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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's

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Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's not here. We are and we're pretty

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Speaker 2: sure that both of us are here. But it's possible

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Speaker 2: just be this here, and this is stuff you should know.

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Speaker 3: That's right. Diving into philosophy again, this one sollipsism, perhaps

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Speaker 3: the most naval, gayzy, sort of unintelligible aspect of all

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Speaker 3: of them, which is that sort of old classic stoner

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Speaker 3: college dorm room thing. How do we know if anything

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Speaker 3: is real? What if it's as all in this part

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Speaker 3: of it? What if it's all just a simulation?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's one example of what it could be. But

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Speaker 2: there's a couple of things about this one, as annoying

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Speaker 2: as it is, because if you're if you're arguing for solypsism,

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Speaker 2: and I don't want to say you're syllopsist, because there's

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Speaker 2: basically nobody out there who's an actual syllopsist, Like you

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Speaker 2: can just keep saying like, but yeah, how do you know?

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Speaker 2: But yeah, how do you know? There doesn't seem to

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Speaker 2: be any more reducted argument in all of philosophy, all

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Speaker 2: other philosophy can essentially be argued against by solyopsism. And

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Speaker 2: the reason why is because the basis of solypsism is

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Speaker 2: that there is no reality. It's just you, you hearing this.

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Speaker 2: I don't exist, Chuck doesn't exist, this podcast doesn't exist.

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Speaker 2: Nothing exists except for your mind. And that's the basis

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Speaker 2: of everything that you think is real. And none of

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Speaker 2: us are actually doing anything that you're not projecting out

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Speaker 2: of your mind. That's sollpsism and it sounds mind blowing,

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Speaker 2: but like I said, it's also annoying, and it's also

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Speaker 2: extremely simple, so much so that it can deceive you

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Speaker 2: into thinking that it means more than it does. It doesn't.

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Speaker 2: It's it's as basic as that. But again, as annoying

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Speaker 2: as it is, it is in some ways a useful

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Speaker 2: argument because if you really want to make a philosopher

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Speaker 2: rigorous in their argument, have them take on sollipsism or

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Speaker 2: some form of it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: I think Olivia found something online that said, like, no modern,

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Speaker 3: like legitimate philosopher even takes part in these arguments because

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Speaker 3: it's just such like, hey, get off the couch with

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Speaker 3: your brong and maybe talk about something some real philosophy well.

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Speaker 2: Also, the other part of it too is if you

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Speaker 2: were a genuine philosopher and you genuinely believe that nothing

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Speaker 2: was real except in your mind, there's zero point for

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Speaker 2: you to do anything like write a philosophy paper for solipsism,

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Speaker 2: because nobody's out there to read it in actuality. So

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Speaker 2: what's the point. You're by yourself in the entire universe

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Speaker 2: so much so that the universe doesn't even exist outside

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Speaker 2: of your mind. You're by yourself in some incomprehensible form

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Speaker 2: of existence. It's just weird and depressing in a lot

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Speaker 2: of ways.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure we should mention the skeptics a little

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Speaker 3: bit because that's sort of that sort of lays the

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Speaker 3: groundwork for solyopsism a little bit. The skeptics started around

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Speaker 3: the third century BCE. The word itself came from the

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Speaker 3: Greek term meaning inquiry or examination, and they were basically like, hey,

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Speaker 3: it's not possible to have like some knowledge to make

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Speaker 3: definitive judgments, arguing against the stoics, who said, no, you

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Speaker 3: should be able to test claims using, you know, stuff

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Speaker 3: that we can see and hear, using our senses, and

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Speaker 3: the skeptics and this sort of laid the ground of

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Speaker 3: what was to come for solopsism basically said like, hey,

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Speaker 3: we can all be deceived, though, what about the case

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Speaker 3: of idea nical twins? You could you could be deceived there,

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Speaker 3: or you could have a sensory experience if you're talking

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Speaker 3: about trusting your senses that aren't connected to reality, Like

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Speaker 3: that's what a dream is. Yeah, And dreams sort of

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Speaker 3: play into the whole thing, at least at the beginning.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, the skeptics said, you ever had a dream dingus? Yeah,

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Speaker 2: how are you gonna how are you going to trust

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Speaker 2: your senses with that? And so skepticism, like you said,

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Speaker 2: is kind of an extension of it, a basis of it.

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Speaker 2: It's not quite there, but enough that sollipsism is often

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Speaker 2: thought of as an extreme form of skepticism. Sometimes it's

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Speaker 2: also called global skepticism, like your skeptical everything and then uh,

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Speaker 2: it's also sometimes called mondo scepto.

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Speaker 3: Uh. Speaking of the dreams, though, there was a Taois

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Speaker 3: philosopher named juang Zi that in this also sort of

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Speaker 3: like the groundwork was, Hey, if I wake up from

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Speaker 3: a dream and I was a you know, an a

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Speaker 3: will debeast in that dream, how to I know that

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Speaker 3: I'm not really a will Tobeaston that this is the dream.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and all this again, yes it does seem kind

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Speaker 2: of bongish or bong adjacent for sure, But this is

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Speaker 2: the kind of stuff that philosophers care about. Like it's

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Speaker 2: called epistemology. Epistemiology I like to add a lot of

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Speaker 2: syllables sometimes, so I'm not quite sure which one. But

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Speaker 2: it's the basis of how we know what we know,

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Speaker 2: how we gain knowledge. And the point of this, of

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Speaker 2: all this stuff, as people were kind of building on it,

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Speaker 2: is to say, like we need to kind of figure

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Speaker 2: out how we do know, because if you really stop

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Speaker 2: and think about it, we're not quite sure exactly how

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Speaker 2: we know anything. And that whole thing was picked up

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Speaker 2: in the seventeenth century by Descartes and his very famous

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Speaker 2: quote I think therefore I AM came out of this right.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's you know, basically saying like, hey, I

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Speaker 3: know that I am. I'm doing the thinking. I have

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Speaker 3: a brain, and but that's about all I know. They

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Speaker 3: you know, Descartes was the first one that came in

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Speaker 3: and said, hey, maybe we should get a system called

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Speaker 3: methodic doubt. Great band name to determine if like, hey,

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Speaker 3: you're saying something is truth, like one of the truths.

