h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The thing is InSol, and please don't take this the wrong way, that I have lots of other stuff to think about during the day other than to imagine your existence. So if I am not bothering to imagine that you exist, then how can you keep writing postings while I am out, say, doing the shopping at the supermarket?

And don't go saying that someone else must be imagining you as I think most people here are not actually doing this 24/7 if you know what I mean.

Go on - admit it. You exist, whether you like it or not. Though you can still be a solipsist if you like!

az

Another thing... if it takes us collectively to imagine you, but most of us don't exist either, then there can't be enough of us to imagine you.

As a True Believer , Solipsist, I *believe* you exist. I challenge you to prove you don't...

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

(Sorry P-C)
I think there's a misunderstanding here, either by me or the rest of you. I was given to understand is that a solipsist is NOT someone who believes that only they exist, but someone who believes that the fact that they exist is the only possible hard fact in the universe.

Fnord,

He is an Inverted Solipsist. So he does not believe he exists. He says he is only a figment of our imaginations.

az

Nope, I'm lost again.

* sigh *

I supposed I'd better just give up and go to work

Here's a thing - is work essential to a functioning human society, and if so, does it have to be so boring?

I suspect that the more essential the work is the more boring it tends to be.

F

But you're a "graduate without employment"...

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

"But you're a "graduate without employment"... "

Officially, perhaps ...

F

silly people. if you're imaginary, you exist. within someone's imagination. as long as you alter my perception in some form, either I'm hallucinating, or you exist, in one shape or another. of course, I as well may not exist.

No, I meant that InSol is treating solipsism like the belief that only the believer itself exists, and so makes the opposite of that to be that everyone but the believer itself exists, when actually it should be something like every belief except the belief that the believer is believing its believes therefore it exists is true. But that's all just petty picking over humourous nomenclature.
What I've been wondering for ages is, is the opposite of 1, a)-1, b) 0, c)1, or d) infinity?
(Sorry again, P-C, but once I'd started I couldn't very well finish).

I say negative 1.

But you would, being an InSol. Think about the other answers, and if how each of them were true, that would relate on a macro scale to the universe around us.
BeJ*sus, I sound like a physics teacher. Which I may well be...

"every belief except the belief that the believer is believing its believes therefore it exists is true"

With all due respect, Fnord, what in Seldon's name does this mean?

Sorry, I was being unnecessary.
I meant, the opposite of Solipsism should be the belief that everything except solipsism is true. Solipsism is shorthand for the belief that only the belief that the believer is believing is true. But all that was just pedantry.

Phew!

It's much less complicated being an atheist.

F

Perhaps, but as Arthur C. Clarke wrote in _3001: The Final Oddessey_,
"Atheism is boring, its much more interesting to be an agnostic.".

(Not the exact quote.)

It should be "graduate without permenant employment" I suppose...

Name:Ian the GM

Chair title:Chaise-longue of evolutionary creationism

Any beliefs you'd like to list so we can make fun- er... discuss them:
Jammy Donuts

Greetings, Ian. Jammy Donuts - hah!
Atheism is fun too. You get to play with people's preconceptions in a humourous manner.