Wednesday, May 27, 2015

A Refutation of Solipsism

G E Moore published his "A Defense of Common Sense" in 1925.  It is a long, philosophical essay arguing against skepticism, idealism and solipsism.

It is hard to read.  Having been a solipsist myself - and I am embarrassed to admit it - I feel that a more succinct and cogent response is necessary to refute the non-dualist/Advaita-vedantic position regarding the objective/independent existence of the world.

The non-dualist position is known as drishti-srishti-vada, SSV from here on, and is actually quite easy to refute.  The position is a cousin of theories like idealism, "essence precedes existence", "perception causes creation" etc.

The position states, in essence:
The world only exists when it is perceived.
This has been the position taken by spiritual heavyweights of the last century such as Ramana Maharishi and Nisargadatta Maharaj, and (in an oblique way) Jiddu Krishnamurti ("You are the world").

Let us define each of the terms used in the quoted sentence:

The world is the universe containing the galaxies, stars, planets, the sun, the moon and the earth and all things thereof.  The universe is: space-matter-energy and all things thereof.  We all understand what the universe is, so no further elucidation will be provided.

To Exist is to interact with other existent objects, to occupy space and to flow through time.

To Be Perceived is a special kind of interaction: with human sense organs (or perhaps even animal sense organs, or with a "life" form), directly or indirectly (indirectly e.g. via a measuring/recording apparatus).  In a way all interactions leave an imprint on the other objects, but to be perceived is to have an interaction with a living or sensory apparatus.

Now, we can argue about whether object X exists or not in a reasonable manner, by evaluating evidence for its interaction with other objects or its perception by someone.

But to argue whether the whole universe (i.e. the entire existence) exists or not is obviously not possible in the same way because objects interact with each other in the universe.  The universe doesn't interact with any objects.  There are no other "entities" apart from those contained in the universe, by definition.

But, in a way the universe does interact with objects in one peculiar way: it "provides" space for them to exist.  Hence, if X exists (and X can be anything) the universe does exist as a necessity.

...

SSV states that the universe exists only when perceived.  Let us take the case of a human perceiving the moon.  According to SSV, when the human is in a coma, or in deep sleep, the moon does not "exist", in fact the entire universe stops existing.  When the human wakes up, the entire universe is created.

I had this idea about refuting SSV in 2002.  When I asked my erstwhile guru (an advaita-vedantin monk) about it, he could not provide a satisfactory response.  In fact, I'm not sure he understood the import of the argument.

The refutation of this peculiar paradigm is as follows:

1. The world is perceptible at some time (e.g. right now).
2. The world is imperceptible at some times, e.g. during deep sleep and coma.
3. The world re-appears after the imperceptible period.
4. There is evidence of the imperceptible world having carried on its affairs during its disappearance. 

To be more specific:

1. I am lying down on my bed. The time is now 12noon by my clock. The world is perceptible.
2. I go to sleep at 1pm by my clock.  The world is imperceptible (hence non-existent as per SSV).
3. I wake up and see the time on my clock as 5pm.  The world has reappeared, my body and clock all being a part of it.  Other objects show the passage of time as well: the clothes hung to dry have now dried up, the phase of the moon has changed, and innumerable other evidences of the passage of time are there.

Now it is clear and obvious that all the changes (except my own physical and mental states due to sleeping, dreaming etc.) which I perceive at 5pm are exactly as if I had stayed awake and kept perceiving the world.  This bears repeating: The state of affairs at 5pm is exactly as if the world had continued to be perceived and hence to exist, with all the concomitant processes (trains running on their tracks, airplanes flying to their destinations, planets traveling in their trajectories, etc.) during the 1pm-5pm period.

It seemingly makes no difference to the world whether I was perceiving it or not.

The state of affairs observed at 5pm is independent of my state of consciousness from 1pm-5pm.


There are only two possible explanations: either the world continued to exist and time continued its passage while being imperceptible (which non-SSV adherents, i.e. most people, would accept as obvious), or someone is playing a really cool trick where "he" keeps track of every little object and transition and makes the world seem exactly as if the world had continued to exist while it was not.

The second explanation implies that when I stopped perceiving the world, the state data of the world got stored somewhere, and when I perceived the world again, the state data of the world now conformed to the effects of the passage of time.

The question is: where was the state data being stored, if not in the universe?  While the universe was in "abeyance", who (and it could well be a device or an "energy" or a "universal mind", rather than a human or alien entity) knew that, e.g., clothes were drying outside my home?

Now we will demolish SSV via the following propositions:
  1. State data is information.
  2. Storage of information requires matter.  
  3. Information storage is necessary to recreate the world  after its abeyance.
  4. Hence matter existed while the universe was supposedly in abeyance.
     
  5. Hence universe existed while supposedly in abeyance.
     
  6. Hence SSV is inconsistent.
     
  7. Hence wrong.
 ...

In fact, if you think about it, the easiest way to store the state data is for the universe to continue to exist and have the state data continue in situ (in the objects themselves).  This is a fit case for Occam's razor.  SSV requires an extra set of assumptions without offering any additional predictability about phenomena.  It fails the test.

5 comments:

observer said...

