Sure, but intersubjective confirmation does not imply an external reality. That there are multiple characters in a story doesn't imply the story has multiple authors.

The wiki page mentions the Hindu "Advaita" as an ultimate extension of this:

But all we really need is this: Different "parts" of me contain different information, and these "parts" communicate by language. Nowhere is it necessary for each "part" to represent a unique subjectivity. All parts might share a single subjective context, or only one of the parts (say, the madnak part) may possess the subjective awareness, while the rest only "emulate" subjective behaviors.

I don't think that gets you around the Kripkenstein paradox. § 202:
"Hence it is not possible to obey a rule privately, otherwise thinking one was obeying a rule would be the same thing as obeying it." In other words, by creating multiple characters without externality, there is still no such thing as meaning anything by any word, as the skeptic has shown.

So far I think Tao made a good point that this seems to be a difference in labeling. What I call reality you would call part of your mind separate from your conscious mind if I understand correctly.

In what I call reality, I can find a brain with neurons and signals that corresponds with my conscious mind. I can do stuff to this brain and have an effect on my conscious mind like booze, drugs, lobotomies. From these observations I would conclude that my mind is just patterns in this brain in reality.

If all that is part of your mind separate from your conscious mind, would you conclude from these observations that your conscious mind is just patterns found in the other part of your mind?

read Miles Davis' hilarious autobiography "Miles". Here we have a man who, aside from musical interaction, is completely unaware of othe peoples' feelings/needs. Miles abandons and disregards family, friends, musicians, and women, in an endless pursuit of pleasure. Solopsisim at its best/worst.

Some people say some crazy things. Sometime I wonder what they're on. But I think the thread title says it. They're on Solipsism.

This sounds more psychopathic than anything.

I don't think the fact that interacting with my brain affects my conscious mind means my conscious mind is inside my brain.

Would you agree there are patterns interacting in your brain that correspond to all the thoughts in your conscious mind?

What do you mean by "correspond"? That's important.

Well I'm not a neurobiology expert so I might not understand this in great detail, but I'm thinking there could be a function that would map patterns in the brain to thoughts so that patterns present in the brain map to thoughts in the conscious mind around that time.

Why would you expect a mapping?

All indications suggest that every thought is unique and each time we retrieve a memory it is altered...the brain is plastic and dynamic...it's never the same from day to day.

-brain imaging of people thinking about specific things
-thoughts/memories produced by brain stimulation during surgeries
-missing brain functions in people with damage to specific parts of their brains

It doesn't really matter if the brain is changing. Multiple patterns could map to the same thought or perhaps new patterns map to similar but slightly different thoughts.

Don't you see the problem w/ that?

Also, the imaging techniques we have are still REALLY crude. It's like doing fine watchmaking with a sledgehammer.

This feels like a game to me. I don't mean to insult anyone here, but madnak, but it feels like you are talking in circles to give the appearance of believing in something unusual, but without really making any claims whatsoever.

It seems to me that what you are calling solipsism makes no falsifiable claims, makes no predictions, and ultimately offers nothing.

I feel like I'm falling into the trap of the theist, triumphantly pointing out that atheism doesn't offer x (morality, for example), when obviously that is true, and beside the point.

But in this instance, I struggle to see how "believing in" solipsism (or not) informs any other aspect of your outlook. Solipsism (or not) seems to deal with a level more foundational than anything else we might care to debate, but which ultimately has no bearing on anything else we might care to debate. Nothing seems to be built upon it.

It seems perfectly obvious to me that we cannot know that solipsism is unjustified, but also perfectly obvious that, whether one believes it or not, step 1 to anything else (either philosophical, or otherwise) is to ignore it and go on.

I would love to be shown the error of my ways, if I'm getting this wrong.

Sorry I don't see what you're trying to say.

Our tools may be crude for now, but it seems they are still good enough to get an idea about what's going on in the brain. In any case, I don't mean to suggest one must agree that patterns map to all one's thoughts. I happen to, but I'm curious what madnak thinks.