On Solipsism

I faintly remember reading once upon a time that solipsism's few spokesmen included Descartes. Well, how true. In Meditations on the First Philosophy, he often speaks of a Devil who exists solely to deceive him in everything. This is the 1600s version of the brain in a vat hypothesis. I don't believe such a thought device to have any bearing on reality, but is useful in exploring epistemology and logic. Descartes wonders what he can know rationally, since of course no empirical data can be trusted. As I detailed in my last post, he extrapolates this out to proving God's existence, which he does once more along similar lines of thought in this text. I still do not agree, but I appreciate the completely inward-looking method. Curiously, though, Descartes states that the only things he can truly know is that he is and that he was. It is strange that he believes he can trust his memory, seeing as he clearly cannot trust his other senses. Perhaps he could not imagine false memories, though he does speak of dreams and the false ideas he gets from them. This is truly a topic I could get more into, perhaps I will look into that the next time I buy books (3 more came today, so it will be a while).

In his proof on God, he writes something that I found absolutely magnificent. He states that many common ideas of ours are only held as negations of other ideas. When I examined this notion, I found it quite true. When I think of infinity, I can only thing of the negation of finiteness. This seems to be a limitation of the mind. He also cites repose, which we only view as the negation of motion. I am still unsure on this, though it would seem I cannot imagine absolute calm either. A useful though experiment next time I am bored.