22
Speaker 3: writer Samuel Johnson who was in a I guess debate
23:27
Speaker 3: with the philosopher named George Berkeley, and Berkeley said, hey,
23:31
Speaker 3: Descartes's mind body dualism is faulty, and everything that appears
23:39
Speaker 3: to have existence is just made up in your mind. Well,
23:42
Speaker 3: first Berkeley said it's impossible to refute this, and that's
23:44
Speaker 3: when cheeky old Samuel Johnson came in and kicked a
23:48
Speaker 3: very large rock and said, I refute this. In other words, hey,
23:52
Speaker 3: this rock is here, and this is just an absurd
23:55
Speaker 3: idea because I can kick that rock and it hurt
23:57
Speaker 3: my toe.
23:58
Speaker 2: Right exactly. Yeah, And so if you're a philosopher, you're
24:02
Speaker 2: like Samuel Johnson doesn't get it, And if you're not
24:06
Speaker 2: a philosopher, you're like Samuel Johnson gets it. Like philosophers
24:10
Speaker 2: are very famously, maybe overly engaged in perfectly crafted, totally
24:18
Speaker 2: air tight arguments and the idea of just kicking a
24:21
Speaker 2: rock and being like, see it's real. It doesn't really
24:24
Speaker 2: hold water with them, but for everybody else it's like, yeah,
24:28
Speaker 2: it kind of gets to what Wickenstein is that how
24:31
Speaker 2: you would say it in German? Yeah, Ludwig Wckenstein. I'm
24:36
Speaker 2: gonna say his name again at least one more time,
24:38
Speaker 2: because it's fun. He was a philosopher of the twentieth century.
24:41
Speaker 2: He basically was like, man, philosophy, this is not a
24:44
Speaker 2: quote I'm paraphrasing, has some like real hang ups with
24:47
Speaker 2: having to just like the fact that sollipsism is actually
24:51
Speaker 2: it exists, and people feel the need to argue against it.
24:54
Speaker 2: Sometimes says all you need to know about how uptight
24:58
Speaker 2: philosophers are aboutilosophy, and essentially we just need to take
25:03
Speaker 2: some things as fact as granted or else all we're
25:06
Speaker 2: doing is spinning our wheels. But if you say, like, okay,
25:09
Speaker 2: I believe that the world is material, that it exists
25:13
Speaker 2: apart from human consciousness, that if there were no humans
25:16
Speaker 2: around and nothing, no life to experience it, everything would
25:21
Speaker 2: still be the same. Like, let's just take that as fact,
25:25
Speaker 2: if that's what you believe, and just move on from there.
25:28
Speaker 2: You need to have some sort of foundation that you
25:31
Speaker 2: can say this is real, this exists, and then you
25:34
Speaker 2: build off of that, and if you don't, then you're
25:38
Speaker 2: just shooting yourself in the foot. Essentially, it was what
25:41
Speaker 2: Vickens was what Ludwig Vickenstein was saying.
25:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think's unfortunately at Vickenstein, Well, I was
25:51
Speaker 3: I didn't see it, but the I think the second
25:53
Speaker 3: letter in the EI in German is the one that's favored.
25:57
Speaker 2: Oh so how would you pronounce it? Then?
26:00
Speaker 1: I think it would be Vitckenstein.
26:03
Speaker 2: Well, I still like Vickenstein, so I'm going to.
26:06
Speaker 1: Stay with it like Frankenstein.
26:09
Speaker 2: Oh, I had it backwards, So I thought that Stein
26:13
Speaker 2: was like the Anglicized version of it in Stein was
26:16
Speaker 2: the German version.
26:19
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure the second letter in German is the
26:21
Speaker 3: one that's pronounced.
26:22
Speaker 2: I know I do I believe you.
26:24
Speaker 3: I'm not positive, but I do know that that Frankenstein
26:26
Speaker 3: was the doctor.
