What is Solipsism?
In short, Solipsism is the belief that even if there is meaning in this universe, there is no way we can know it, as nothing outside of one's own mind can be sure to exist.
Let's see what a conversation with a proponent--whether knowingly or unknowingly--of this philosophy, looks like:
VOLUNTARYIST: Hey man, what's up? You know, I was just thinking, I am so glad the natural reality of self-ownership is recognized by my fellow anarchists. More and more people are waking up.
SOLIPSIST: Oh please. That "Voluntarism" stuff sounds nice on paper but it doesn't work in the real world.
VOL: What do you mean?
SOL: Well, take children, for example. They don't consent to everything and they have to do what their parents make them. See. They don't "own themselves."
VOL: They still possess nature-conferred highest self-executive capacity. No one can enter their brains and think their thoughts or move their bodies for them. Sure children need guidance. That doesn't mean they are someone else's property, obviously.
SOL: Nature doesn't confer anything. It's just nature.
VOL: Well, certainly you'd agree that biological design and order exist to perform specific functions, right? So it is clear that a child is born with one brain and one set of organs, etc, rendering an un-divide-able (individual) entity. No other such entity can take control of those organs, or that brain, or that body, without applying force, or in a more direct fashion. The individual is part and parcel of that body and brainstem. These things can even be said to be one and the same for practical intents and purposes.
Even if force is applied, that would almost always be a violation, and is clearly not a natural occurrence. We are each born in control of our own (see, ownership is right there in the language!) brains.
SOL: OH PLEASE. "ORDER" IS A SOCIETAL CONSTRUCT.
VOL: So your heart, with its distinct chambers and muscles for efficiently pumping blood, is not a biological order of sorts?
SOL: Let's stay on topic.
VOL: Huh? When did I go off topic?
SOL: Look. You said that in order to have self-ownership a person must have a connection to their brain and/or body. Some people don't. What about those that are braindead, or paralyzed? What about infants. They don't control their bodies.
VOL: Infants don't control their bodies? Just because they are in the process of development somehow magically means that they don't possess highest direct control over their bodies and minds?
SOL: I can move their limbs by force if I want.
VOL: Right, but not in the direct fashion that their minds do or exist to do (biological intention/design). And besides, that would be an outside application of force. That's all. As far as someone who is in a vegetative state, both you and I know it would be wrong for someone to say, rape that individual. Why? Because it defies nature's design. They are still not your property. A vacant house owned by someone else is not yours to occupy. An argument could be made for a family member deciding to "pull the plug" perhaps, but this marginal, potential gray area is no reason to say that self-ownership is nonexistent.
SOL: You can't rhetoric yourself out of this one. Sorry. Reality doesn't work like that. I don't own myself. I'm just me.
VOL: You just referred to yourself as "MYself," did you not?
SOL: Please. That is just a linguistic mechanism.
VOL: It has no meaning?
SOL: Meaning is relative. Meaning is a social construct. You like to think in black and white, but nothing is absolute.
VOL: Nothing is absolute...Hmmm. Is that statement absolutely true?
SOL: ...
(SCENE)
In short, solipsism is an untenable position, as it denies the possibility of knowing anything with any real degree of certainty about reality and how it functions, while at the same time depending exclusively on said reality as the forum and means by which to posit its arguments. In short, it is a self-detonating ideology.
NOTE: Regarding children and self-ownership, my friend Chris LeRoux has clarified the issue brilliantly and I will quote him now at length:
When a couple engage in voluntary sex, they are forming a contract, whether written down or not. They are agreeing to make use of each other's property, their body and mind, for certain purposes, for a certain length of time, with certain potential outcomes. One of these potential outcomes is a new life. They are thus forming a pure, private trust, a contract which could result in a new life they are responsible for creating and caretaking until they are capable of assumming the full expression of their self-ownership, until they achieve adulthood.
~KafkA
Graham Smith is a Voluntaryist activist, creator, and peaceful parent residing in Niigata City, Japan. Graham runs the "Voluntary Japan" online initiative with a presence here on Steem, as well as Facebook and Twitter. (Hit me up so I can stop talking about myself in the third person!)
