---
title: "The problem of other minds · Library · Simulation Hypothesis"
url: https://simulation-hypothesis.com/library/other-minds
description: "The problem of other minds is the question of how you can justify believing that anyone else has a mind, when you only ever have direct access to your own experience."
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
credit: "Ross Allan Dahl, Simulation Hypothesis (simulation-hypothesis.com)"
---

## Philosophy of mind

# The problem of other minds

Definition

The problem of other minds is the question of how you can justify believing that anyone else has a mind, when you only ever have direct access to your own experience.

On this site

The Lobby dial: a single player, everyone, or players and non-player characters you can’t tell apart from the inside.

Role in the model

The Lobby dial is this problem turned into a setting. You can have a single player, everyone as a real player, or real players mixed with non-player characters. From the inside, you can’t tell which.

Related

[Solipsism](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/library/solipsism)[Philosophical zombie](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/library/philosophical-zombie)[Skepticism](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/library/skepticism)

In the trees

[Suppose you are the only one · Ethics](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/trees/ethics?n=x-alone)[Simulating other minds · Simulations](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/trees/simulations?n=soc-gordon)

## The people behind the terms

14 short pages, one per thinker, each with its matching dial. See also the [reading list](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/reading).

[Plato’s cave](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/plato)[Zhuangzi’s butterfly](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/zhuangzi)[Vasubandhu’s dream](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/vasubandhu)[Shankara’s māyā](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/shankara)[al-Ghazali’s doubt](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/ghazali)[Ibn Arabi’s imagination](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/ibn-arabi)[Calderón’s life is a dream](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/calderon)[Descartes’ demon](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/descartes)[Berkeley’s perceiver](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/berkeley)[Borges’ circular ruins](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/borges)[Nozick’s experience machine](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/nozick)[Putnam’s brain in a vat](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/putnam)[Bostrom’s trilemma](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/bostrom)[Chalmers: virtual worlds are real](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/chalmers)