Other Minds
Anita Avramides · 2023 · Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Summary
Surveys the classical problem of how we know other beings have minds, including analogy, behavior, language, embodiment, and the limits of certainty about consciousness outside one's own case.
Why it matters here
Use this as the philosophical background for solipsism and for disputed minds in non-human or artificial systems. It is context, not direct evidence that any specific entity is conscious.
Linked claims
Behaviour is not evidence of inner experience. We have no detector for consciousness in any system we did not already believe to be conscious.
Behavioural, neural and pharmacological evidence converges. The 2012 Cambridge Declaration formalized the scientific position.
Plants sense and respond to their environment in sophisticated ways. There is no evidence the lights are on inside.
The view that only my own mind is certain to exist; everything else might be a projection. Cartesian doubt pushed to its limit.
Related evidence hubs
What consciousness is, how it relates to brains, and whether it's basic to reality.
The nature of subjective experience.
Mind–brain relation, qualia, intentionality.
Animal consciousness, plant cognition, animal psi.