Against Solipsism - Wittgenstein's Private Language Argument

Solipsism is the doubt of the existence of other minds, and the belief that you are the only mind that existence, or at least the only thing you can know for sure is that you are the only mind that exists. All other beings’ consciousness can therefore be doubted. You could very well be the only conscious mind in reality.

However Wittgenstein developed the Private Language argument to argue against Solipsism. How could public language exist without the existence of other minds? Watch as George and John discuss.

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[TheSilverSmitih]

I'm not a solipsist by any means, but I do find their arguments interesting particularly as it pertains to artificial intelligence. If language is an indication of sentience, then would that make language models, like ChatGPT, sentient?

[luamfernandez]

It's not impossible to program a robot to talk about feelings

[rickythegreat]

I'm unsure if this is a complete theory. Even if it were a given that shared language is necessary, it is incomplete to argue that "language" in and of itself can be confined to speaking. Shared communication channels would probably be a more adequate description of this phenomenon. Though when described in this way, it still leaves room for Solipsism. For example, things can be communicated without "language, " as defined in your argument. These things being; pain, happiness, sadness, fear, apprehension, or even pleasure. By limiting communication to speaking, you are kind of shooting yourself in the foot philosophically.

[quyducnguyen]

Here is the way to prove completely that solipsism is wrong: " Firstly, for the whole of a thing, nothing exists more than all the parts that make up the thing itself. --> All of that one thing cannot create another new thing that is not a part of, any part of, or all of that one thing and can only provide, transfer, ... part, all parts, nothing, all of that one thing, any part, ... of itself or of that one thing because when observe, measure, ... in detail, till the end, rigorously, ... all of what, how, where, why, ... happened, even there is, are, ... new one thing, new things, another thing, different thing, ... that emerge, exist, ... which is, are, ... not a part of, any part of or all the parts of that initial one thing, things, ... and that is, are, ... not come, existed, emerged, ... from as a part of, any part of, or all of that initial one thing then all of initial one thing, things, ... is separated, is not relevant, is different, do nothing, do not provide, transfer, ... any part of, anything of or all of itself, do not create, is not included, is independent, ... from, to, of, ∅, ... that, these, ... new one thing, new things, another thing, different thing, ... that emerge, exist, ... which is, are, ... not a part of, any part of or all the parts of that initial one thing, things, ... and that is, are, ... not come, existed, emerged, ... from as a part of, any part of, or all of that initial one thing because when measure, observe, thought experiment, ... in detail, till the end, rigorously, ..., all of that initial one thing, things, ... is still there, is still in the initial position, have not been lost any part, all parts, ..., ... but what existed after, the new one thing, another thing, different thing, ... which is, are, ... not a part of, any part of or all of that initial one thing and that is, are, ... not come, existed, emerged, ... from as a part of, any part of, or all of that initial one thing and that still exists, emerges, ... is, ... come, created, existed, emerged, ... from the nearest, right next to, closest, ... point of, position of, point compare to where, point relative to the location of, point relative to that, space of, ... all of the initial one thing, all of the initial things, ... is, are, ∅... or based on personal perspective, the new one thing, things, another thing, different thing, ... which is, are, ... not a part of, any part of or all of that initial one thing and that is, are, ... not come, existed, emerged, ... from as a part of, any part of or all the parts of that initial one thing, things, ... is, are, ... come, existed, emerged, created, ... from nothing (not have volume, not anything, ...) where right next to, nearest to, closest to, closest of, ... all of that, these, ... initial one thing, things, ..., ... . Finally, there are, ... all of that initial one thing, things, ... and what existed after, the new one thing, things, another thing, different thing, ... that still exists, emerges, ... and which is, are, ... not a part of, any part of or all of that initial one thing and that is, are, ... not come, existed, emerged, ... from as a part of, any part of, or all of the initial one thing, things, ... in 2, 3, ..., n but not 1, 0, -1, ..., (-n) different, exact, complete, ... positions, locations, ... .
Secondly, the problem, question, ... is "Is that everything, ... comes from this position where my mind, my senses, ... is, are, ...?" The solution, ... is to measure, experiment, self-experiment, observe, reason, ... in detail, till the end, exactly, completely, ... to prove completely that a part of, any part of, or all of the thing, the brain, the mind, senses, ... that we, I, ... feel, measure, ... is not going anywhere or not going to where the external thing that we perceive, measure, observe, ... is at, in, ... or only, ∅, ... stay where they, it, ... is, are, ... at, in, ... and the external, ... world that we perceive, observe, measure, ... have not come from as a part of, any part of, or all of our mind, our sense, our complete self but come to our sense and is a completely different thing, another thing, a completely different person, another person, other things, ... from a part of, any part of, or all of our, my, ... self, senses, mind, ... . Additionally, there are gaps in the amount of whole the parts, atoms, ... when we do self-experiment, measurement, observation, ... in two consecutive time points when right before the external thing, ... reaches, ... us, myself, ... and right after it, ... reaches, ... us, myself, ... in the system, process, ... under consideration that we can observe, experiment, self-experiment, and measure, ... in detail, rigorously, till the end, ... . More specifically, this shows that there are more amount of atoms, things, ... that exist, ... in this system, at the endpoint of this process, ... under consideration compared to the whole amount of atoms, things, ... at, in, ... the initial, first point of, ... this system, process, ... under consideration and that there are more amount of things, ... that exist, ... right after external things, ... reaches, ... us, ... than, compared to, ... the whole amount of the initial things, ... in the initial system when right before the external thing, ... reaches, ... us, myself, ... and in the endpoint of process, the end time point of the process, ... the initial things, ... which is our initial selves, my initial self, ... is still conservative, preserved, ... in the initial number of atoms, parts, ... of itself while there are new things, other things, ... that exist, emerge, appear, ... in addition, ... which are not ourselves, from our self, ... but come from or come to the nearest space, ... of, ... whole ourselves, myself, ... or come from or come to anywhere else where is not the exact, complete, ... position, ... of, ... whole ourselves, myself, ... . This finally shows that the total things in this system have increased and that shows the evidence of the external thing, world, bigger world than myself, ..., ... that is not only ourself, myself, ... . You can see more things like force which is the interactions of external things and ourselves, or other physical phenomena but what I wrote before is enough to prove completely that there is an external world, things, ... that are not only us, ourselves, ... but even bigger, ... than ourselves, ... .
To sum up, there is, ... an external world, ... that does not come from where I, my mind, my senses, ... is, are, am, ... and there is, ... an external world, ... that does not come as a part of, any part of, or all of I, my mind, my senses, ... is, are, am, ... and there is, ... the world, the external world, ... that I, my mind, my senses, my body, ... have not or can not create, created, ... but, then, and, ... this, these, the, ... world, external world, ... still, ∅, ... exists, differs, is not, ... other than, outside from, from, ∅, outside, more than, beyond, ... only myself, myself, oneself, yourself, ... ."
I hope anyone who reads this can live a happy life and not waste time solving this problem like me😊. Wishes the best for you❤.

