Mail from a fan (our friend, Richard)! "Yo Guys, I'm a long time listener but first time emailer. I've listened to all of the podcasts, and I'm enjoying the format and topics. I enjoyed the philosophical discussion on this latest episode. I initially disagreed with Rob's assessment of solipsism of making larger assumptions, but ultimately do see his point. If you apply Occam's razor, this idea can seem to make less assumptions since all one can ever truly know is what one (really just me, cuz solipsism) experiences. This idea though hinges on a framework of intentional deceit. If you take that idea to its logical conclusion, everything in your universe of experience has been intentionally created to deceive you into thinking there are other independent thinking agents in existence and a larger universe that we live in. In my evaluation though, this is a way larger leap than to just assume we are collectively conscious meat sacks on a rock with a molten core circling a white hot ball of gas in a universe of what seems like billions of these same conditions, and we aren't likely to be special at all. The case where you deem yourself to be so special that everything has been created intentionally for you and to make you believe you are not the only experiencing being seem like all kinds of arrogant. Last Thursdayism runs in a similar vein, but seems to have been thought up more to poke fun at creationist theories of the origin of the universe. This necessity of deceit is a common theme in both. Keep up the good work!" "The debate on whether Last Thursdayism is true has raged on ~~ever since the creation of the universe last Thursday~~ its inception."