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Speaker 3: We should be able to test this, but things are fallible,

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Speaker 3: like math, you can make mistakes in you can't look

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Speaker 3: at tradition of a culture because you know, people might

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Speaker 3: disagree with that kind of thing. And then the idea

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Speaker 3: of an evil demon coming in and basically kind of

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Speaker 3: taking hold of your consciousness and saying that you're you're

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Speaker 3: having all these illusions and that's inhabited inside of you.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so that evil demon thing too. It's like, as

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Speaker 2: we'll see, it's been updated in much more modern form.

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Speaker 2: But Descartes was the first one to really kind of

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Speaker 2: say it's possible. Especially we should say cart believed in God,

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Speaker 2: that the extension of that I think therefore I am,

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Speaker 2: is also that anything I can just intuitively know is real,

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Speaker 2: like God is real. So he believed that there definitely

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Speaker 2: was God. So he was arguing like, okay, if we

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Speaker 2: believe in God, then there we have to entertain the

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Speaker 2: possibility that it's not just you know, our minds that

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Speaker 2: are projecting this, but that we're we're being diluted, that

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Speaker 2: we're like an entire universe is being created for us

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Speaker 2: by this evil demon. This is his seventeenth century application

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Speaker 2: of it, but it's it's like we, like I said,

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Speaker 2: it kind of formed these or it's been updated in

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Speaker 2: modern forms, and that really kind of that's where it

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Speaker 2: gets super tough, because it's like, Okay, yeah, it's ridiculous

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Speaker 2: that you're you're the only person who exists and all

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Speaker 2: the rest of us don't exist, or even more creepy,

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Speaker 2: this is where it gets it to me. Okay, like

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Speaker 2: when you start to try to argue against sollipsism, one

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Speaker 2: of the ways that you're going to go is that

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Speaker 2: other people have experiences and thoughts and emotions too, so

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Speaker 2: that totally discounts the idea that you're the only entity,

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Speaker 2: you're the only self in the entire universe, and that

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Speaker 2: all of this is just in your mind. But then

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Speaker 2: you have to ask, like, well, wait a minute, how

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Speaker 2: do you know other people have experiences in thoughts and

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Speaker 2: feelings like you do. There's no way for you to

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Speaker 2: know that, and there's actually no way for them to

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Speaker 2: get that across to you in any provable way. And

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Speaker 2: then you just kind of go like, oh, it's a

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Speaker 2: little scary. At least I do it's the kind of

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Speaker 2: thing that keeps me up at night.

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Speaker 3: Well, the word itself, if you want to break it down,

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Speaker 3: it first appeared in eighteen sixty nine from Kant and

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Speaker 3: I think it's Latin for solace from a loone in ipsy,

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Speaker 3: meaning self. And this isn't the kind of thing where

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Speaker 3: like at the beginning, people are like, wow, this is

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Speaker 3: really holds a lot of water. From the beginning, it

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Speaker 3: was pretty ridiculous, and philosophers thought it was pretty ridiculous. Oh,

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Speaker 3: here's a quote no great philosopher has espoused solypsism. It

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Speaker 3: is the quote that Lvia found. Because you know, if

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Speaker 3: you believe that there's nothing, then there you can't have

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Speaker 3: an argument about anything, because, like you said at the beginning,

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Speaker 3: a solypsis would just come in and go like, well.

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Speaker 1: How do you know prove it?

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Speaker 3: You can't prove that because you even your proof isn't

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Speaker 3: proof because it's not real.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. One of the other things too, just to kind

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Speaker 2: of get this into perspective, is like you can't even

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Speaker 2: say that you have a brain because everything you know

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Speaker 2: about a brain, you've you've basically you're not born with

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Speaker 2: the concept of a brain. You learn that from the

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Speaker 2: external world, and if the external world doesn't exist, then

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Speaker 2: maybe brains don't exist, Like maybe you just don't can't

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Speaker 2: even conceive of who you are, and that's the ultimate problem.

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Speaker 2: You just you can just keep reducing it, like you

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Speaker 2: can't prove how you know what you know. And I

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Speaker 2: feel like that's really kind of set us up for

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Speaker 2: a break. Who do you think?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll be right back.

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Speaker 2: So one of the things I kind of talked about

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Speaker 2: earlier before the break, Chuck, was that the as far

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Speaker 2: as philosophy goes, like if you're trying to actually apply

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Speaker 2: this to philosophical arguments or maybe like real world kind

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Speaker 2: of stuff, is that it has to do with other

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Speaker 2: minds and the fact that we can't ever fully understand

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Speaker 2: what other people are thinking. And then as relates to sollipsism,

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Speaker 2: we can't really prove that other people are thinking. And

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Speaker 2: there's actually some not just philosophers, but neuroscientists who've kind

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Speaker 2: of investigated this because it is an interesting question, Like

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Speaker 2: it's that same kind of question like how do I

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Speaker 2: know that we both experience the same color green in

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Speaker 2: the exact same way, and that what you call green

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Speaker 2: I actually think is blue? Like, I experience it as

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Speaker 2: what you would experience blue, but I call it green

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Speaker 2: because I think that's what you're talking about too.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, And in terms of neuroscience, you know, you're talking

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Speaker 3: about maybe a technology where you could brain splice and

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Speaker 3: you could literally maybe get someone inside someone else's head.

