Brain in a vat
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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- The theory that the self is the only thing that can be known and verified.
- The theory or view that the self is the only reality.
- By extension, extreme selfishness with indulgence of all of one's own desires, feelings, and instincts.
Solipsism (Latin: solus, alone + ipse, self) is the philosophical idea that "My mind is the only thing that I know exists." Solipsism is an epistemological or metaphysical position that knowledge of anything outside the mind is unjustified. The external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist. In the history of philosophy, solipsism has served as a skeptical hypothesis.
Arts and culture
- Ian M. Banks novel Against a Dark Background
- Kurt Vonnegut in novel Breakfast of Champions
- Schizophrenia has been used in fiction as a plot device to explore solipsistic ideas (e.g. the novel Fight Club or A Beautiful Mind)
- The Wachowski Brothers' film, The Matrix
- Christopher Nolan's film, Inception
- Jonathan Parks-Ramage story, "Solid & Stripes", published in issue #2 of nthWORD
- Ray Bradbury's short story "No Particular Night or Morning" from his 1951 book The Illustrated Man
- Nine Inch Nails' song, Only
- Solipsist novel by Henry Rollins
See also
- Anathema
- Alfred Binet – The mind and the brain
- Aseity
- Brain in a vat
- Cartesian skepticism
- Consensus reality
- Dream argument
- Empiricism
- Falsifiability
- Heinlein's World as Myth
- Idealism
- Immaterialism
- Metaphysical solipsism
- Methodological solipsism
- Objective idealism
- Panpsychism
- Phenomenalism
- Philosophical realism
- Primary/secondary quality distinction – John Locke's response to solipsism
- Problem of other minds
- Henry Rollins's Solipsist
- Solipsism syndrome
- Subjective idealism
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