From: dnomhcir@gmx.com   
      
   D  writes:   
      
   > I disagree. Because it implies no certainty, no truth, and no other   
   > consciousness who can partake of the story, so everything, assuming   
   > the strictest solipsism becomes meaningless.   
      
   According to that definition, dreams are meaningless. But I think dreams   
   are meaningful. They are at least meaningful to the dreamer.   
      
   > True, but that is not what I mean. First of all, this is a philosophy   
   > discussion. Proof and evidence are very much at home in   
   > philosophy. Those are basically the only tools we have. Without any   
   > burden of proof or truth, discussion and philosophy by extention   
   > becomes meaningless (see above). So I disagree with that.   
      
   OK you can have a burden of proof in philosophy. But generally it rests   
   on the person who made the positive statement. The statement "sense   
   evidence is a source of knowledge" is a positive statement.   
      
   >   
   > When it comes to a negative, you make a mistake in thinking about the   
   > situation as world or no-world. but you are forgetting that there are   
   > other positions.   
   >   
   > Someone who does not trust senses as sources of truth, and who   
   > disputes the concept of an external world, can provide proof that   
   > idealist is in fact the real "truth", thus disproving an external   
   > material world.   
      
   I don't know what it means to say "idealist is a real truth". I think   
   solipsism means that only the mind is real. But that doesn't exclude the   
   possibility of communicating with entities within the mind. To the   
   subject, these entities could be as real as objectively real entities.   
      
   >   
   > The person could prove that we live in a simulation, or that what we   
   > encounter when we touch and see a table is in fact an illusion.   
   >   
   > There are many ways open. But for 2500 years no one has succeeded in   
   > disproving the default position, the position we have no choice but to   
   > accept and live in, which is that there exists an external, material   
   > world.   
      
   Accepting it because we have no choice isn't quite the same as accepting   
   it as true. It is possible that the properties of the world are in the   
   relations between objects and not in the objects themselves. We know   
   this is true in some ways as some people like things which others do   
   not. We can agree on the name of the colour red, but we don't know if we   
   all experience it the same way.   
      
   Australian Aborigines have song lines, and as they walk along them, they   
   sing the world into existence. If they all agree that is the way things   
   are, how can anyone say they are wrong?   
      
   If you want someone to prove the world is not real, why don't you have   
   to prove it is not a simulation? Not that it helps much as a simulation   
   has to be going on in a real world. But if there really are simulated   
   worlds, then we could argue that there are likely to be more of them   
   than there are real worlds, because simulations can be in   
   simulations. And so we are more likely to be in a simulated world than a   
   real one.   
      
   If someone has chosen extreme scepticism or solipsism, communication   
   with them is impossible, but it doesn't mean they are wrong. Assuming a   
   material world is just that, an assumption.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)