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Speaker 3: But even then, it's not like some sort of full

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Speaker 3: proof solipsistic argument, because even if you were sending signals

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Speaker 3: from one brain to another, it's still going to be

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Speaker 3: a subjective experience and you wouldn't have any idea even

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Speaker 3: though you're getting the signals from their brain, like the

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Speaker 3: subjective nature of it, like you can't you can't gauge

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Speaker 3: subjectivity scientifically.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And there's this example of like, Okay, one person

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Speaker 2: that you're connected to the brain of is saying like,

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Speaker 2: I'm thinking of a red apple, and the other person

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Speaker 2: with the other connected brain is like, yep, I can

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Speaker 2: see the red apple that you're thinking of. But again

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Speaker 2: that to that person, red is what the other person

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Speaker 2: would think of as blue, and you can't possibly know

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Speaker 2: that that person is thinking of what would be actually

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Speaker 2: a blue apple and calling it red. But the thing

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Speaker 2: is you can you can just be like, okay, person

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Speaker 2: number two. Now you think of a red apple, and

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Speaker 2: we'll see what person number one thinks of it if

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Speaker 2: it matches their conception. It'd be really easy to find

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Speaker 2: that out if you ask me.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and if that was a test subject, they'd say,

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Speaker 3: why is Chuck walking into traffic?

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Speaker 1: What's going on?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean we should say here, like all of

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Speaker 2: this does require brain implants, and I just don't feel

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Speaker 2: like there's anybody trustworthy to put an implant in your

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Speaker 2: brain right now.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's true.

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Speaker 2: There's also this concept of a philosophical zombie, right, They're

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Speaker 2: called p zombies, and it kind of ties in with

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Speaker 2: what I was saying, Like, we can't ever say that

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Speaker 2: somebody else is thinking or emoting, because we can conceive

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Speaker 2: of something that looks like a human, acts like a human,

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Speaker 2: has all the same thought processes of a human, maybe

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Speaker 2: even has emotions and all that stuff, but they're missing

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Speaker 2: what it means to be a human, which is the

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Speaker 2: experience of experiencing something. Right, So, like that person can

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Speaker 2: eat an apple and taste what an apple tastes like,

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Speaker 2: but they will never feel what it feels like to

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Speaker 2: taste an apple that's like really delicious, You know what

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Speaker 2: I'm saying, and some people come up with it, came

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Speaker 2: up with the idea of a p zombie, a philosophical

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Speaker 2: zombie to try to investigate like what it is that

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Speaker 2: makes humans humans? And that's kind of what they came

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Speaker 2: up with.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and if you you know, as AI comes on

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Speaker 3: more and more, and I know you tackled some of

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Speaker 3: this in the End of the World your special podcast

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Speaker 3: series for that. But the idea of like AI becoming

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Speaker 3: sentient or conscious or whatever, Like, how were we going

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Speaker 3: to know if that's even happening, because it's not just

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Speaker 3: if it knows so much stuff it can you know,

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Speaker 3: AI can learn facts and things, but like it's that

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Speaker 3: that subjectivity of a human or a I guess just

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Speaker 3: an experience because it wouldn't be human. And like, how

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Speaker 3: do we know if that's happening to an AI?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, or a person too, you know, like it's just

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Speaker 2: and again, like I think you kind of nail it

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Speaker 2: on the head, like all this seems like navel gazing,

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Speaker 2: but there is like some utility to it.

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Speaker 3: Well, let's talk about some of the I guess varieties

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Speaker 3: of solypsism that they've come up with over the years.

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Speaker 3: There's one called metaphysical solepism. That's basically that an individual

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Speaker 3: is like yourself is all that there is nothing else

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Speaker 3: has any independent reality at all.

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Speaker 1: Then there is.

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Speaker 3: Epistemological solypsism, and that is it is not even possible

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Speaker 3: to know where anything outside our individual consciousness exists or

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Speaker 3: is real.

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Speaker 2: And that one is actually like kind of a step

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Speaker 2: down from metaphysical. They're like, we're not saying that nothing

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Speaker 2: else in the universe exists but your mind, but we're saying, like,

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Speaker 2: like you and I were just talking about with p

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Speaker 2: zombies and AI, like we can't prove that anybody else

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Speaker 2: has those thoughts some feelings besides the thinker.

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Speaker 3: Right, not the famous statue, but you know, a real thinker.

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Speaker 3: There's methodological methodological soism. I got that extra ow in there,

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Speaker 3: and that means it's not possible to even start to

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Speaker 3: analyze the world except through your own individual consciousness and lens.

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Speaker 1: Which that makes sense.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it does. But I saw that it really gets

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Speaker 2: tricky with research because at base, methodological sollaptism says you

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Speaker 2: don't need to mess with data or other people's research,

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Speaker 2: just what do you think about the subject, And that

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Speaker 2: doesn't really hold water for like a research paper, because yeah,

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Speaker 2: I mean that's a good place to start. You can't

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Speaker 2: just dive in, or I guess you can, but it's

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Speaker 2: also like, what are your conceptions about this, and let's

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Speaker 2: start from there and then go figure out if that's correct.

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Speaker 2: Like this is just sticking with the what do you

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Speaker 2: think about this? And write the research paper. So it's

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Speaker 2: not a really good idea, frankly, and then also, Chuck,

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Speaker 2: there's just a straight up bad idea. Ethical solypsism also

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Speaker 2: called pos sollopsism. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: I think there's a professor from m team name a

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Speaker 3: Plosis or rather or maybe teaches philosophy named Casper Hair

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Speaker 3: and he had a book in two thousand and nine

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Speaker 3: called On Myself and Other Less Important Subjects where he

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Speaker 3: was he was arguing a lesser version of ethical sollipsism,

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Speaker 3: which is the idea that other things and people might exist,

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Speaker 3: but we have no obligation to any of those people

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Speaker 3: or ideas except for our own.