Just because your guru did not have the correct understanding does not mean Vedanta itself is wrong.


If my classteacher teaches me algebra incorrectly should I conclude that maths is bogus because my classteacher could not answer my questions?

According to Vedanta the world is created by the universal mind, even so called my mind is really part of the universal mind, when your mind goes to sleep it just means part of the universal mind has switched to a different state. It does not mean the whole universal mind goes in abeyance.

Anonymous said...

I notice that people who believe in a purely subjective universe don't seem to be able to reason very well.

E.G. to conclude that the only reason someone was impelled to contemplate further was because their erstwhile guru couldn't.

Tunnel vision creates strawman arguments which reinforce concrete beliefs which in turn block further consideration of any other possibility.

Pankaj said...

I think you tend to impute to the universe qualities that are quite likely imposed by the conceptual apparatus of the mind - space and time. So you seem to say "the moon continues to exist", where the moon has all the qualities ascribed to it by humans, when a person is not awake. If humanity did not exist, would the aspect of reality which evokes the "moon" in humans have evoked the "moon". I think not.

"Information storage requires matter" seems to me to be a great leap as well. Again it imputes to the real universe what might be a construct of the human mind.

Although the Soliphism argument that nothing but the mind exists might not be ultimately provable, the materialistic picture, that nothing but "matter" exists, doesn't sit on absolutely firm grounding itself.

The following might interest you - https://youtu.be/_YzCu45D35A?t=20m5s

Harmanjit Singh said...

> "So you seem to say "the moon continues to exist", where the moon has all the qualities ascribed to it by humans, when a person is not awake. If humanity did not exist, would the aspect of reality which evokes the "moon" in humans have evoked the "moon". I think not. "

Yes, even in the absence of humanity, all these phenomena/qualities (e.g. the "gravitation" of "moon" leads to "tides" and a "reflection" of its "phase" in the "ocean waters") would still continue to affect other forms of matter. E.g., a camera left to record while the humanity goes extinct will record exactly the same thing as a human being in terms of visible electromagnetic spectrum (the reflection) in the ocean and presence of water at a certain altitude on the beach.

I understand that what we call a "tree" might have other "dimensions" of existence which cannot be perceived by human mind or current technology. But what /can/ be perceived is incontrovertible. It is a definitive subset of what might exist. There is no dispute about the wavelength of light reflected from its leaves (it is classified/named as green on the spectrum, which is besides the point).

Hence the argument stands.

> "Information storage requires matter" seems to me to be a great leap as well. Again it imputes to the real universe what might be a construct of the human mind.

Since you use the phrases in the above sentence, how would you define and distinguish "real universe", as opposed to a "construct of the human mind"? All my argument proves is that there is a "real universe" independent of human mind and consciousness. Whether what we see as the color green is actually a blob of guewweee (a term as yet undefined, for obvious reasons) is irrelevent.

My argument says "because of reasons xxx, there is an objective universe independent of human mind and consciousness". You say, "no, the objective universe might be something very different than what humans think of it. Your argument is from a human standpoint." Oh well, but I agree with you, as long as you say that there is an objective universe. :-)

Pankaj said...

- Yes, even in the absence of humanity, all these phenomena/qualities (e.g. the "gravitation" of "moon" leads to "tides" and a "reflection" of its "phase" in the "ocean waters") would still continue to affect other forms of matter. E.g., a camera left to record while the humanity goes extinct will record exactly the same thing as a human being in terms of visible electromagnetic spectrum (the reflection) in the ocean and presence of water at a certain altitude on the beach.

You almost seem to say "an icecream continues to be sweet even after the earth explodes". My argument is precisely that the qualities (space, time, energy, mass) could well be an imposition of the human mind. Most common sense notions of the mind are long relics in modern science. It is mostly mathematical models. Oh, but mathematics and logic are the language of the real universe. Why?

You are in good company of because this is also the attitude of most philosophy debunking scientists who while glibly evoking the mite like smallness of humanity, simultaneously have no problem with assuming that we have the God-like wherewithal to answer the ultimate questions of the universe.

- Since you use the phrases in the above sentence, how would you define and distinguish "real universe", as opposed to a "construct of the human mind"? All my argument proves is that there is a "real universe" independent of human mind and consciousness. Whether what we see as the color green is actually a blob of guewweee (a term as yet undefined, for obvious reasons) is irrelevent.

The "real" universe is evidently beyond the direct access of humans because we access it through our senses AND the organizing principles of the mind. A lot has been written about it, and it is by no means a settled issue - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noumenon. Does the alien see a blob of guewwee? Probably. But "blob" "of" and "guewee" are all the alien's organizing principles so that doesn't really take us anywhere.

- My argument says "because of reasons xxx, there is an objective universe independent of human mind and consciousness". You say, "no, the objective universe might be something very different than what humans think of it. Your argument is from a human standpoint." Oh well, but I agree with you, as long as you say that there is an objective universe. :-)

You've used a category of the human mind - "matter" "information storage needs matter" to establish an objective universe outside of the human mind. I don't quite buy that. If your argument was "something exists", well of course we (or at least I) exist. That doesn't take us much beyond Solipsism.