An evolutionary defense of solipsism

Clearbury

I am simply 'testing' this argument.

But I take it that simplicity is an epistemic virtue and that other things being equal, we have reason to think the simplest theory about reality that explains all the data is the correct one.

To suppose that there exists a mind and its own mental states is a very simple thesis, for not only is one kind of thing - a mind - supposed to exist, but only one of it is supposed to exist too.

I will suppose, then, that this is the sum total of what exists and see if, by making such assumptions, the job of explaining everything else can be done.

Assume that at first the mind is in random mental states - random sensations and thoughts occur in it. Over enough time a desire to look for patterns will arise and over enough time the thought that 'that which exhibits a pattern is default real' will arise too and will arise at the same time as the desire to look for patterns. And over enough time those two mental states will arise at the same time as two or more sensations - quite by luck - seem to exhibit a pattern. Yes, the odds will be vanishingly tiny - but that doesn't matter. It'll happen eventually. I take myself currently to be 'in reality' for about 16-18 hours at a go, but the first 'glimpse' would have been for a fraction of a second. It would have built, though....like a crystal.

At this point the mind in question will take those sensations to be of a reality and all others to be a dream it is having (which is what we mean by a dream - sensational experiences that we do not consider to be of reality but wholly a product of our own mind). When another sensation arises within the bubbling soup of sensations that seems to cohere with the sensations that the mind took to be of reality, that sensation will also be taken to be of reality and not part of the dreamscape.

Over enough time, the mind will sift those experiences that seem to exhibit a pattern and to cohere with previous experiences and call that set 'reality' (and it will just build indefinitely), and the others will be considered 'dream'.

So, is that possibly the situation we - I - am in? Those sensational experiences that are adaptive - that fit with the pattern I am looking for - will get selected for by my mind as parts of 'reality', whereas those that do not will be deemed dream.

I now take myself to have been in reality - in and out - for about 50 years. This will go on and on as, with enough time, more and more experiences arise that are adaptive - that is, that fit with the evolving narrative (all others continuing to be considered 'dream').

Interesting implication: we (I) will never die. We (I) will just get the impression we have been in reality for longer and longer and longer. You will experience death-like events. But those will be folded into the dreamscape and not considered part of reality. You will only consider those experiences taht continue the story to be reality. And so the story is going to be neverending.

And when we - I - sleep, it may be for trillions of years....eventually a sequence of experiences and thoughts will arise that replicate sufficiently those I had that I considered reality and that continue it....and that will be taken to be the point I awake. And on and on it goes.

it can be noted as well that once the crystal starts to form, it may affect the random flow of thoughts and other sensations, aiding its own building. that is, thoughts and sensations that tend to cause sensations and thoughts that cohere with them will be selected for (where 'selected for' just means 'considered part of reality').

What I have described is just evolution by natural selection, except that it is applied at the level of a mind's sensations, and 'not being selected for' is just a matter of something being considered dream rather than reality. Does the job, does it not?

And this thesis is simpler than supposing that there exists a mind-external physical reality in which evolution by natural selection is occurring.

180 Proof

Is "mind" disembodied?

Clearbury

Yes, I think simplicity demands it must be a mind without a physical body, as a physical body would be less simple than a mind that had no body.

Paine

↪Clearbury

You stand outside the problems of solipsism when you compare them to other conditions.

Banno

At the very least you have assumed that there is both mind and time. Time passes when you are asleep.

In what does this process of thinking take place?

And if seconds, days, years pass, then there must also be a clock or some other device external to mind, the periodicity of which can be contrasted with the series of mental events.

And to whom are you addressing this post?

Clearbury

↪Paine

I am not sure I follow your point.

Clearbury

↪Banno

I have certainly assumed a mind. And perhaps time too - though I am not sure it was essential that I do so, as I think time too can probably be given the same kind of analysis (not yet sure about it).

