Does Anything Outside Your Own Mind Exist? | Unveiled

Does Anything Outside Your Own Mind Exist?

We may spend our lives with our friends and family, or with the complete strangers we encounter on a daily basis, but every single one of us has just one perspective: our own. The statistics show that there are more than seven-and-a-half billion people on the planet, and all of them are experiencing, computing and contemplating life for themselves. But there are some realms of philosophy which argue that even this could be false.

This is Unveiled, and today we’re answering the extraordinary question; does anything beyond our own mind exist?

Today, we’re talking solipsism. It’s the philosophical belief that nothing outside of our own minds can ever truly be known and, therefore, that it may not exist at all. Solipsism isn’t the total dismissal of a genuine physical reality, and there are various grades to it… with some being more severe than others. But it is an acknowledgment in general that it will always be impossible to confirm that anything beyond the mind is real.

It’s a contentious idea, because many argue that the evidence against solipsism is literally right in front of our eyes, or right under our noses. What we do know is that we all experience the world through our senses – the five main ones being sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. We then also know that we all comprehend a world that’s similar enough for us to be able to communicate with and understand each other. We have ways of categorising and cross-referencing what we see, taste, feel, and so on. So, with this in mind, how does (how can?) solipsism work?

Most main arguments rest on the idea that we never actually experience those five senses directly. Instead, our minds encounter and interpret a kind of data. This data, provided by the outside world to our bodies, is translated by our brains into what’s often called qualia… with a quale in philosophy being a singular experience of consciousness, like looking at the sky and seeing that it’s blue. So, the data we sense is, at the very least, filtered through our brains… but at the very most, could it be completely invented by our brains? Could it be that everything we experience isn’t actually true (or even there) because it’s merely a reflection of our inner self? This is a question posed by metaphysical solipsism in particular, one of the most extreme forms of solipsism there is. But there are lighter, less extreme solipsistic arguments, too, where the physical world does at least remain intact.

Before we all begin to question our reality too much, though… before we all start wondering whether this video on this computer in this room is really even happening at all… how did this idea come about? Where and when did solipsism originate?

It chiefly comes from the work of one of history’s most influential philosophers, René Descartes. Back in the mid-seventeenth century, Descartes ran an experiment to try and find a universal truth; something that was definitely, incontestably correct. He employed a method known as Cartesian doubt, in which he attempted to doubt everything he knew in order to find the one thing he couldn’t possible dispute - which would be the universal truth he was looking for. When Descartes finished his experiment, he came to a famous conclusion; “I think, therefore I am”. The fact that he had thoughts was the only thing Descartes couldn’t doubt. According to him, everything else, every other single aspect of reality, could be questioned. And this is the basis of solipsism.

But it’s perhaps easy to see why Descartes’ ideas were widely challenged, and often ridiculed. Because wouldn’t we be able to tell if this world didn’t actually exist? We have all of these senses and all of this brain power… how would we miss something so fantastically fundamental? Well, for some solipsists, it’s similar to the various arguments that reality is a dream. We often don’t realise we’re dreaming until we’re awake, at which point the belief that we are awake is enough to convince us that we’re not dreaming anymore. But, according to some theories, how can we know for sure? And similarly, how can we know that anything is real when it’s impossible to experience it through anything other than our own minds? For a solipsist, we can’t.

If solipsism isn’t a view you share, however, then this can be one of the most frustrating philosophical approaches there is. It’s difficult to question a solipsist, for example, because they’ll always have a seemingly unbeatable counterargument. They can, like Descartes, simply go ahead and doubt absolutely everything besides their own existence. Which, at the top end of the scale, means they may not even believe in basic objective knowledge. Even the simplest facts that the majority of people take for granted - like grass being green or the sky being blue - can feasibly be doubted by a solipsist. They would ask; how do you know the sky is blue? What does blue mean? Is it the same for you as it is for me? What if I am blind or colour blind? Does blue still exist then?

Zooming further out, we know that there are plenty of things in the wider cosmos that no human can perceive at all. Things like light waves that are outside the visible spectrum. But, for other animals with eyes that have a different structure to ours, this seemingly invisible light is totally visible to them. So, does this mean that light in general doesn’t exist? That what we understand to be light is only an invention of our particular minds? The world looks very different to a mantis shrimp, for example, because it sees more colours than most of the rest of the animal kingdom. Its reality is different to ours because of how it interprets light. But, in other ways, there could be two human beings with radically different experiences of reality, as well. How can we possibly know whose reality is the right one? How can we possibly prove anything beyond our own thoughts to our own selves?

While you may struggle to counter a solipsist, however, there are other philosophical movements which defy it - one of which being logical positivism. Here, only observable, testable science has meaning. It’s the belief that scientific knowledge with hard evidence should be the basis of all facts, and that metaphysical ideas – like solipsism – are meaningless. Logical positivism says that; because there is plenty of scientific evidence that the world exists and that it is perceived by us, then it must be true. Under the principle of Occam’s Razor - which argues that the simplest answer is usually the correct one - logical positivism wins out over solipsism almost every time. So, if, over the course of this video, you’ve found yourself shaking your head at the solipsistic way of thinking… then perhaps you are a logical positivist. Or, more likely, you’re somewhere in between.

If everyone was a solipsist, human society would certainly be a much-changed place. Nobody would view anybody else as real, and all human interactions would be made with the single goal of self-improvement. The single goal of making the world a better place… but only for you, as you experience it inside your own mind. While this needn’t automatically lead to meanness, intolerance and evil, in many cases it probably would do. What reason would anyone have to be kind to anyone else if they truly believed that nobody else was real? How quickly would love and empathy for others disappear, if no-one even believed in anyone else’s existence?

Thankfully, humans are naturally social, communal creatures. We rely on one another, we form friendships, and we build large civilizations consisting of valued members in intricate societies. We strive to communicate and to share our experiences, feelings and knowledge with other people. We interpret the world around us, react to it, and (hopefully) make a positive impact. In this way, a solipsistic worldview appears to go against human nature.

And yet, as Descartes was demonstrating with his immortal line, “I think, therefore I am”, we can’t conclusively prove solipsism to be right or wrong. Perhaps the meaning of life really is entwined in the inner workings of the individual mind, and nothing in the physical world really, truly exists. Or perhaps we should accept only the observable data as a logical positivist would, and state with absolute certainty that the sky is blue, and that’s that! The beauty of the human mind is that there are so many subtle interpretations between one and the other.