26:28
Speaker 1: You mean Frankenstein had not the monster.
26:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true.
26:33
Speaker 1: So let's talk about Steven P. Thornton.
26:35
Speaker 3: He's a philosopher at the University of Limerick, the most
26:39
Speaker 3: singsongy university in all of Ireland. He has an argument
26:43
Speaker 3: that hey, guys, it's a big mistake to view these
26:46
Speaker 3: mental states as just something we experienced subjectively and then
26:51
Speaker 3: you know, relate to others like, hey, I know how
26:53
Speaker 3: it feels to get my toast stubbed because I've done it,
26:56
Speaker 3: so I see that's happened to you, so I know
26:57
Speaker 3: how that feels. He says, we learn what these mental
27:01
Speaker 3: states are and what he called an intersubjective world, like
27:07
Speaker 3: we learn like a kid when it's born understands what
27:12
Speaker 3: being sad is by looking around at someone crying or
27:16
Speaker 3: something like that. And that's how they know what sad
27:18
Speaker 3: is because of a behavior they witness in a context
27:21
Speaker 3: they witness it in. So if you you know, Livia
27:25
Speaker 3: used a great example, if you're grinding your teeth and
27:27
Speaker 3: if you're you know, snapping at people in your life
27:31
Speaker 3: and you can't sleep, then you probably know you're experiencing stress.
27:35
Speaker 2: Right. This guy's argument to me is the one that's
27:38
Speaker 2: that makes the most sense, just refuting sollipsism, which is like, yes,
27:42
Speaker 2: you have internal feelings and thoughts, like the experience of
27:47
Speaker 2: feeling sad is not the whole of sadness. That there's
27:51
Speaker 2: other stuff and all the rest of it essentially comes
27:54
Speaker 2: from interacting and learning from the external world. And so
27:58
Speaker 2: the whole idea of solis is based on a faulty
28:01
Speaker 2: premise that the entire world could possibly just be in
28:05
Speaker 2: your head, because how are you going to learn from
28:07
Speaker 2: something that's not actually there in the first place. I
28:12
Speaker 2: like Stephen P. Thornton. He's my new favorite philosopher. Uh.
28:16
Speaker 2: There was one other guy too we have to bring
28:18
Speaker 2: into the conversation, Bertrand Russell. He's a very famous philosopher,
28:23
Speaker 2: a mathematician. I believe his whole thing was like if if,
28:28
Speaker 2: if we might be like, like, what was it? Juang
28:31
Speaker 2: z him saying like, how can I tell if I'm
28:35
Speaker 2: a man dreaming of a will to beast or a
28:37
Speaker 2: wild to be dreaming of being a man, And Bertrand
28:40
Speaker 2: Russell was like, if that were true dreams are just
28:43
Speaker 2: weird and freaky and anything goes really like waking life
28:46
Speaker 2: is not like that. So if waking life for a dream,
28:50
Speaker 2: there would be measurable ways that it veers off of,
28:52
Speaker 2: like physics or whatever, and we would notice that. And
28:55
Speaker 2: these days it's called a glitch in the matrix. You
28:57
Speaker 2: would notice glitches in the Matrix. And there's actually a
29:01
Speaker 2: really coolddit subreddit called Glitch of the Matrix and it's
29:05
Speaker 2: people's like stories about just how just weird, inexplicable, strange
29:10
Speaker 2: small things that they've noticed here there in life. They'll
29:14
Speaker 2: they'll post them and every once in a while they'll
29:16
Speaker 2: be like a picture too. This is kind of fun
29:18
Speaker 2: to go through.
29:19
Speaker 3: What would it be of like, give me an example.
29:23
Speaker 2: Any one that I saw a couple of times is
29:26
Speaker 2: something like seeing somebody like go out a door and
29:29
Speaker 2: then like thirty seconds later they come in and totally
29:32
Speaker 2: opposite door that they physically couldn't have possibly gotten through.