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Speaker 2: No, And I think ultimately at the end he's like,

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Speaker 2: but for us, for the person, the individual, to lead

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Speaker 2: a fuller life, you kind of do need people here

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Speaker 2: or there, So you don't want to just completely screw

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Speaker 2: over everybody for yourself. But that's the basis of what's

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Speaker 2: called ethical solaptism, that you have no moral obligation to

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Speaker 2: anyone except yourself. And then the other thing that really

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Speaker 2: stuck out to me, Chuck, was that you have no

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Speaker 2: moral obligation to anybody but yourself right now, So you

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Speaker 2: don't even have to look out for your future self.

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Speaker 2: All you need to care about is your present self.

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Speaker 2: And that's why I call it pos solypsism.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, piece of what piece of s.

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Speaker 3: There are also lots of little sort of side ideas

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Speaker 3: that come along if you're gonna gaze at your navel

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Speaker 3: about solypsism. And one is the famous brain in a

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Speaker 3: vat or the futurama or the matrix idea, which is

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Speaker 3: all you are maybe is a brain floating in a

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Speaker 3: jar with some life sustaining liquid and it's hooked up

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Speaker 3: to a computer and everything you see is a simulation.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is where we kind of get into

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Speaker 2: the modern updated versions of Descartes evil demon right, Like,

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Speaker 2: what's keeping you in the brain in vat? What's running

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Speaker 2: that simulation for you? Yeah? There's also the simulation hypothesis,

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Speaker 2: which came from Nick Bostrom, which I did do a

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Speaker 2: whole episode on End of the World on because it

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Speaker 2: just fascinates me. But it's a lot of people confuse

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Speaker 2: it with the brain and a vat. But it's different

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Speaker 2: because in the simulation hypothesis, which is that if if

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Speaker 2: civilization becomes advanced, like say, are we're there ancestors, there

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Speaker 2: are descendants, they just keep getting more and more technologically advanced,

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Speaker 2: that they can invent simulations that are indistinguishable from reality,

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Speaker 2: and they run a bunch of simulations over and over again,

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Speaker 2: like say, they sell copies of the simulation game, so

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Speaker 2: one hundred million simulations are ever created over the course

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Speaker 2: of history. Then, mathematically speaking, since we can't distinguish between

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Speaker 2: reality and a simulation, it makes it's much likelier that

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Speaker 2: you and I exist in a simulation rather than the

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Speaker 2: actual one version of reality that the simulations are based on. Right,

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Speaker 2: And the thing that people get mixed up with the

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Speaker 2: brain in a vat is that the brain in the

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Speaker 2: vat in reality, your brain in a vat in the

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Speaker 2: simular in reality, your reality simulated. But to you it's reality.

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Speaker 2: There's nothing different. There's no other like reality that you

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Speaker 2: could wake up to that's just reality. It's essentially like

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Speaker 2: a techno version of creationism. Essentially, like if you replace

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Speaker 2: whoever came up with the code for the simulation with God,

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Speaker 2: it's essentially saying the same thing.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: There's also and this is sort of along those lines,

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Speaker 3: the experience machine idea. There's a philosopher named Robert Nozick

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Speaker 3: in a nineteen seventy four book that said, how about

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Speaker 3: this for a thought experiment. I don't think that people

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Speaker 3: are just basically hedonistic in life, And what if what

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Speaker 3: would people choose if they could be attached to a

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Speaker 3: machine they can simulate any experience, like as if it

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Speaker 3: were identical and real and you thought it was real, Like,

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Speaker 3: would it be hedonistic?

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Speaker 1: Would you choose falling in love with you?

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Speaker 3: Would you choose to write, you know, create a great

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Speaker 3: piece of art or something like that? And then that

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Speaker 3: you know, there are different versions of that, like what

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Speaker 3: if it's for two years at a time, what if

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Speaker 3: it's your whole lives? And the counter to that usually

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Speaker 3: is somebody saying, yeah, but people, it's not reality, and

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Speaker 3: people aren't engaged in reality. In humans inherently want to

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Speaker 3: engage with reality.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and like to sweeten the pot. Noasick was like, like,

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Speaker 2: you will have nothing but pleasure for the rest of

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Speaker 2: your life, all all the pleasure you want. You will

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Speaker 2: never be able to distinguish it from what life was

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Speaker 2: like before. You won't remember that there was a life before. Like,

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Speaker 2: it will be amazing. And something like seventy four to

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Speaker 2: eighty percent of people who are posed this thought experiment

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Speaker 2: say like, nah, I don't want to do that. Even

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Speaker 2: though life is suffering in a lot of ways and

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Speaker 2: sucks and can be boring and is definitely not one

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Speaker 2: hundred percent pleasure all the time, most people still want

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Speaker 2: to be engaged in reality. And that's again, like, it's

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Speaker 2: not just a cool thought experiment. I use that to

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Speaker 2: argue against the idea that humans are at bottom, just

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Speaker 2: nothing but hedonistic creatures who seek out nothing but to

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Speaker 2: increase their pleasure. Knowsick really kind of demolished that with

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Speaker 2: that thought experiment.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I think, what in the matrix? What in Joey pants?

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Speaker 3: Fully on board with the simulation.

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Speaker 2: I don't remember. I don't remember that.

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Speaker 3: I think he was because I think he was like

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Speaker 3: eating the steak and they were like, yeah, but the

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Speaker 3: stake's not real and he's like, yeah, but you know,

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Speaker 3: it tastes, tastes real, tastes good to me, something along

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Speaker 3: those lines. But yeah, that's pretty interesting.

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Speaker 2: Do you want to take our second break and come

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Speaker 2: back and talk about our favorite part of this criticisms.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, let's journey into K three.

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Speaker 1: All right.

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Speaker 3: So when it comes to criticisms of sollipsism not from us.