[realnegajpeg]

This is such a flawed argument for solipsism imo

[Existentialist]

I agree with the video until it is stated:

//If there were no other minds I could not then attach feelings with words if they are solely private//

Everything revolves around this being correct, but it is transparently false. The existence of others has no relevance to my own conscious states. If I feel cramp, then I could represent this experience by a spoken word, or by a word in my mind, or by marks on a rock etc. In a few days I might have forgotten I had cramp. However, I realise I did when I see the marks on a rock.

Indeed, if I had never encountered any other human beings, I see no reason why I couldn't in principle construct my own language, even though there might not be any reason for doing so (although perhaps an internal monologue using words facilitates the ability to reason things through).

[deanryan]

Have you ever had a conversation with a character in a dream? I have. Does that not disprove this argument?

[georgepantzikis]

This video is technically correct, but it gives the impression that Wittgenstein's argument is that a private language is meaningless to everyone except the speaker and because of that we use a public language that can be commonly understood. But that wasn't his point. His point was that the very existence of a private language is impossible. Every concept refers only to public matters. The example he uses is that of pain. He says that when you say "I am in pain" you are not actually talking about your personal experience, but about the public understanding of the word "pain" given relevant context. For concepts to exist, other minds must exist. That's his point. Again, the video does technically explain it but it's only one sentence towards the end, while the rest of the video is spent explaining an argument Wittgenstein never made for the sake of simplification.

[joshuaraymond]

Hello, first of all, great video! I'm a fan of anything that seeks to destroy solipsism haha. Just wondering how you'd respond to these few objections that I've seen before.
1. Our mind creates the illusion that other conscious people are speaking a language we understand.
2. Schizophrenia involves interaction within one individual without the need of external conscious beings.
Thank you 🙂

[jamesnewman]

I doubt we will ever solve the problem of solipsism. Unless we discover a way to for and individual to experience more than one consciousness at the same time the only consciousness anyone can truly know exists is their own. It is actually best to ignore solipsism because it has no way to be validated and it just isn't productive.

[thomson]

If you are real, your sperm is real. If your sperm is real your baby is real. If your baby is real your baby has a mind also.

[lorenzbroll]

My 'private language' would have to have 'rules' to distinguish it from a 'public language'. But if another understands those rules then it cannot be a private language and therefore it is a 'public language'. How do I verify these 'rules' anyway - are they complete and consistent - that is do I have them all and are there no contradictions within the rules and how do I show it to be so as no one else understands my 'private language'?

[ShaunDobbie]

Solipsism doesn't work as the solipsist, upon convincing themselves that they are the only thing in existence, must rush out and tell everyone.

[grenouillesscent]

1:15 "if there were no other minds I could not then attach feelings with words if they are solely private". What? He just talked about how you could have a language that refers to your own feelings. That would be attaching feelings with words, so what if others can't understand. And who cares if it makes sense to use the private language? As long as the mindless drones around you are programmed to respond in a way that makes them appear to understand what you are saying, it would appear to make sense to you to keep speaking to them.

[Existentialist]

Apart from the fact that neither the video nor people commenting are actually providing any arguments for the impossibility of a private language, it is very easy to show that a private language is obviously possible.

We can imagine sometime in the future that technology advances to a sufficient degree that it is possible to create androids whose behaviour, including everything they say, is virtually indistinguishable from a human's behaviour. Nevertheless, such androids wholly lack any consciousness, they are merely machines.

We can also imagine a human being born in an environment where she only ever sees and interacts with androids for her entire life (she may or may not know that they are androids, it's not important). We can even imagine that she is the only human being left in existence. Now, because these androids behaviour are virtually indistinguishable from human beings, then this person still learns to talk and to communicate with the androids. But the English that she talks is a private language since none of the androids are actually conscious. Voila!

And of course, if this scenario is possible, then it necessarily follows it's also metaphysically possible that one is the sole conscious being in the Universe.

[johnmarston]

Does this argument really matter when I am engaging in conversion with possibly imaginary others in my mind?

[zachmorgan]

Legit like the best philosophy channel ever. Simple and to the point. Always explaining COMPLICATED bS philosophy into simply concepts ANYONE CAN UNDERSTAND.


JUST FANTASTIC.
IMMA SHARE YALL AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE

[bouncycastle]

Don't know how this ridiculously bad argument ever got published let alone traction. I guess he was right, philosophy is bankrupt.

[muhammadsiddiqui]

Well I say "I am in pain" to chatGPT and it understands but it is not conscious or is it?