>[!abstract] >Solipsism is the philosophical idea that only one's mind is sure to exist. As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist outside the mind (Wikipedia, 2025). >[!note] >We are trapped in this subjective sensory interface with the world that we call a body, yet we yearn for objective and universal truths beyond ourselves. We are a gregarious species, and yet we are ultimately alone as agents of our own survival. This is the most foundational dichotomies of all and strangely underrated as a philosophical problem, in my view. >[!related] >- **North** (upstream): [[Epistemology]] >- **West** (similar): [[Subjective idealism]] (George Berkeley’s doctrine that existence depends on being perceived) >- **East** (different): [[Realism]] (the belief that external reality exists independently of perception or consciousness) >- **South** (downstream): [[Problem of other minds]] (the specific epistemological issue of how we can know other minds exist beyond our own experience)