What type of reasoning is this? Abduction, inference to the best explanation, induction?

Question

1. My mind is responsible for my behavior.
2. Other people are very similar to me biologically.
3. Other people have behaviors similar to mine.

Possible explanations:

Solipsism says that my mind created other people and controls their behavior.

• this explanation offers the smallest number of entities and therefore is ontologically the simplest.
• this explanation without any reason makes me special among other people. (I have a mind; other people have behavior similar to mine, but for some reason they do not have minds)
• it provides two different explanations for no reason at all: one for my behavior and one for the behavior of other people. (I have a mind that guides my behavior. Other people have behavior similar to mine but somehow they do not have minds)
• Solipsism does not make sense and is confusing because it suggests that other people act as if they have minds when in fact they do not (why do other people talk about their feelings and thoughts if they have no thoughts or feelings, Why do other people act as if they have mental states such as desire and motivation when in fact they do not have minds? etc.) That is, all the behavior of other people is controlled by my mind for some unknown reason.

The existence of other minds means that other people have minds.

• it is ontologically more complex because it offers billions of conscious entities.
• this offers a single explanation for my behavior and the behavior of other people (I have a mind that is responsible for my behavior, other people have minds that are responsible for their behavior.
• This does not make me special among other people.
• This makes sense and is understandable because the existence of other minds most clearly explains why other people behave as if they have minds. (other people have mental states such as feelings, thoughts, desires, motivation, etc. and these mental states control the behavior of other people) It's simple and clear.

So the best explanation is that other people have minds because it is the simplest and most understandable explanation that makes sense.

The best explanation for other people's behavior is that other people have minds.

What type of reasoning is this? Is it induction, abduction, inference to the best explanation, analogy?

I often say that other people have behavior similar to mine.

I also say that the existence of other minds does not make me special among other people and does not create different explanations for my behavior and the behavior of other people.

Is all this the principle of uniformity of nature and therefore induction? Am I wrong?

Where exactly is the explanatory power in my argument?

I understand where the criteria of simplicity are.

Solipsism wins in ontological simplicity. But the existence of other minds has a better explanatory power. Explanatory power is more important.

I can't quite see where the explanatory power lies in my argument. Where are the criteria for explanatory power in my argument? I see only criteria of simplicity. Explain it to me.

Thank you

Answer 1

So the best explanation is that other people have minds because it is the simplest and most understandable explanation that makes sense.

Falsities make sense, too. A (valid) argument for existence cannot but proceed from evidence. So the problem becomes what one considers evidence, then, more deeply, whether one's ultimate beliefs are in fact (only) based on evidence. I, for example, do "believe in what/that I experience" so consider the problem a false problem: in every operational sense "others" and "the world" and "I in it" exist, and that much remains valid, even where it is just the name/form of a dream, even in absurdism...

Answer 2

Solipsism says that my mind created other people and controls their behavior.

• this explanation offers the smallest number of entities and therefore is ontologically the simplest.

No, it has the same number of entities as non-solipsism: you said your mind (1 entity) created other people (7 billion entities). Just because the other people were created by your mind does not remove them as entities; your theory still must account for them (specifically, by saying that your mind controls their behavior). It is thus no simpler than non-solipsism. It's actually more complex because if you say that your mind controls these other people, you then need to devise the mechanism by which that control occurs, or else your theory is incomplete. And the details of that mechanism add extra complexity that non-solipsism doesn't need.

Anyway, in answer to your question of whether this is induction, IBE, or abduction: all three of those are effectively the same thing. Both induction and abduction attempt to choose the best explanation for some observations, so they are both IBE.

Usually, when people give concrete examples of "abduction" they are talking about some hypothesis about a specific event, and when they give concrete examples of "induction" they are talking about some hypothesis about a general principle. But this is a distinction without a real difference. They are both about finding the best explanation for the data. In Bayesian terms this is simply the explanation with the highest posterior probability.