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Solipsism




  Solipsists argue there are, indeed, no minds but your own and attempting to prove the existence of another mind is futile. Proponents argue the world outside your own can not be known and indeed might be nonexistent.



Arguments against solipsism include, Bertrand Russell,

         "The most logically consistent theories are unbelievable and the most believable theories are inconsistent".



  Existence is everything I experience--physical objects, other people, events and processes-- anything seen as part of the space and time I coexist with others and anything I see as part of my consciousness.



   The true solipsist understands the word "pain" to mean "my pain". He can not, accordingly, conceive how this word can be applied in any other sense than this exclusively egocentric one.



  What I know, immediately and certainly, are the events in my mind- my thoughts, my emotions, my perceptions, my desires and the like. These are not known, in this way, by anyone else. By the same token, I do not know other minds in the way I know my own.



  The question is how am I different from or similar to others? The answer, I am neither. I am a living being as are others. I see others around me and assume they are like me. However, the truth is, I don't have any reason to believe others are living human beings- there is no difference between the two.


 
  To say others learn of my pain from my behavior is misleading, because it suggests I learn of them some other way, I don't- I just have them.



   The thesis all experience is private lends itself to the belief because of the secret nature of experience it can never literally be shared. This gives way to the problem how can anyone know other's experience, how can you know others have experience, at all?



  Its because others have consciousness and mental lives we find the solipsistic notion others are 'automatons', machines devoid of of any conscious thought, bizarre and bewildering. We can't seriously entertain the idea others are 'automatons'.



Encyclopedia of Philosophy