But it wouldn't matter if I was assuming time, for that wouldn't make the thesis more complicated than its non-solipsistic alternative. That is, I think that any theory about how things have come to be how they are, would probably need to assume time. And so that I have assumed time does not - not in itself - make the theory unnecessarily complicated.

Clearbury

Upon further reflection, I think this evolutionary vindication of solipsism can be simplified further.

All that needs to be supposed in order to be able to account for all else, is a mind that is having (initially) random experiences and a disposition in that mind for it to recall an experience - and thereby to have that experience again - when that experience seems to resemble sufficiently another.

Here's what I mean. Let's say the mind has experience A, and then experience B - and experience B seems closely to resemble experience A. Now the mind becomes disposed to experience B again if it ever experiences A again. Then later - and this will eventually happen, of course - the mind will have the experience of B and it will be followed by C, an experience that seems to resemble B. So now the mind has become disposed to experience B if it ever experiences A again (and it will, of course), and then to experience C (for this is what it is disposed to experience if it ever experiences B again, which it will). And thus when the mind next experiences A, it will experience A-B-C. And this sequence of experiences will closely resemble one another.

Over time the mind will develop a disposition to experience B, then C, then D, then E and so on, when it experiences A again. And that's what is going on - this sequence of experiences is just a very long chain. And there we have it: everything that needs to be explained has been explained by just positing a mind, a disposition, and random experiences.

Clearbury

I think this has the same implication as before though: that this is going to turn out to be a neverending story, though one that will start over and over and over, getting longer and longer every time it restarts.

RogueAI

I now take myself to have been in reality - in and out - for about 50 years. This will go on and on as, with enough time, more and more experiences arise that are adaptive - that is, that fit with the evolving narrative (all others continuing to be considered 'dream').

Interesting implication: we (I) will never die. We (I) will just get the impression we have been in reality for longer and longer and longer. — Clearbury

Why does the mind have a start, but not an end? Shouldn't it be infinite in both directions, past and future?

Clearbury

↪RogueAI

I don't think it does have a start. i admit that the idea of there being something that exists eternally is probably problematic. But I think the idea of there being something that came into existence is probably as, if not more, problematic (as that would involve the mind coming into being from nothing....which seems more problematic than the idea of something just existing forever).

As I see it, the account I am working on is not an attempt to explain everything. It is an attempt to explain as much as possible with as little as possible. So i posit a mind (which is unexplained) and a disposition to recall experiences that resemble one another sufficiently - which is also unexplained - and a process of the mind churning through random thoughts (a process that is also unexplained).

The account presupposes such things, rather than explaining them. And I don't deny that's a deficit as there's reason to want an explanation of those things too. But as i see it, the account nevertheless explains all else with those 3 posits, and so is simpler than competitors. Other things being equal, this is a simpler explanation of the nature of what's going on than, say, one that posits a physical world in which there is evolution by natural selection. There's more clutter with that explanation than there is with the solipsistic one, it seems to me, plus the physicalist explanation has us take our experiences to be 'of' a world outside, which is to make an assumption - one that introduces a lot of clutter - beyond what the solipsistic one does.

Clearbury

↪RogueAI

I should adjust my view a little, for if I am wrong and the idea of a mind coming into being is less problematic a starting assumption than the assumption of a mind that comes into being from nothing, or that somehow brings itself into being, then I will simply make those assumptions instead. I think that it still has the neverending story implication, though i admit that it would need to be framed as an 'other things being equal' implication - so, as long as the mind persists, this is what will happen. Having said this, that is probably the implication of the original thesis too, as even if the mind has always existed, that does not strictly entail that it always will. So I will modify the implication: other things being equal, this is a neverending story in that, so long as the mind whose experiences it is composed of persists, the story is fated to start over and over and get longer every time...potentially for an infinite amount of time.

RogueAI

I should adjust my view a little, for if I am wrong and the idea of a mind coming into being is less problematic a starting assumption than the assumption of a mind that comes into being from nothing, or that somehow brings itself into being, then I will simply make those assumptions instead. — Clearbury

I think that's not a bad assumption. Any theory competing with yours also has the problem of creation ex nihilo. I think mind is a better candidate for eternal existence or uncaused cause than a physical universe. Also, I wonder if this mind you're describing isn't going to eventually turn into a godly cosmic mind, as you shore up the theory.