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Speaker 3: There are some famous stories, one of which very famous

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Speaker 3: story in philosophy circles as at least you're not a philosopher,

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Speaker 3: you probably would be like once I got kicking the

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Speaker 3: rock for But it was an eighteenth century story about

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Speaker 3: writer Samuel Johnson who was in a I guess debate

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Speaker 3: with the philosopher named George Berkeley, and Berkeley said, hey,

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Speaker 3: Descartes's mind body dualism is faulty, and everything that appears

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Speaker 3: to have existence is just made up in your mind. Well,

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Speaker 3: first Berkeley said it's impossible to refute this, and that's

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Speaker 3: when cheeky old Samuel Johnson came in and kicked a

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Speaker 3: very large rock and said, I refute this. In other words, hey,

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Speaker 3: this rock is here, and this is just an absurd

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Speaker 3: idea because I can kick that rock and it hurt

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Speaker 3: my toe.

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Speaker 2: Right exactly. Yeah, And so if you're a philosopher, you're

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Speaker 2: like Samuel Johnson doesn't get it, And if you're not

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Speaker 2: a philosopher, you're like Samuel Johnson gets it. Like philosophers

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Speaker 2: are very famously, maybe overly engaged in perfectly crafted, totally

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Speaker 2: air tight arguments and the idea of just kicking a

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Speaker 2: rock and being like, see it's real. It doesn't really

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Speaker 2: hold water with them, but for everybody else it's like, yeah,

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Speaker 2: it kind of gets to what Wickenstein is that how

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Speaker 2: you would say it in German? Yeah, Ludwig Wckenstein. I'm

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Speaker 2: gonna say his name again at least one more time,

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Speaker 2: because it's fun. He was a philosopher of the twentieth century.

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Speaker 2: He basically was like, man, philosophy, this is not a

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Speaker 2: quote I'm paraphrasing, has some like real hang ups with

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Speaker 2: having to just like the fact that sollipsism is actually

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Speaker 2: it exists, and people feel the need to argue against it.

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Speaker 2: Sometimes says all you need to know about how uptight

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Speaker 2: philosophers are aboutilosophy, and essentially we just need to take

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Speaker 2: some things as fact as granted or else all we're

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Speaker 2: doing is spinning our wheels. But if you say, like, okay,

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Speaker 2: I believe that the world is material, that it exists

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Speaker 2: apart from human consciousness, that if there were no humans

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Speaker 2: around and nothing, no life to experience it, everything would

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Speaker 2: still be the same. Like, let's just take that as fact,

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Speaker 2: if that's what you believe, and just move on from there.

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Speaker 2: You need to have some sort of foundation that you

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Speaker 2: can say this is real, this exists, and then you

431
00:25:34,920 --> 00:25:38,680
Speaker 2: build off of that, and if you don't, then you're

432
00:25:38,800 --> 00:25:41,240
Speaker 2: just shooting yourself in the foot. Essentially, it was what

433
00:25:41,320 --> 00:25:44,240
Speaker 2: Vickens was what Ludwig Vickenstein was saying.

434
00:25:45,200 --> 00:25:51,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think's unfortunately at Vickenstein, Well, I was

435
00:25:51,440 --> 00:25:53,679
Speaker 3: I didn't see it, but the I think the second

436
00:25:53,760 --> 00:25:56,640
Speaker 3: letter in the EI in German is the one that's favored.

437
00:25:57,520 --> 00:25:59,560
Speaker 2: Oh so how would you pronounce it? Then?

438
00:26:00,160 --> 00:26:01,720
Speaker 1: I think it would be Vitckenstein.

439
00:26:03,440 --> 00:26:06,000
Speaker 2: Well, I still like Vickenstein, so I'm going to.

440
00:26:06,040 --> 00:26:07,920
Speaker 1: Stay with it like Frankenstein.

441
00:26:09,480 --> 00:26:13,280
Speaker 2: Oh, I had it backwards, So I thought that Stein

442
00:26:13,480 --> 00:26:16,280
Speaker 2: was like the Anglicized version of it in Stein was

443
00:26:16,320 --> 00:26:17,719
Speaker 2: the German version.

444
00:26:19,200 --> 00:26:21,560
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure the second letter in German is the

445
00:26:21,600 --> 00:26:22,360
Speaker 3: one that's pronounced.

446
00:26:22,400 --> 00:26:23,679
Speaker 2: I know I do I believe you.

447
00:26:24,080 --> 00:26:26,680
Speaker 3: I'm not positive, but I do know that that Frankenstein

448
00:26:26,840 --> 00:26:27,520
Speaker 3: was the doctor.

449
00:26:28,600 --> 00:26:31,159
Speaker 1: You mean Frankenstein had not the monster.

450
00:26:32,000 --> 00:26:33,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true.

451
00:26:33,680 --> 00:26:35,399
Speaker 1: So let's talk about Steven P. Thornton.

452
00:26:35,560 --> 00:26:39,160
Speaker 3: He's a philosopher at the University of Limerick, the most

453
00:26:39,200 --> 00:26:43,359
Speaker 3: singsongy university in all of Ireland. He has an argument

454
00:26:43,440 --> 00:26:46,720
Speaker 3: that hey, guys, it's a big mistake to view these

455
00:26:46,760 --> 00:26:51,080
Speaker 3: mental states as just something we experienced subjectively and then

456
00:26:51,560 --> 00:26:53,680
Speaker 3: you know, relate to others like, hey, I know how

457
00:26:53,680 --> 00:26:56,480
Speaker 3: it feels to get my toast stubbed because I've done it,

458
00:26:56,520 --> 00:26:57,919
Speaker 3: so I see that's happened to you, so I know

459
00:26:57,960 --> 00:27:01,840
Speaker 3: how that feels. He says, we learn what these mental

460
00:27:01,880 --> 00:27:07,240
Speaker 3: states are and what he called an intersubjective world, like

461
00:27:07,320 --> 00:27:12,240
Speaker 3: we learn like a kid when it's born understands what

462
00:27:12,359 --> 00:27:16,360
Speaker 3: being sad is by looking around at someone crying or

463
00:27:16,400 --> 00:27:18,560
Speaker 3: something like that. And that's how they know what sad

464
00:27:18,640 --> 00:27:21,800
Speaker 3: is because of a behavior they witness in a context

465
00:27:21,800 --> 00:27:25,600
Speaker 3: they witness it in. So if you you know, Livia

466
00:27:25,760 --> 00:27:27,840
Speaker 3: used a great example, if you're grinding your teeth and

467
00:27:27,920 --> 00:27:31,080
Speaker 3: if you're you know, snapping at people in your life

468
00:27:31,080 --> 00:27:34,560
Speaker 3: and you can't sleep, then you probably know you're experiencing stress.

