Apparently, Nothing Exists

[Styphon]

ok... I've recently found myself talking to a brick-wall in the form of a guy who thinks he's smart (smarter than me, in fact) because he thumbed through a philosophy textbook at some point...

this guy's position, roughly speaking, is that he's smarter than me because he... ahem... realizes there is no past, cause it only exists in our memories.

I then point out to him that if there is no past, there is no present, because the present is merely the future's past.

He agrees with this and says there's no time at all, no past present or future, because they're ALL only concepts that exist in our minds...

yes, I know, the stupid BURNS on this guy.
which one of us at least managed to make it through high school, huh bitch?

but I digress... this morning, in some unrelated matter, he appealed to the laws of physics. I then pointed out to him that this goes against his own belief system, as the concept of time is intrinsic to physics as we know them. "that's just cause we made it that way!" no shit, sherlock, we came up with the entire study of physics and you can't just pick and choose which parts of it you want... not that there's gonna be much left after you gut time anyway!

is there ANY way to talk some sense into this guy (he is, despite all this, smarter than a lot of the idiots around here), or should I just accept that he's immune to logic?

[General Zod]

Simply point out that he's insane. If nothing exists, then he's only having an argument with himself, and thus must clearly suffer from multiple personality disorders.

[Ghost Rider]

Point out to him that if he believes this then he has to realize that he's not really arguing with you but himself. This eventually boils down to that there is only oneself and everything else is a fantasy.

If he argues that it's not, tell him to prove everything around him since he's using that train of logic.

People who use absolutes such as this often can never come up with an answer when posed the very same question. More times then not they'll resort to "Because..."

[Darth Wong]

People like this think they're soooo clever because they've figured out a worldview which is impossible to refute ... because it says absolutely nothing. This kind of solipsist bullshit is not philosophy; it is the opposite of philosophy.

PS. Ask him to argue his case about the non-existence of the past to a credit company.

[SirNitram]

Heh. Point out the ancient Egyptians abandoned this a few thousand years back.

[Sofia]

God, I hate that. I've had two similar arguments in the past few months, both with relatively intelligent people. One of them decided that there's no such thing as fact. I said "Well, if I drop this pen, it will fall to the floor. Fact, right?" He conceded, which was good of him (the other guy I argued with refused to concede, even after I had reduced him to a stammering mess) but he still said that "he just felt that way." His exact words: "You're right, but I still feel the way I feel." If he thinks I'm right, why does he still "feel" an idea that is absolute bunk?

[BloodAngel]

I've had something similar, but with a guy who said infinity was not infinitely long.

[Dooey Jo]

Why is it so common for people to "realise" that there's no such thing as time? I've had that argument countless times. Every single one of them thought that they had come to some deeper understanding of the universe.

[Darth Wong]

Why is it so common for people to "realise" that there's no such thing as time? I've had that argument countless times. Every single one of them thought that they had come to some deeper understanding of the universe.

True understanding of physics is hard work. It requires equations, and most people don't like math. So when someone comes up with a way of convincing himself that he understands how the universe works which requires no math, he will have a natural preference for it. Most metaphysics and pseudoscience is "no math" bullshit; it has been carefully crafted so that nothing can actually be calculated, hence the author can puff out his chest and claim to understand how things work even though he can't model a damned thing.

[Styphon]

ow, ow, ow, the stupid hurts, ow...

I'm sorry... let me start over: I believe I forgot one exchange in this whole thing...

ok, so, in this guy's view, the universe only exists in our minds... not his mind, mind you, our minds... so we each, basically, have our own personal universes is what I THINK this guy was trying to say, it's kind of hard to interpret his Babel... "the problem is when we clash here" and he kind of points around at the universe as a whole...

so if we each have personal universes, but this is some kind of "common universe"... WHERE THE HELL DO YOU GET OFF SAYING IT'S SUBJECTIVE???

and now my ears are bleeding, he's just that stupid... XP

[Ghost Rider]

ow, ow, ow, the stupid hurts, ow...

I'm sorry... let me start over: I believe I forgot one exchange in this whole thing...

ok, so, in this guy's view, the universe only exists in our minds... not his mind, mind you, our minds... so we each, basically, have our own personal universes is what I THINK this guy was trying to say, it's kind of hard to interpret his Babel... "the problem is when we clash here" and he kind of points around at the universe as a whole...

so if we each have personal universes, but this is some kind of "common universe"... WHERE THE HELL DO YOU GET OFF SAYING IT'S SUBJECTIVE???

and now my ears are bleeding, he's just that stupid... XP

When you get that levels of stupidity either the person is fucking with you or they live in their fantasy world and only interact with the real for things like food and sex.

He needs to grow up.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Punch him in the stomach. Ask if that was subjective or not.

[Faqa]

His "philosophy textbook" - you're sure it wasn't watching the Matrix several hundred times?

Either that, or talking to a three year old. This whole "what if it's just a BIG DREAM" attitude annoys me, since, yes, it's possible(along with flying unicorns), but if it is, it still makes no difference. We can't affect it in any way. It is an INTANGIBLE DIFFERENCE. And isn't that a contradicition in terms? As A Mind Forever Voyaging pointed out, an intangible difference isn't really a difference.

[Dooey Jo]

True understanding of physics is hard work. It requires equations, and most people don't like math. So when someone comes up with a way of convincing himself that he understands how the universe works which requires no math, he will have a natural preference for it. Most metaphysics and pseudoscience is "no math" bullshit; it has been carefully crafted so that nothing can actually be calculated, hence the author can puff out his chest and claim to understand how things work even though he can't model a damned thing.

That makes sense, sadly. Although it's strange that it always seems to the concept of time that they reject. It's not like it's that hard a concept to grasp... Of course, it gets really annoying when they start to proudly proclaim that science has been wrong all this time, because time itself doesn't exist.

