Consider the words on the screen. There are two sources of information.

  1. The words, how they’re arranged and such.

  2. The meaning that you assign to the words. Meaning drawn from a lifetime of memories.

99% of the information comes from the assigned meaning. So 99% of what’s going on here is you talking to yourself.

  • neidu3English
    3·
    10 hours ago

    Ok, I’ll be the one who does it…

    raises hand

    What does solipsistic mean in this context? Or any context at all, for that matter…

    • JackbyDev@programming.devEnglish
      2·
      9 hours ago

      The idea that only your own mind is certain to exist is solipsism. I think I sort of get what OP is saying. That because words don’t mean something outside of human brains they’re solipsistic.

      But I disagree because the fact that someone else wrote it means it isn’t solipsistic. If you believe in solipsism (I don’t) then everything is in your own mind, not merely certain parts.

      If you don’t believe in solipsism, then you acknowledge the external world exists so it’s specifically a form of communication. It feels odd to believe in the external world but look at communication, something we’ve specifically developed to transmit our internal thoughts to others, and call it solipsistic when it wouldn’t exist if we believed there was no other hidden information inside other “people’s” minds (or whatever solipsists believe people are).