Clearbury

↪RogueAI

I am not sure. As this is a solipsistic theory, then I am the mind in question and I do not seem to be a god. The theory would need to explain my apparent lack of power, not confer on me more power than I have.

In fact, on reflection this is an attempt to explain the appearance of order by appeal to random processes and a single disposition, and so like the more familiar evolutionary theories, it dispenses with the need for there to be a designer or any kind of guiding hand. Admittedly, there turns out to be a mind at the heart of it all, but the mind in question - my mind - seems as much a victim of its circumstances as it would be under a physicalist alternative. For my mind is just the venue in which random processes play out and become, due to the associative disposition, sufficiently similar to one another that they appear to me, the experiencer, to be describing a place.

Even the small amount of control that I seem to me to have over matters, will turn out to be illusory on this view. For my experience of, say, willing my arm (or 'arm', as there is no arm there in reality, just a certain sort of experience) to move, will not have caused the arm to move. As the only reason why I have the experience of the arm moving in accordance with my willing experience is that these two experiences have been had before and one seemed to be sufficiently similar to the previous one for my mind, having experienced one again, to recal the other and thereby to bring it to mind.

I turn out to be even more a victim of my circumstances on this analysis than I would be on a physicalist analysis, and so in a way even less godly, even though everything that exists apart from me myself, exists as states of my own mind. I am the venue for it all, but not the controller, for what's controlling matters is just that single associative disposition (which I have no control over having). It disposes me to recall similar experiences, but as I do not 'will' it to do so, I am powerless (though will appear, due to willings themselves being experiences and so capable of being similar to one another), though will appear to have some power.

jkop

And this thesis is simpler than supposing that there exists a mind-external physical reality in which evolution by natural selection is occurring. — Clearbury

The idea that only one mind exists is not simpler than the idea that only one substance exists. Any monism is simpler than the dualism assumed in a "mind-external physical reality".

But is mental monism simpler than physical or neutral monism? The latter two seem far more plausible, because of the genetic evolution required for background capacities to arise before anything resembling a mind could begin to identify objects and states of affairs.

Clearbury

But is mental monism simpler than physical or neutral monism? The latter two seem far more plausible, because of the genetic evolution required for background capacities to arise before anything resembling a mind could begin to identify objects and states of affairs. — jkop

I accept a case is needed for thinking that mind monism is simpler than physical monism, but I don't see that you've made a case there for thinking physical monism is simpler. Appealing to evolution is not going to do it, as I am appealing to that too. My account is an evolutionary one.

I will use the traditional terminology of materialist monism and immaterialist monism. The materialist monist posits one kind of substance: material substance. The immaterialist posits one kind of substance: immaterialist substance. So far, one is as simple as the other.

But in order to get the job done, the materialist monist needs to posit not just one kind of substance, but lots of particular instances of it. I am defending solipsist immaterialist monism, not just immaterialist monism. I am positing ONE mind. So, one instance of the kind of substance in question.

Perhaps this is what the materialist monist can do too, though it is hard to see how given that their whole story depends on material objects interacting with another. So it looks as if one needs at least two to get things going.

So immaterialist solipsist monism does seem to me to be simpler, and thus rationally to be preferred. It posits one instance of one kind of thing, not many instances of one kind of thing.

It can also be noted that what it posits - a mind, one's own - is a thing of a kind we know for certain to exist. By contrast, material objects are speculative. Yes, perhaps my own mind is such a thing, just one that has conscious states. I do not rule out the possibility. But that is all it is: a possibility (and disputed at that). Until the matter is settled, then positing that there is something more basic that my mind is made of is to go beyond the evidence.

I say this, because even if the two types of monism are in one sense no more or less complex than one another, the above consideration breaks ties.

An evolutionary defense of solipsism

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