why is it that solipsism cant be proven wrong??

Question

is it just because we cant experience anything outside of ourselves?? are there any other reasons??

Answer 1

Because it denies that other minds exist.

Denial of the materialist viewpoint, in itself, is not enough to be a Solipsist. Possibly the most controversial, and most distinguishing, feature of the solipsistic world view is the denial of the existence of other minds. We can never directly know another's mental state. Qualia, or personal experience, it is private. Another person's experience can be known only by analogy.

Philosophers try to build knowledge on more than an inference or analogy. The failure of Descartes' epistemological enterprise brought to popularity the idea that all certain knowledge may end at "I think therefore I am".[1]

The problem of solipsism also merits close examination because it is based upon three widely held philosophical presuppositions, which are themselves fundamental and wide-ranging in importance. These are:

That my most certain knowledge is the contents of my own mind — my thoughts, experiences, affects, etc.
That there is no conceptual or logically necessary link between the mental and the physical — between, say, the occurrence of certain conscious experiences or mental states and the 'possession' and behavioral dispositions of a 'body' of a particular kind (see the Brain in a vat);
That the experiences of a given person are necessarily private to that person.
Solipsism, like other skeptical hypotheses, is likely impossible to refute. Like-wise the core assertion of materialism, that there is an external universe is also impossible to refute. Although some recent work in physics (EPR experiments) is suggestive, it is likely that solipsism and materialism are impossible to differentiate empirically.

Solipsism refers to several world views whose common element is some form of denial of the existence of a universe independent from the mind of the agent. The reference to Solipsism as a singular belief is no more correct than the principle that "Christian" is a single belief. However, like Christianity, Solipsism is often used in speech as though it refers to a singular concept.

Answer 2

Solipsism is an extreme theory. It doesn't have to be proven or unproven. If in solipsism, only your mind exists then you can't prove or disprove another mind, because all thoughts would be coming from the single mind. As I said, it's an extreme theory and good for academic discussion, and what I have taken away from it, is that you can't allow yourself to only have your mind and opinion count in life. We are on the earth with billions of other human beings and what they think and feel needs to be taken into consideration. Hope this helps!

Answer 3

There are ideas that the human brain can come up with that simply can't be proven wrong. If I say there is an "invisible pink unicorn" next to you that can not be detected by any scientific instrument, can you prove it wrong? Nope. Same with god, solipsism, and other ideas.

Answer 4

If you take an extreme enough position of proof, you can't prove ANYTHING. That is where solipsists live.

You might, for example, say that your pants are real. But how do you know this? Because you see and feel them? A solipsist would point out that its not uncommon at all for people to see things that aren't there. How can you know you're not hallucinating your pants?

You might then point out that other people seem to see your pants too. To which the solipsist would respond that you could just as well be hallucinating those other people. And so on down the line with anything you can name.

If you reject any evidence that comes from any sense, what are you left with? Only your own mind. And solipsists make the leap from saying that just because you can't be absolutely undeniably sure something is there, then it must not be there at all (a rather big leap). So a solipsist refuses to accept the existence of anything but their own mind. Even their own bodies.

For the rest of us, the term for anyone who refuses to interact with anything but his own mind is 'psychotic'. Whether or not what you perceive is real, by denying its existence you have completely removed yourself from any reality BUT your own mind. You are effectively dead.

Solipsism is therefore pretty much identical with suicide. To me, it is just about as palatable.

Answer 5

The notion that it is impossible ever to know another person? So why bother? This ends up in an absolute egotism a refusal to acknowledge the needs or even existence of others. Who cares? An egotist can never be proven wrong, now can they?

Answer 6

wow i never heard of solipsism but from reading responsed it sound like a one track mind to me!
we do have this thing called communication and only one person can do the best to communicate what is in there head! do we all understand what was communicated the same way? Hell if i know but you can't prove or disprove any of it!