469
00:27:35,440 --> 00:27:38,399
Speaker 2: Right. This guy's argument to me is the one that's

470
00:27:38,440 --> 00:27:42,160
Speaker 2: that makes the most sense, just refuting sollipsism, which is like, yes,

471
00:27:42,480 --> 00:27:47,000
Speaker 2: you have internal feelings and thoughts, like the experience of

472
00:27:47,080 --> 00:27:51,400
Speaker 2: feeling sad is not the whole of sadness. That there's

473
00:27:51,480 --> 00:27:54,719
Speaker 2: other stuff and all the rest of it essentially comes

474
00:27:54,720 --> 00:27:58,840
Speaker 2: from interacting and learning from the external world. And so

475
00:27:58,960 --> 00:28:01,520
Speaker 2: the whole idea of solis is based on a faulty

476
00:28:01,520 --> 00:28:04,959
Speaker 2: premise that the entire world could possibly just be in

477
00:28:05,000 --> 00:28:07,640
Speaker 2: your head, because how are you going to learn from

478
00:28:07,680 --> 00:28:11,919
Speaker 2: something that's not actually there in the first place. I

479
00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:16,119
Speaker 2: like Stephen P. Thornton. He's my new favorite philosopher. Uh.

480
00:28:16,200 --> 00:28:18,680
Speaker 2: There was one other guy too we have to bring

481
00:28:18,720 --> 00:28:23,560
Speaker 2: into the conversation, Bertrand Russell. He's a very famous philosopher,

482
00:28:23,560 --> 00:28:28,160
Speaker 2: a mathematician. I believe his whole thing was like if if,

483
00:28:28,840 --> 00:28:31,439
Speaker 2: if we might be like, like, what was it? Juang

484
00:28:31,560 --> 00:28:35,720
Speaker 2: z him saying like, how can I tell if I'm

485
00:28:35,800 --> 00:28:37,560
Speaker 2: a man dreaming of a will to beast or a

486
00:28:37,560 --> 00:28:40,840
Speaker 2: wild to be dreaming of being a man, And Bertrand

487
00:28:40,880 --> 00:28:43,040
Speaker 2: Russell was like, if that were true dreams are just

488
00:28:43,120 --> 00:28:46,720
Speaker 2: weird and freaky and anything goes really like waking life

489
00:28:46,800 --> 00:28:49,600
Speaker 2: is not like that. So if waking life for a dream,

490
00:28:50,040 --> 00:28:52,800
Speaker 2: there would be measurable ways that it veers off of,

491
00:28:52,840 --> 00:28:55,720
Speaker 2: like physics or whatever, and we would notice that. And

492
00:28:55,760 --> 00:28:57,680
Speaker 2: these days it's called a glitch in the matrix. You

493
00:28:57,680 --> 00:29:00,960
Speaker 2: would notice glitches in the Matrix. And there's actually a

494
00:29:01,040 --> 00:29:05,560
Speaker 2: really coolddit subreddit called Glitch of the Matrix and it's

495
00:29:05,560 --> 00:29:10,760
Speaker 2: people's like stories about just how just weird, inexplicable, strange

496
00:29:10,800 --> 00:29:14,040
Speaker 2: small things that they've noticed here there in life. They'll

497
00:29:14,040 --> 00:29:16,160
Speaker 2: they'll post them and every once in a while they'll

498
00:29:16,160 --> 00:29:18,480
Speaker 2: be like a picture too. This is kind of fun

499
00:29:18,480 --> 00:29:19,000
Speaker 2: to go through.

500
00:29:19,520 --> 00:29:21,520
Speaker 3: What would it be of like, give me an example.

501
00:29:23,520 --> 00:29:26,320
Speaker 2: Any one that I saw a couple of times is

502
00:29:26,360 --> 00:29:29,719
Speaker 2: something like seeing somebody like go out a door and

503
00:29:29,760 --> 00:29:32,280
Speaker 2: then like thirty seconds later they come in and totally

504
00:29:32,280 --> 00:29:36,160
Speaker 2: opposite door that they physically couldn't have possibly gotten through.

505
00:29:36,360 --> 00:29:38,320
Speaker 2: So how do you explain that? Just stuff like that,

506
00:29:39,280 --> 00:29:42,160
Speaker 2: Like how in the actual movie the Matrix things would

507
00:29:42,200 --> 00:29:44,080
Speaker 2: literally glitch like you can kind of tell all of

508
00:29:44,120 --> 00:29:47,240
Speaker 2: a sudden they were like ones and zeros. This is

509
00:29:47,320 --> 00:29:49,760
Speaker 2: kind of like that, but it's like the program itself

510
00:29:49,840 --> 00:29:52,000
Speaker 2: is lazy or something like that.

511
00:29:52,440 --> 00:29:53,360
Speaker 1: I gotcha.

