Solipsism
Whitney Hill
January 15, 2014
“But I have occasionally
caught the senses deceiving me, and it would be prudent for me never completely
to trust those who have cheated me even once.”
- René
Descartes
In our awaken state of mind,
with our bodies tolling throughout the day, we rely on our senses, our
conscious morally correct mind, each other and ourselves to relay back to us
what we see and know. We trust in
the elementary things that have been taught to us from years ago. We act on
them and use them as devices to make simple and exquisite decisions. At the end of the day we retire,
slipping into an altered state of mind, we dream of things that could never
fully come to term if placed in this world of limitations. We wake and replay
each day with only minor differences to tell one another from the last. Our
senses drive us through this process; we follow blindly. We are finite. We are flawed.
And so here I am, thinking about how out of the past three
months, I can literally pin point the days that strayed away from the
consistency of the rest. Of how the days that have stood out, have done so
through some activity that caused me to be a bit more excitable. Happy and
distressed. I imagine Freud would have a field day labeling a disorder for
me. As I write trying to imagine
the next sentence, concentrating on each word, I think of how when each day is
broken down and examined, my general likes and dislikes heightened, my biggest
annoyance has come from those who blatantly lie through some passive aggressive
act, just to deal with life. Then I realize that despite myself, half of
everything I think and a quarter of everything I believe, somewhere down the
line, I am that liar. I am that passive aggressor. I am that person ensnared in
this reality, throwing childlike tantrums, subconsciously holding onto the
belief that my senses and knowledge would never lead me astray. According to Descartes, I am wrong.
One: Doubt Everything
Descartes believed that as
humans we should doubt everything.
That our dreams throw us into an elaborate world with happenings that
can be no more surreal or false, as the world we live in when awake. The only defining difference mentally,
between when I’m awake and when I’m asleep, is nothing more but a flutter of
the eyes. The switch between a solid reality to a bemused state of mind. All
the actions that I’m performing right now with all the rules of time can bypass
my senses and convince me that I’m in nothing more then just a dull dream. Who’s to say really that my dream is no
more real then the waking eyes I perceive as reality?
I suppose Descartes said it best when he so concisely
concluded, “ I see so plainly that there are no reliable signs by which I can
distinguish sleeping from waking that I am stupefied – and my stupor itself
suggests that I am asleep!”[1]
Upon browsing through my
cryptozoology (the study of
monsters) book, I discovered that every single last grotesque monster or
deformed abomination of a beast that has been brought to life through tales and
blurry Polaroid’s were all splices of the eerily familiar. In the twist of our
imagination we” try to give bizarre shapes to sirens and satyrs, [we] are
unable to give them completely new natures, but can only jumble together the
parts of various animals.”[2]
Even through our wildest and distorted thoughts our conscious awareness and
rationality sets in, our senses, and we helplessly follow under the tangible
things in the universe. It seems that through feeble deduction, what is all
around false only follows and fortifies what is true. My dreams and nightmare beasts only prove to me that what I
see in my mind’s eye when I am asleep, is that my senses have led me to not
only believe for a short amount of time that they are real, but also that
through questioning both sides of my conscious and unconscious mind, it’s only
fair to say that my failing senses have forced me to consider distrusting
everything.
How am I to live in such of a
world where I should doubt everything? My senses may deceive me in my dream,
but the materialized things I can physically hold in my hand, personally hear,
smell, visually see and taste must be real on the grounds of common sense, nay
science. Right now I am holding a no. 2 yellow pencil. I can feel this
substance that we have universally deemed as wood. It is very smooth under my
skin up until it gets to the lead point, where the wood then turns rough while
the lead takes on the character of being slick. The pencil is light and when
put to my nose I can smell what my brain has long since registered as earthen
materials with a painted yellow topcoat. In fact, if I gnaw on the side of the
pencil I can so vividly taste and feel the topcoat coloring giving way to my
teeth, as they sink into the near fragile wooden device. I can hear it steadily giving in under
my jaw. I can hear the lead whisk and scratch at the paper. My senses are
relaying back to my conscious mind as I slowly destroy the pencil. Am I wrong in
not assuming that everything I have just experienced has been a falsified
moment with no real standing substance? I suppose I could always close my eyes
and imagine all of this, grasping at my memory of past senses that have been
collected over time regarding this no.2 yellow pencil. But internally, I know
the distinction between objects I am touching and objects I wish I were
touching. I cannot doubt the existence of this pencil therefore I can’t deny my
existence.
I suppose looking at a
problem from both perspectives is the knowledgeable thing to do. Just like
Descartes dilemma with the mental conception of wax, my pencil is to me. The
material of wood and lead are two separate things that have been extracted from
the earth, cut down and meshed together. This is true. When the pencil is
sharpened, the wood and lead break down even smaller into a fine dust. This
goes on until the pencil is completely gone. My concept of what a pencil does
is no longer valid because all the properties I have previously listed of what
makes a no.2 pencil a no.2 pencil are now no more, or better yet only exist as
fragments of its former self.