[Ariphaos]

I've had something similar, but with a guy who said infinity was not infinitely long. :P

Absolutely correct. No longer than 8 is tall...

What is it with solipsism lately? It seems to be experiencing a revival. I just had a discussion with another friend a week or so about it.

[Plekhanov]

So if there is nothing exists and it’s all just in my mind does that mean that I imagined Shakespeare and all of his plays, Beethoven and all of his symphonies, Darwin and the the theory of evolution, Nintendo and all the Zelda games… if so I’m a freaking genius but confused, how come I couldn’t finish the crossword in the paper yesterday seeing as how I apparently imagined it and all of it’s clues?

Also why the fuck did I comeup with Celine Deon, George W Bush, Arsene Wenger, Tories...?

[Admiral Johnason]

If Descartes said "I think therefore I am," and I am me, then Descartes doesn't exist, so he didn't say that, so the statement doesn't exist, so the world really exists, and Descartes exists, so...

This could take a while.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Why is it so common for people to "realise" that there's no such thing as time? I've had that argument countless times. Every single one of them thought that they had come to some deeper understanding of the universe.

The problem with these people is that they confuse quantifiable time (hours, minutes, seconds, so on) with time (the fourth dimension of the space-time continuum). They are actually correct in saying that the first kind of time "doesn't exist", because it's just an agreed upon system of measurement and exists in the same way as a centimeter or a mile exists. Of course, there's no real philosophical implication to that, although it's interesting to think about different systems of defining the passage time.

[Vendetta]

Punch him in the face.

Ask him if it hurts.

Repeat until the answer is "yes".

[Dark Hellion]

The other problem is people confuse the applicability of Physics with the applicability of Philosophy. If you are going to go build a bridge, you use physics, if you want to make a system to explain why effects have causes, you use philosophy.
People read something like Hume, become convinced that our notions of cause and effect are entirely customary, and then mistakenly think that just because fire is hot today, but not necessarily hot tomorrow magically disproves all of physics. Of course, fire has been hot for a hell of a long time, and while this gives us no completely rational reason to believe that it will be hot tomorrow, the customary reasoning has as so far worked for a few million years, and thus should work and of course if it doens't work, it in no way destroys the basis of physics, it only requires a reworking of preexisting theories. And this still assumes that Hume is the be all and end all of all Philosophy, which he admits to not be, although when it comes to the notions of cause and effect he has pretty much written us into a corner that has yet to be figured out how to rationally get out of, even though the premises at a base level don't sit well.
Many mistakenly believe that just because Physics is an admittedly axiomatic system that they have a somehow better, superior view of the world, dispite the fact that invariably they are working off of some similarly axiomatic system, usually with less reason to generally accept the axioms than those of any previous scientific or metaphysical system.
As for you buddy, his idea of no past is mistaking the idea that the past has no physical existance, with the idea that it has no existance, which is easily falsified because the past exists in our memories. He mistakes the non-existance of actual past and future with a nonexistance of time itself. One cannot deny that they have memories of presents that have previously occured and passed, nor can you deny (and still seem to be sane) that the current present will become past and that a new present will occur. Time obviously exists in the fact that the current present will not be the current present longer than its point existence in time. He confuses physical and metaphysical like an amature and thus builds some "profound" philosophy off a stack of bullshit assumptions.

[Darth Raptor]

Who cares if the universe is all one big sham? For all we know, it behaves according to the principles discovered by science. As long as the predictive power of physics remains, there's no benefit to be gained from believing it's all one massive hallucination. The assertion is totally irrelevant.

[Molyneux]

If Descartes said "I think therefore I am," and I am me, then Descartes doesn't exist, so he didn't say that, so the statement doesn't exist, so the world really exists, and Descartes exists, so...

This could take a while.

I actually went through a solipsistic phase in junior high when I first read Descartes; it took me quite awhile to realise that "I think, therefore I am" doesn't require that everything else NOT exist, only that I can be absolutely certain that I do.

I tend to think that solipsism is a stepping stone that generally must be crossed on the path to realizing just how little one knows, at which point actual learning can commence (once the teenager in question's head has been removed from their ass). Some people just never get past that point.

[Darth Wong]

There is a certain child-like quality to the belief that one must have absolutely unassailable certainty of an idea before you can call it "knowledge". As children, your knowledge is based upon the absolute authority of your parents, and some people never outgrow a desire to reacquire that kind of false certainty (hence the staying power of religion). Ironically, solipsists have often rejected religion, but they have not progressed far enough in their understanding of philosophy to recognize that religion's nonsensical claim to absolute certainty is in no way required by other forms of epistemology.

[Zero]

The trouble with the solipsist position is that you can't actually prove it wrong with logic, because to a solipsist, logic is just another imaginary human creation, and as such only has bearing on reality if we decide to believe in it.

It's a position that can actually be consistant with itself, but it's a very boring philosophy to adhere to, since nothing useful can possibly come of it, whether the world's imaginary or real.

[Admiral Johnason]

If Descartes said "I think therefore I am," and I am me, then Descartes doesn't exist, so he didn't say that, so the statement doesn't exist, so the world really exists, and Descartes exists, so...

This could take a while.

I actually went through a solipsistic phase in junior high when I first read Descartes; it took me quite awhile to realise that "I think, therefore I am" doesn't require that everything else NOT exist, only that I can be absolutely certain that I do.

I tend to think that solipsism is a stepping stone that generally must be crossed on the path to realizing just how little one knows, at which point actual learning can commence (once the teenager in question's head has been removed from their ass). Some people just never get past that point.

I realize that. I was joking along the line of the thread.