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RE: Talking to Yourself Isn't Crazy, It's Healthy

in #psychology7 years ago (edited)

Here is where your "purist" view of defining things gets troublesome.

I would say all kinds of views break down in the face of solipsism, hard solipsism has no real solution that I'm aware of. You won't see me arguing otherwise.

I would say get real and accept that this is how the language currently is, and you're not going to get your absolute perfect definitions that apply to only one thing.

I don't think I have an unrealistic view of language and I really like the saying "words are not magic". It's up to us to define and agree on usages that are useful in certain contexts. Of course words are fluid and their meanings change and differ in different communication situations. When I get nitpicky about a definition, it's not the word I care about, it's the depth of understanding that we can have and might be implied in a particular term, I care about the concept.

Does the fact that perfection is not attainable need to dissuade us from trying to better our concepts and definitions when we can? I do think more reliable definitions are a good basis for deeper and more accurate understanding, that's why I might end up advocating for them.

Again, you probably disagree with my use of the word objective :P

I'm not so sure about that. I haven't noticed that much of a difference actually. We might disagree on how objective certain approaches are, but I don't think we use the word that differently or at least I haven't noticed the dissimilarity yet :P Judging from your post on the topic, I think we approach it with a similar sentiment. Where we might differ in our evaluation might be the implications to how we should approach some things.

Everything we do, is from the position of our subjective consciousness.

I absolutely agree. While we have no way to decisively demonstrate that the reality we seem to share is indeed real and even that other people are real separate agents, we accept it out of necessity - it's the only reality we have access to after all. But when we accept that and go past that, when we accept that other people are real, we can start establishing some claims that are more objective than other. With time and effort the level of objectiveness in our understanding and concepts builds and I think we should strive for than. Sure, 100% objectivity might be hard, but I see no reason not try and get as close as we can. I simply don't see any utility in going from solipsism or pure subjectivism and it looks like we are in agreement here.