Through my senses (that have been accurate as far as I can tell), and my
conscious intake on how my pencil has changed I am left agreeing and
disagreeing in frustration with that the “physical objects are not really known
through sensation or imagination, but are grasped by the understanding alone,”
therefore “ I can’t know anything more easily or plainly then my mind.”[3]
In spite of myself, Descartes has deemed to be right.
Two: I Can’t Doubt That
I’m Doubting
In doubting everything, at
least trying to doubt everything, is not plausible. I suppose it’s not plausible because in my mind I am still
uncertain if doubting everything is something I can personally accept. Going
around in circles in my head, defining my idea of what a pencil is and defining
my dreams, I contradict myself. It seems however, in philosophy that is a very
common thing. Descartes even goes back and states that despite doubting
everything, “ there is thinking, and thought alone cannot be taken away from
me. I am, I exist.”[4] My existence
has now been proven through my thought alone.
As my mind zips around each
new thought that enters my head and my eyelids began to flicker up and down
with indecision, I come to question if my existence could exist outside of my
body. An odd thought indeed, but hear me out. Physically my being takes up
space. My presence has materialized through a nine- month time frame in which I
begun to steadily grow from nothing more but an egg and sperm. Before that
however, I did not exist, took up no room and was nothing more then an
un-thought thought. I came to be what I am now over a twenty- four year time
frame. As I get older I grow and need more energy and space from sources
outside of myself to live. But this of course is how everyone comes into
existence. The only difference is my personality, which derives from not my
physical, but from my mental. It is my mind, my consciousness alone, that has
taken in and emotionally registered the things around me, that has stored my
memories, that has made me an individual internally, while relatively being the
same as everyone else externally.
I feel like our bodies are nothing more then marionettes on
this earth. Our minds/consciousness are the unseen puppeteers. On an alternate
world, perhaps our dreams where our bodies lay dormant while our minds take on
their physical life; we are controlled. Just like a parasite to its host, our
body leaches on to our mind in the most unconventional way. Decaying over time,
gaining new physical ailments and ultimately dyeing, our bodies wither away
while our minds free of it’s parasite, returns to that alternate world where
our beings can only reach when asleep. Perhaps then that is why when we are slumbering,
we dream of people that physically have left us and of events that have yet to
exist. My spirit you can say has gone to a place unlike heaven. All the minds
of the dead and living are linked through the alternative world of the cognizant.
My existence derives from my mental confirmation. My existence derives from my
unconscious mind. But I digress.
Three: I Am A Thinking
Thing- A Mind, Mental Substance
For instance, babies for a
period of time have no concept of any real space or distinction of themselves
from other people. Their ignorance leads them to believe in their fragile mind
that only they exist and rule the forces outside of themselves. Children,
keeping up with the silly ignorance of their earlier years, for the most part
yearn for others to supply them with things to uphold their existence. Being
co-dependent and selfish, from no fault of their own, they expect food,
shelter, being nurtured and emotionally validated and find it hard to break
that habit as they become older. As for adults, take how I previously viewed my
self. From years of being
pampered, I have taken on the role mentally that I am this unique individual
that stands on top of the jungle gym as to say, with infinite possibilities and
control over my domain. I take for granted my free will and brashness will
never falter. On the outside when it comes to interacting with other overgrown
children, I have learned that selfishness and pompous pride will not get me far
in my ultimate quest of happiness and mental peace, i.e. disrupt my
satisfaction with my environment. To live life is to be compromised.
Never the less though, how I view my self and the world
around me confirms on some level not only my existence through both mental and
physical acknowledgement (as stated above), but also that overall “…I am a
thinking thing- a thing that doubts, affirms, denies, understands a few things,
is ignorant of many things, wills and refuses.” [5]
Being a singular object moving through time and space while identifying myself
by using words like “I” and “me,” I cement my own importance in myself and my
standing in this world. By recognizing my own mind and body, feelings and
senses, wants and needs, I constantly affirm that I am indeed real. My dreams
affirm that my mental conception on all of the above is valid. I exist through will!
In our awaken state of mind,
with our bodies tolling throughout the day, we rely on our senses, our
conscious morally correct mind, each other and ourselves to relay back to us
what we see and know. We exist in
this infinite universe by our own mind that transcends what the human eye fails
to see. Our senses. “I” symbolizes
more then just self-recognition to a bookmark of who we are in this world full
of other “I’s.” I am a passive aggressor because inside I am still that
disrupted child awaken from a nightmare trying to get even. I’m constantly
tricked by my senses leading me to doubt everything, while at the same time
doubting my senses will trick me. I am alive and full of life thinking so
smugly, that the pulse from my bleeding heart will only expire when my body
gives way to the threats of itself or others, rather than thinking that my mind
would betray itself and shake loose the parasitic appendage called my body. I
fear what the answer really is. And when the time finally comes, shriveled
veins dried of life, numb eyes examining a nothingness that has been currently
unknown to me; my passing death. I can only hope that my soul, my
consciousness, my mind will finally be able to answer with confidence if I
truly was living in a dream world built only upon my own understanding of
self. If that deadened thud of
cerebral apprehension was the cause of my ultimate doubt. If I ever even
existed to others as much as I existed to myself. However, until that time comes, I can only mentally confirm
silently, cogito ergo sum.
Read more at Sporkability
Read more at Sporkability
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