{"id":2249,"date":"2003-05-23T15:09:45","date_gmt":"2003-05-23T18:09:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/bb\/viewtopic.php?p=455"},"modified":"2010-05-08T23:56:48","modified_gmt":"2010-05-09T02:56:48","slug":"solipsists-of-the-world-unite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/2003\/05\/23\/solipsists-of-the-world-unite\/","title":{"rendered":"Solipsists of the world, unite!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Etan Kerner<\/a> writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

According to a film my wife saw in her philosophy class, Bertrand Russell received a letter from a woman who proclaimed herself a solipsist<\/a>.<\/p>\n

She went on to say that she was surprised that there weren’t more solipsists.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Besides myself (although I consider myself only a part-time solipsist \"icon_wink.gif\"), noted SF writer Robert A. Heinlein<\/a> probably was one – at least he wrote several solipsist stories and even introduced the philosophy of “pantheistic multiperson solipsism” in his magnum opus, The Number of the Beast<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Possibly as a satire of this, Iain M. Banks features a band of solipsists in his Against A Dark Background<\/a>. Here’s a slightly abridged dialogue between the book’s heroine, Lady Sharrow and the solipsist leader, Elson Roa:<\/p>\n

“But if you’re God… why do you need the others?”<\/p>\n

…he shrugged. “My apparences? They are the sign that my will is not yet strong enough to support my existence without extraneous help.”<\/p>\n

…”What about the others? Do they – the apparences – call themselves God, too?”<\/p>\n

“Apparently… um, apart from one, who’s an atheist.”<\/p>\n

“Ah-ha”, she said, nodding slowly. “And what does this person call himself?”<\/p>\n

“‘Me.'”<\/p>\n

“… uh-huh.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Etan Kerner writes: According to a film my wife saw in her philosophy class, Bertrand Russell received a letter from a woman who proclaimed herself a solipsist. She went on to say that she was surprised that there weren’t more solipsists. Besides myself (although I consider myself only a part-time solipsist ), noted SF writer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books"],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Rainer Brockerhoff","author_link":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/author\/rbrockerhoff\/"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1q3Zc-Ah","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2249\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}