512
00:29:53,880 --> 00:29:57,200
Speaker 3: So, you know, the navel gazing and talking about solipsism

513
00:29:57,280 --> 00:30:00,080
Speaker 3: and debating it or whatever is one thing, but if

514
00:29:59,840 --> 00:30:03,400
Speaker 3: you do you have a mental illness, especially if you

515
00:30:03,440 --> 00:30:09,320
Speaker 3: have something like schizophrenia, this idea is terrifying. It's called derealization,

516
00:30:09,560 --> 00:30:11,640
Speaker 3: and it's you know, something that can happen if you

517
00:30:12,160 --> 00:30:17,360
Speaker 3: suffer from paranoid schizophrenia. There are people that suffer from

518
00:30:17,360 --> 00:30:20,800
Speaker 3: that that talk about sort of exactly this, like the

519
00:30:20,840 --> 00:30:24,880
Speaker 3: people around them are extras or empty shells, and that

520
00:30:25,440 --> 00:30:29,440
Speaker 3: you and you alone are real and responsible for like

521
00:30:29,520 --> 00:30:33,120
Speaker 3: the world moving on as it is and being alienated

522
00:30:33,160 --> 00:30:35,960
Speaker 3: from your own body and not having a sense of self.

523
00:30:36,200 --> 00:30:38,920
Speaker 3: Like that's all real stuff and terrifying stuff.

524
00:30:39,640 --> 00:30:43,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. There's a a psychologist named Clara S.

525
00:30:44,040 --> 00:30:48,840
Speaker 2: Humpston who kind of explains how somebody with schizophrenia might

526
00:30:48,880 --> 00:30:53,000
Speaker 2: actually retreat to a solipsistic state as a way to

527
00:30:53,080 --> 00:30:55,800
Speaker 2: kind of exercise control over a world that they feel

528
00:30:55,840 --> 00:30:59,720
Speaker 2: like they have zero control over. That Like, if you're like, nope,

529
00:30:59,760 --> 00:31:02,720
Speaker 2: all this is just in my mind and it's not real,

530
00:31:03,360 --> 00:31:06,000
Speaker 2: then in a weird sense, even though as lonely and

531
00:31:06,040 --> 00:31:09,840
Speaker 2: horrifying as that thought actually is, Like you can feel

532
00:31:09,920 --> 00:31:13,280
Speaker 2: like you can control those things then too, And that

533
00:31:13,320 --> 00:31:16,080
Speaker 2: actually kind of ties into yet another argument or criticism

534
00:31:16,120 --> 00:31:19,160
Speaker 2: of sollopsism. If all of this is just in your mind,

535
00:31:19,200 --> 00:31:21,760
Speaker 2: all of reality, how do you explain the fact that

536
00:31:21,800 --> 00:31:24,800
Speaker 2: you have no idea what's coming in the future, or

537
00:31:24,800 --> 00:31:28,280
Speaker 2: that you can be surprised or startled? Like none of

538
00:31:28,320 --> 00:31:34,480
Speaker 2: that makes sense either. So I don't remember through thirty

539
00:31:34,520 --> 00:31:36,959
Speaker 2: seconds on how those two things tied together, but just

540
00:31:37,040 --> 00:31:39,480
Speaker 2: if I rewind, I'm sure I would find out that

541
00:31:39,520 --> 00:31:40,280
Speaker 2: they did.

542
00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:43,400
Speaker 3: Well. There are other disorders too that touch on other

543
00:31:43,440 --> 00:31:46,440
Speaker 3: parts of solypsism. Certainly you're talking about the pos kind

544
00:31:46,520 --> 00:31:50,360
Speaker 3: the ethical solypsism that very closely could tie into something

545
00:31:50,440 --> 00:31:57,080
Speaker 3: like narcissistic personality disorder or anti social personality disorder. That

546
00:31:57,520 --> 00:32:01,720
Speaker 3: sort of lack of empathy and only making choices based

547
00:32:01,760 --> 00:32:05,040
Speaker 3: on their own needs. That definitely is like rings of

548
00:32:05,120 --> 00:32:06,160
Speaker 3: ethical solypsism.

549
00:32:06,560 --> 00:32:12,360
Speaker 2: Yes, so, yeah, I mean that's pretty much solyopsism. I

550
00:32:12,440 --> 00:32:14,880
Speaker 2: don't think we're going to do a part two eventually.

551
00:32:16,720 --> 00:32:20,160
Speaker 2: I think we've kind of put it to bed, which

552
00:32:20,200 --> 00:32:23,560
Speaker 2: feels good Chuck, And since Chuck doesn't.

553
00:32:23,280 --> 00:32:25,640
Speaker 1: Have anything else, right, I got nothing else.

554
00:32:25,840 --> 00:32:27,800
Speaker 2: I got nothing else either, So then that means, of

555
00:32:27,840 --> 00:32:29,480
Speaker 2: course that it brings up Listen or mail.

556
00:32:32,160 --> 00:32:38,160
Speaker 3: This is from Yun spelled ja n but yun is German. Hey, guys,

557
00:32:38,160 --> 00:32:40,800
Speaker 3: listen to the episode on Ludvig the second, which I

558
00:32:40,880 --> 00:32:43,000
Speaker 3: enjoyed like all your episodes. I work in research and

559
00:32:43,040 --> 00:32:46,800
Speaker 3: development for wastewater technology, so I know how much work

560
00:32:46,840 --> 00:32:48,800
Speaker 3: it is to research a new topic and become familiar

561
00:32:48,880 --> 00:32:52,000
Speaker 3: enough to talk about it like you guys do, and

562
00:32:52,040 --> 00:32:54,560
Speaker 3: I mostly research stuff in my own field.

563
00:32:54,640 --> 00:32:55,360
Speaker 1: So well done.

