sol·ip·sismthe view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist.
The view that I’m all that matters and that my thoughts are all that matters.
Seems to me a small hop.
The view that I’m all that matters and that my thoughts are all that matters.
Now i imagine you’ll tell me, none that makes sense.I wasn't going to tell you that. I think you are responding to something in your imagination. Not me.
bam.
Sound of door slamming.
Okay, L don’t give it a thought.
CC,
This comes from Lucas Lynch. I don’t agree with every word of it. I don’t know what he is referring to with “Scottish-Irish inheritance”. But in summary, here’s what I’m hearing.
America has a “hangover from Calvinism”. It gave us a work ethic, but the ethic leads to thinking hardship on you is your own fault and welfare is shameful. There’s also some anti-intellectualism in there. This all served poor whites back when you could head out on the frontier, build a farm or hang out a shingle and start a life. In the new world of outsourcing and automation, it doesn’t work so well. As he says, “Such values work well and terminate in good conclusions only when labor is needed and the economy is functioning normally.”
But when there is a crisis in a capitalist system, it becomes a “personal trolley problem”, take the shame of welfare or suffer without it. Quoting Lynch again, “It is not quite so easy to accept that one’s “hard work” isn’t paying off anymore if you really still believe the burden is all on you…” The solution of hitting the books or otherwise retraining yourself are values that you and I learned, but they never did. Blaming them for that is not productive. What we need to recognize is that this crisis is hitting people not just financially, but also their sense of self worth. Their worth is not tied to intellectual machinations about society’s problems and even if they could make that shift, they would still have to develop the tools to make societal level changes. That’s not something you can make a speech about and expect instant change.
John
Lucas Lynch 4/21People should understand that there are deeper, more insidious cultural reasons why so many seem to be willing to risk deadly infection to go back to work. Once again, we can thank America’s “hangover from Calvinism”, as Sam Harris put it, causing such seemingly contradictory beliefs to be at play here.
“Traditional” American culture sees a direct correlation between how hard one works and how well one does, and thus any hardship you face is somehow, in the end, your own fault. And it also sees accepting the welfare of others, and most particularly from the government, as a shameful thing.
Of course, there are contradictions here. Poor whites, among the biggest believers in this cultural inheritance, are among the biggest recipients of government assistance, particularly in the reddest and poorest states. And they are also among the biggest believers in a Scotch-Irish inheritance of anti-intellectualism, a contempt of educated ‘elites’ that they see as in no position to ‘look down’ on them. In a modern, 21st-century economy, this does indeed make it harder for them to achieve this goal of bootstrap pulling, whereas their Hindu and East Asian and Jewish neighbors do just fine by contrast. It is a weird mixture of beliefs that served poor whites very well as farmers and businessmen on the frontier, where someone ‘just like me’ could still become rich and successful, but serves them less and less well as lower-skilled labor becomes less needed in the age of outsourcing and automation.
But where this inheritance totally breaks down is in the face of singular economic calamities, such as this pandemic or a financial crisis, whereby a willingness to ‘work hard’ has no bearing on how well one can do. Such values work well and terminate in good conclusions only when labor is needed and the economy is functioning normally. In other societies, recognizing the singular nature of the crisis and enabling governments to hand out aid is not seen as a shameful thing at all. A public welfare infrastructure is voted in by majorities of voters to make it easier to weather such storms. And a moral system exists by which it is not quite so shameful to be out of work or unemployed, nor is the fault of such circumstances singularly placed on the person currently suffering, and the admonishment to simply “get one’s act together” is not as dire, as if doing so in circumstances such as these is even useful or possible.
But if you have a scant welfare state to begin with, and shame associated with needing assistance, it does psychologically begin to become a personal trolley problem to weigh what one can do if one is unemployed, particularly if the margins were small to begin with. More than just putting food on the table or being able to get access to healthcare, it is a feeling of pride and having any value at all in one’s society and culture. It is not quite so easy to accept that one’s “hard work” isn’t paying off anymore if you really still believe the burden is all on you, and that seeking help due to circumstances beyond your control is the shameful act of a ne’er-do-well who simply isn’t sufficiently dedicated to “hard work” as they should be.
This sense of shame is also why a strong stance against immigration is popular. In factory towns where the bootstrap was relatively easy to pull and is no longer, blaming immigrants takes away this sense of shame. You’d think perhaps the simple solution would be to do away with the anti-intellectualism, and hit the books like their East Asian and Hindu neighbors, but if you still hold intellectualism in disdain and believe dedication to ‘hard work’ should just work out, blaming immigrants for somehow having unfairly ‘taken’ this from you washes away this sense of shame and personal failure.
Those of us lucky enough to get by right now or work from home shouldn’t underestimate just how hard this is hitting people. Not just financially, though it is - but also hitting at the core of people’s foundational sense of personal value in society. This is, I believe, in part why so many are willing to risk deadly infection to try and get back to business as usual. It’s not just the rent that is due or the bills that must be paid - a sense of self worth and meaning is on the line, and the shame one feels at not being able to do this is a powerful self-indictment, with a weight and meaning many of us raised somewhat outside this set of values can fail to appreciate.
Let’s hope America begins to evolve such that the strain of anti-intellectualism causing this real economic hardship and moral contradiction is gradually lifted away, and that a more powerful welfare state can be built that aids people during singularly catastrophic events such as this when people really need it.
I found a handy take on the matter of Solipsism: http://www3.sympatico.ca/saburns/pg0220.htm
The conclusion is pretty odd:
In other words, if you don't want to be a Solipsist (the logical consequence of Empirical Idealism), you have to be either a Realist (of the Outside-In Tradition), or a Rationalist (Intuitional Idealism). No professional philosopher will admit to being a Solipsist. They have all sorted themselves into one of these two alternative groups. So no matter which alternative you choose, you will have the company of lots of professional philosophers. Solipsism is logically coherent in itself, but we are incapable of believing it, once the consequences of the theory are made plain. And "believability" is the ultimate criterion of the truth of metaphysical theories.It essentially says that Solipsism, even if true, is beneficial to be disbelieved rather than believed, which I am finding myself agreeing with.
A couple responses from here are pretty good in suggesting that the problem of Solipsism is the result of our materialist view of reality: Philosophy - Thought Questions: Solipsism Showing 1-13 of 13
Though a good deal of them sound like Greek to me, I can’t make much sense of it but there seems to be a great deal of railing against materialism.
This one got me thinking a little bit, how the first answer argues that calling solipsism useless doesn’t make it less true. I thought that meant they thought solipsism is true, but now I’m thinking that maybe it means that it doesn’t make it less likely to be true. Calling a theory useless doesn’t make it less true, evidence or possible a solid argument does.
But I’m tired of being stuck in this mode of thinking however. With this sort of gap between me and other people as I’m not quite sure whether they truly exist or not. It’s not a way to live but I haven’t got anything to get around it.
i have foound solipsism dominating my life, its even worse on discord
As Anil Seth proposes. The brain makes a “best guess” of what it thinks it perceives. It is a process of the neural electro-chemical information transport and processing as an “self-experiential event”.
I’m with Descartes and Seth.
As Anil Seth proposes. The brain makes a “best guess” of what it thinks it perceives. It is a process of the neural electro-chemical information transport and processing as an “self-experiential event”.I’m with Descartes and Seth.
Not the same thing.