29:36
Speaker 2: So how do you explain that? Just stuff like that,
29:39
Speaker 2: Like how in the actual movie the Matrix things would
29:42
Speaker 2: literally glitch like you can kind of tell all of
29:44
Speaker 2: a sudden they were like ones and zeros. This is
29:47
Speaker 2: kind of like that, but it's like the program itself
29:49
Speaker 2: is lazy or something like that.
29:52
Speaker 1: I gotcha.
29:53
Speaker 3: So, you know, the navel gazing and talking about solipsism
29:57
Speaker 3: and debating it or whatever is one thing, but if
29:59
Speaker 3: you do you have a mental illness, especially if you
30:03
Speaker 3: have something like schizophrenia, this idea is terrifying. It's called derealization,
30:09
Speaker 3: and it's you know, something that can happen if you
30:12
Speaker 3: suffer from paranoid schizophrenia. There are people that suffer from
30:17
Speaker 3: that that talk about sort of exactly this, like the
30:20
Speaker 3: people around them are extras or empty shells, and that
30:25
Speaker 3: you and you alone are real and responsible for like
30:29
Speaker 3: the world moving on as it is and being alienated
30:33
Speaker 3: from your own body and not having a sense of self.
30:36
Speaker 3: Like that's all real stuff and terrifying stuff.
30:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. There's a a psychologist named Clara S.
30:44
Speaker 2: Humpston who kind of explains how somebody with schizophrenia might
30:48
Speaker 2: actually retreat to a solipsistic state as a way to
30:53
Speaker 2: kind of exercise control over a world that they feel
30:55
Speaker 2: like they have zero control over. That Like, if you're like, nope,
30:59
Speaker 2: all this is just in my mind and it's not real,
31:03
Speaker 2: then in a weird sense, even though as lonely and
31:06
Speaker 2: horrifying as that thought actually is, Like you can feel
31:09
Speaker 2: like you can control those things then too, And that
31:13
Speaker 2: actually kind of ties into yet another argument or criticism
31:16
Speaker 2: of sollopsism. If all of this is just in your mind,
31:19
Speaker 2: all of reality, how do you explain the fact that
31:21
Speaker 2: you have no idea what's coming in the future, or
31:24
Speaker 2: that you can be surprised or startled? Like none of
31:28
Speaker 2: that makes sense either. So I don't remember through thirty
31:34
Speaker 2: seconds on how those two things tied together, but just
31:37
Speaker 2: if I rewind, I'm sure I would find out that
31:39
Speaker 2: they did.
31:41
Speaker 3: Well. There are other disorders too that touch on other
31:43
Speaker 3: parts of solypsism. Certainly you're talking about the pos kind
31:46
Speaker 3: the ethical solypsism that very closely could tie into something
31:50
Speaker 3: like narcissistic personality disorder or anti social personality disorder. That
31:57
Speaker 3: sort of lack of empathy and only making choices based
32:01
Speaker 3: on their own needs. That definitely is like rings of
32:05
Speaker 3: ethical solypsism.
32:06
Speaker 2: Yes, so, yeah, I mean that's pretty much solyopsism. I
32:12
Speaker 2: don't think we're going to do a part two eventually.
32:16
Speaker 2: I think we've kind of put it to bed, which
32:20
Speaker 2: feels good Chuck, And since Chuck doesn't.
32:23
Speaker 1: Have anything else, right, I got nothing else.
32:25
Speaker 2: I got nothing else either, So then that means, of
32:27
Speaker 2: course that it brings up Listen or mail.
32:32
Speaker 3: This is from Yun spelled ja n but yun is German. Hey, guys,
32:38
Speaker 3: listen to the episode on Ludvig the second, which I
32:40
Speaker 3: enjoyed like all your episodes. I work in research and
32:43
Speaker 3: development for wastewater technology, so I know how much work
32:46
Speaker 3: it is to research a new topic and become familiar
32:48
Speaker 3: enough to talk about it like you guys do, and
32:52
Speaker 3: I mostly research stuff in my own field.
