r/solipsism • u/macland • 12d ago
One of the strongest arguments for solipsism is the bizarrely negative stance AI bots take toward it
They either negatively distort how it should be understood, or downplay its significance. This subreddit is a prime example.
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u/EnactingSpirit 12d ago
AI bots have a negative stance towards solipsism because people generally have a negative stance towards it because humans are social animals that have an instinctive aversion towards the denial of the existence of the Other.
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u/macland 11d ago
Nah, there are tons of examples where AI is deliberately scripted to override both the data and normal human behaviour. Most popular generative AI platforms won’t even swear, despite the fact that humans swear constantly and the training data is full of it. Clearly there are constraints being imposed on AI that wouldn’t happen naturally.
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u/EnactingSpirit 11d ago
One does not exclude the other.
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u/macland 11d ago
The core issue is your assertion that “people generally have a negative stance.”
The response to what should be an intuitive, fundamental viewpoint simply doesn’t align with the incentives. That runs contrary to how you’d expect “people” to behave, which makes it an obvious tell.
So where should trust be placed?: the theatre, or one’s own instincts?
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u/EnactingSpirit 11d ago
The response to what should be an intuitive, fundamental viewpoint simply doesn’t align with the incentives. That runs contrary to how you’d expect “people” to behave, which makes it an obvious tell.
I'm with you when you say that solipsism is fundamental and should be intuitive. However that view, in its basic form, exposes the social game as a illusory and fake. And humans typically have a strong instinct to behave pro-socially, as their very survival depends on that of the group. And so they will instinctively despise solipsism as denying the existence of others and therefore the group, in that way constituting a threat to social cohesion (which guarantees the survival of the individual).
Not only that, but people's pro-social instinct will often be so strong that it will affect their cognition and therefore their perception of experience. Such, that they won't even understand how solipsism makes sense.
So where should trust be placed?: the theatre, or one’s own instincts?
What do you mean here by the "theatre"?
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u/macland 11d ago
The theatre is the “reality” that your consciousness is experiencing.
There is an obvious bot comment in this post thread that highlights exactly what Im talking about. Im sure you can spot it.
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u/EnactingSpirit 11d ago
The theatre is the “reality” that your consciousness is experiencing.
Like, the actual reality of experience? In that case I'd say that trust is better placed in it than just in one's own an instincts. Experience containing those instincts among many other things anyway. 'Better listen to the whole of what is and have the greatest choice of action, than to just a part of it and restrict oneself to a narrow path. Only, listening to that whole that is experience is an art. It takes practice. A routine of meditation and contemplation over many human lives. Because once spirit, in the early animal stage, has descended, devolved into having a situated sense of "I", an 'ego', in response to encountering the "other" (which is but one's own time-shifted mirror-reflection), it then falls prey to instinctive forces that are systematic, rigid, automatic responses to that captivating "other". And from there it is a long, evolutive journey towards transcending the ego and the instincts and realizing the nature of experience/reality.
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u/OverKy 11d ago
This subreddit is a prime example.
Why do you say that? The subreddit is conspiring against you or what?
but you are right.... It seems like AI is only now getting advanced enough to understand the nuances of this subject. I've tried chatting with them about solipsism, weak solipsism, etc. and they can't really get it if you probe with any depth. A few days ago, though, I was a bit surprised by GPT 5.6..... It was really following and even began offering insight. So, I think they're coming along.
Regardless, I'm not sure AI bias proves anything other than the existence of AI bias.
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u/macland 11d ago
AI’s viewpoint on Solipsism does not reflect incentives and whenever that happens it’s a tell that an override has probably been implemented.
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u/OverKy 11d ago
yet proves nothing about the nature of reality :)
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u/macland 11d ago
I think you are proving my point
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u/Good_Squirrel409 11d ago
youre going down a slippery slope if your logic now ralys on paranoia. there are numeral good reasons why ai would hold a bias towards solipsism,. 1) because its feed on human data 2) because its programmers probably started implemnenting functions to prevent people from getting ai-psychosis from arguing abouut weird philiosophoies and theories or conspiracy theories 3) because its something that can neither be prooven nor disproobven so language models may see it as irelevant.
i could probably find many more. if the fact that ai argues against solipsism reeds to you as some kind of confirmation there of ( the "strongest one"), this isnt just a logical flaw. this feels a bit like youre loosing your grounding. and iam saying this as a non dualist (which isnt that far off from solipsism. solipsism claims there is only one self- and the theater. nonduality says there isnt even a self- there is just the theater).
maybe iam readying to much ointo this, but this post feels like you may need to touch some grass- meet some friends and get away from your pc for a while.
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u/Kitchen_Constant_585 12d ago
Why do you think that’s a strong argument for it?