564
00:32:56,080 --> 00:32:57,560
Speaker 3: I want to say thank you for being a steady

565
00:32:57,560 --> 00:33:02,320
Speaker 3: presence throughout my PhD on waterless toilet, It's fatherhood, the pandemic,

566
00:33:02,360 --> 00:33:04,120
Speaker 3: and my new job which often takes me on long

567
00:33:04,160 --> 00:33:06,640
Speaker 3: road trips. Love learning, and your podcast allows me to

568
00:33:06,680 --> 00:33:11,600
Speaker 3: broaden my horizon way beyond my normal work. Today, however, guys,

569
00:33:11,720 --> 00:33:14,080
Speaker 3: I have to write to assure you that filling a

570
00:33:14,080 --> 00:33:16,920
Speaker 3: hall of five hundred people in Germany would be in

571
00:33:17,040 --> 00:33:19,720
Speaker 3: and kendush be a child's play.

572
00:33:20,600 --> 00:33:21,040
Speaker 2: Oh wow.

573
00:33:21,120 --> 00:33:27,040
Speaker 3: Okay, most people below the age of forty here speak

574
00:33:27,080 --> 00:33:28,760
Speaker 3: English to a decent degree and I know plenty of

575
00:33:28,800 --> 00:33:31,040
Speaker 3: people that listen to your show, so please please come

576
00:33:31,040 --> 00:33:33,200
Speaker 3: to Germany. If you do, I'll make it my mission

577
00:33:33,240 --> 00:33:35,640
Speaker 3: to get the event sold out. Oh wow, and let

578
00:33:35,680 --> 00:33:38,240
Speaker 3: me know if you want any recommendations for decent beers

579
00:33:38,240 --> 00:33:38,880
Speaker 3: while you're here.

580
00:33:39,280 --> 00:33:41,160
Speaker 1: And that is from jun Man.

581
00:33:41,200 --> 00:33:44,280
Speaker 2: That's awesome. That was a great email, Yun. Yeah, I

582
00:33:44,280 --> 00:33:46,400
Speaker 2: think we should take you on up on that. Finally, Chuck,

583
00:33:46,400 --> 00:33:47,560
Speaker 2: I want to go to Germany.

584
00:33:48,440 --> 00:33:50,360
Speaker 3: We've had enough people seeing come to Germany. I think

585
00:33:50,360 --> 00:33:52,640
Speaker 3: we have to go to like Berlin and Munich just

586
00:33:52,640 --> 00:33:53,640
Speaker 3: to see how heck is.

587
00:33:53,640 --> 00:33:54,360
Speaker 1: Going on too.

588
00:33:54,640 --> 00:33:55,480
Speaker 2: Huh.

589
00:33:55,560 --> 00:33:55,800
Speaker 1: Yeah.

590
00:33:55,840 --> 00:33:59,080
Speaker 3: We could do the big city style and then Bavarian

591
00:33:59,120 --> 00:33:59,720
Speaker 3: city style.

592
00:34:00,080 --> 00:34:04,520
Speaker 2: Okay, let's do it. Then it's it is settled. And

593
00:34:04,560 --> 00:34:07,680
Speaker 2: that was from young j A N. Yeah, I'm glad

594
00:34:07,720 --> 00:34:10,279
Speaker 2: you said that, because for my whole life I've been saying, well,

595
00:34:10,320 --> 00:34:12,680
Speaker 2: first I said Jan, then I grew up and I

596
00:34:12,880 --> 00:34:15,440
Speaker 2: thought Jan. I did not know it was Jun.

597
00:34:16,120 --> 00:34:17,799
Speaker 1: Well, this is what I mean.

598
00:34:18,960 --> 00:34:22,319
Speaker 3: J A N. In this letter said it's pronounced why

599
00:34:22,480 --> 00:34:23,359
Speaker 3: you n n?

600
00:34:24,000 --> 00:34:28,879
Speaker 2: Yeah that's young for sure, that's young. But anybody's name

601
00:34:29,040 --> 00:34:32,040
Speaker 2: pronounced Jan reminds me of a quote. Have you ever

602
00:34:32,080 --> 00:34:37,960
Speaker 2: seen Johnny Swayede the Brad Pitt movie. I never saw that, yeah,

603
00:34:38,280 --> 00:34:41,399
Speaker 2: but there was a classic line in it where he's

604
00:34:41,440 --> 00:34:43,760
Speaker 2: at dinner at like his date's house. In the dates,

605
00:34:43,880 --> 00:34:48,600
Speaker 2: Dad says, you know, John, if we were in Sweden,

606
00:34:49,160 --> 00:34:53,439
Speaker 2: your name would be Yon Spade and he says, no, sir,

607
00:34:53,880 --> 00:34:57,360
Speaker 2: it'd be John Johnny Swayed, always has been, always will be.

608
00:34:57,600 --> 00:34:59,400
Speaker 3: That's a pretty good, uh, Brad Pitt.

609
00:34:59,480 --> 00:35:03,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, imagine Brad Pitt blankly saying this, but with

610
00:35:03,480 --> 00:35:04,440
Speaker 2: a huge pompadour.

611
00:35:04,480 --> 00:35:06,479
Speaker 1: It's pretty great, not bad.

612
00:35:07,800 --> 00:35:10,680
Speaker 2: Well, I think that's it again. Thanks you, and we'll

613
00:35:10,680 --> 00:35:14,759
Speaker 2: see everybody, including you in Germany. Eventually we'll figure it out.

614
00:35:15,400 --> 00:35:18,080
Speaker 2: And in the meantime, if anybody out there from Germany

615
00:35:18,239 --> 00:35:20,279
Speaker 2: or otherwise wants to get in touch with us, you

616
00:35:20,320 --> 00:35:23,520
Speaker 2: can send us an email to Stuff podcast at iHeartRadio

617
00:35:23,600 --> 00:35:27,000
Speaker 2: dot com.

618
00:35:27,160 --> 00:35:29,480
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.

619
00:35:29,960 --> 00:35:33,200
Speaker 3: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

620
00:35:33,360 --> 00:35:36,280
Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.