Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id NAA07446 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 11 Sep 2000 13:50:43 +0100 To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2000 05:47:32 -0700 From: "Scott Chase" <hemidactylus@my-Deja.com> Message-ID: <MPAHEEHHMAPACAAA@my-deja.com> X-Sent-Mail: off X-Mailer: MailCity Service Subject: Re: solipsistic view on memetics X-Sender-Ip: 209.240.220.221 Organization: My Deja Email (http://www.my-deja.com:80) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Language: en Content-Length: 2399 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
--On Sun, 10 Sep 2000 19:57:02 LJayson wrote: >In a message dated 9/10/00 1:23:00 PM Pacific Daylight Time, >hemidactylus@my-Deja.com writes: > ><< The way we, as babies, come into this world genetically prewired to start >processing chunks of information and to perceive reality is about as far as I >would go. There's an objective world "out there". but the way we address it >has hints of processing and some subjective components. > > Scott "a figment of your active solipsistic imagination" Chase >> > >Hi Scott -- > >I am approaching memetics with a background in clinical psychology. >The above segment from your e-mail was all that I could comprehend >---my problem, certainly not yours. > >You did motivate me to look up the word 'solipsism' in Britannica: > ><<solipsism > >in philosophy, formerly, moral egoism (as used in the writings of Immanuel >Kant), but now, in an epistemological sense, the extreme form of subjective >idealism that denies that the human mind has any valid ground for believing >in the existence of anything but itself. The British idealist F.H. Bradley, >in Appearance and Reality (1897), characterized the solipsistic view as >follows: > >"I cannot transcend experience, and experience is my experience. From this it >follows that nothing beyond myself exists; for what is experience is its (the >self 's) states." > >Presented as a solution of the problem of explaining human knowledge of the >external world, it is generally regarded as a reductio ad absurdum. The only >scholar who seems to have been a coherent radical solipsist is Claude Brunet, >a 17th-century French physician. >> end of article > >Solipsism is an interesting concept to contemplate, but the words >' reductio ad absurdum' relegates it to the garbage heap where it >most likely belongs. > > I agree. Though interesting to contemplate, I don't see a whole lot of use for solipsism, aside from something to contrast with realism or objectivism (Popperian not Randian ;-)). I've been reading some rather idealistic authors (Berkeley and Schopenhauer) lately, so I find any opportunity to learn more about idealism or solipsism, two mindsets which are rather new to me, as very important and Kenneth's article could help enlighten me further.
Scott
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