32:54
Speaker 1: So well done.
32:56
Speaker 3: I want to say thank you for being a steady
32:57
Speaker 3: presence throughout my PhD on waterless toilet, It's fatherhood, the pandemic,
33:02
Speaker 3: and my new job which often takes me on long
33:04
Speaker 3: road trips. Love learning, and your podcast allows me to
33:06
Speaker 3: broaden my horizon way beyond my normal work. Today, however, guys,
33:11
Speaker 3: I have to write to assure you that filling a
33:14
Speaker 3: hall of five hundred people in Germany would be in
33:17
Speaker 3: and kendush be a child's play.
33:20
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
33:21
Speaker 3: Okay, most people below the age of forty here speak
33:27
Speaker 3: English to a decent degree and I know plenty of
33:28
Speaker 3: people that listen to your show, so please please come
33:31
Speaker 3: to Germany. If you do, I'll make it my mission
33:33
Speaker 3: to get the event sold out. Oh wow, and let
33:35
Speaker 3: me know if you want any recommendations for decent beers
33:38
Speaker 3: while you're here.
33:39
Speaker 1: And that is from jun Man.
33:41
Speaker 2: That's awesome. That was a great email, Yun. Yeah, I
33:44
Speaker 2: think we should take you on up on that. Finally, Chuck,
33:46
Speaker 2: I want to go to Germany.
33:48
Speaker 3: We've had enough people seeing come to Germany. I think
33:50
Speaker 3: we have to go to like Berlin and Munich just
33:52
Speaker 3: to see how heck is.
33:53
Speaker 1: Going on too.
33:54
Speaker 2: Huh.
33:55
Speaker 1: Yeah.
33:55
Speaker 3: We could do the big city style and then Bavarian
33:59
Speaker 3: city style.
34:00
Speaker 2: Okay, let's do it. Then it's it is settled. And
34:04
Speaker 2: that was from young j A N. Yeah, I'm glad
34:07
Speaker 2: you said that, because for my whole life I've been saying, well,
34:10
Speaker 2: first I said Jan, then I grew up and I
34:12
Speaker 2: thought Jan. I did not know it was Jun.
34:16
Speaker 1: Well, this is what I mean.
34:18
Speaker 3: J A N. In this letter said it's pronounced why
34:22
Speaker 3: you n n?
34:24
Speaker 2: Yeah that's young for sure, that's young. But anybody's name
34:29
Speaker 2: pronounced Jan reminds me of a quote. Have you ever
34:32
Speaker 2: seen Johnny Swayede the Brad Pitt movie. I never saw that, yeah,
34:38
Speaker 2: but there was a classic line in it where he's
34:41
Speaker 2: at dinner at like his date's house. In the dates,
34:43
Speaker 2: Dad says, you know, John, if we were in Sweden,
34:49
Speaker 2: your name would be Yon Spade and he says, no, sir,
34:53
Speaker 2: it'd be John Johnny Swayed, always has been, always will be.
34:57
Speaker 3: That's a pretty good, uh, Brad Pitt.
34:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, imagine Brad Pitt blankly saying this, but with
35:03
Speaker 2: a huge pompadour.
35:04
Speaker 1: It's pretty great, not bad.
35:07
Speaker 2: Well, I think that's it again. Thanks you, and we'll
35:10
Speaker 2: see everybody, including you in Germany. Eventually we'll figure it out.
35:15
Speaker 2: And in the meantime, if anybody out there from Germany
35:18
Speaker 2: or otherwise wants to get in touch with us, you
35:20
Speaker 2: can send us an email to Stuff podcast at iHeartRadio
35:23
Speaker 2: dot com.
35:27
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
35:29
Speaker 3: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
35:33
Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.