My particular brand of solipsism
This is a feeling that has come and gone throughout the years, and I have to constantly remind myself of it, like a still-open question that I must not abandon, like a problem whose solution would hold the key to everything, yet in everyday life I almost never think of it.
I vaguely recall the first time I came up with this idea. I was quiet, looking at my siblings. I think it was the first time I recognized them as sentient individuals. And automatically I thought, Why are they they, and I I? Why wasn't I any one of them, or them I?
I know it sounds like a terribly complicated question, but it has re-emerged sporadically during all of my life. I have this unbearable weight of selfhood that I can't get rid of, this feeling of having to put up with my own identity. This is not to mean that I don't like being me; it's that it amazes me to exist at all. I think of the world, of every person alive, and can't understand why, of all the possible ways I could have been experiencing this world, it had to be through this particular body, in this particular time and place. I am me. I am this me. And it boggles my mind.
Along with this feeling is the inevitable conclusion that the universe exists through me. (I know, I know, it's not an objectively meaningful statement; it's just how it feels to me.) What I mean by this is that, when I consider my link to the exterior world, I can't help feeling that the exterior world is only experienced by me. I don't have access to the inner experiences of other people, only to mine; and mine are the only ones that I can consider real. So, on top of this overwhelming feeling of uniqueness that accompanies my selfhood, I feel like I am the sole watcher of the whole of reality.
Does this sound weird? megalomanical? delusional? nonsensical? familiar?
Last edited by carturo222 on 20 May 2009, 11:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Your sense of self is a creation of your nervous system which has made this thing called "me" as an instrument to confront and make sense of all the inputs of your various senses. Your awareness of other people is through the integration of various sense inputs. None of us "knows" reality, whatever that might be. We have limited sense apparatus and we make do with what we've got to create a universe that has some of the characteristics of whatever the hell is going on out there but nobody knows for sure. We miss an awful lot.
When people ask questions like 'What if you were born in India?' it makes no sense to me, because who I am has, in a lot of ways, come from the fact that I have lived here, in this place, with these people.
I think the idea of a 'self' is quite vapid.
_________________
"Purity is for drinking water, not people" - Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
I vaguely recall the first time I came up with this idea. I was quiet, looking at my siblings. I think it was the first time I recognized them as sentient individuals. And automatically I thought, Why are they they, and I I? Why wasn't I any one of them, or them I?
I know it sounds like a terribly complicated question, but it has re-emerged sporadically during all of my life. I have this unbearable weight of selfhood that I can't get rid of, this feeling of having to put up with my own identity. This is not to mean that I don't like being me; it's that it amazes me to exist at all. I think of the world, of every person alive, and can't understand why, of all the possible ways I could have been experiencing this world, it had to be through this particular body, in this particular time and place. I am me. I am this me. And it boggles my mind.
Along with this feeling is the inevitable conclusion that the universe exists through me. (I know, I know, it's not an objectively meaningful statement; it's just how it feels to me.) What I mean by this is that, when I consider my link to the exterior world, I can't help feeling that the exterior world is only experienced by me. I don't have access to the inner expeiences of other people, only to mine; and mine are the only ones that I can consider real. So, on top of this overwhelming feeling of uniqueness that accompanies my selfhood, I feel like I am the sole watcher of the whole of reality.
Does this sound weird? megalomanical? delusional? nonsensical? familiar?
Not at all unless I'm delusional.
But lately I've been asking myself why we live and then cease to exist... >_<
_________________
I live as I choose or I will not live at all.
~Delores O’Riordan
I vaguely recall the first time I came up with this idea. I was quiet, looking at my siblings. I think it was the first time I recognized them as sentient individuals. And automatically I thought, Why are they they, and I I? Why wasn't I any one of them, or them I?
I know it sounds like a terribly complicated question, but it has re-emerged sporadically during all of my life. I have this unbearable weight of selfhood that I can't get rid of, this feeling of having to put up with my own identity. This is not to mean that I don't like being me; it's that it amazes me to exist at all. I think of the world, of every person alive, and can't understand why, of all the possible ways I could have been experiencing this world, it had to be through this particular body, in this particular time and place. I am me. I am this me. And it boggles my mind.
Along with this feeling is the inevitable conclusion that the universe exists through me. (I know, I know, it's not an objectively meaningful statement; it's just how it feels to me.) What I mean by this is that, when I consider my link to the exterior world, I can't help feeling that the exterior world is only experienced by me. I don't have access to the inner expeiences of other people, only to mine; and mine are the only ones that I can consider real. So, on top of this overwhelming feeling of uniqueness that accompanies my selfhood, I feel like I am the sole watcher of the whole of reality.
Does this sound weird? megalomanical? delusional? nonsensical? familiar?
Not at all unless I'm delusional.
But lately I've been asking myself why we live and then cease to exist... >_<
It's probably more useful to concern yourself as to the meaning of "why".
I vaguely recall the first time I came up with this idea. I was quiet, looking at my siblings. I think it was the first time I recognized them as sentient individuals. And automatically I thought, Why are they they, and I I? Why wasn't I any one of them, or them I?
I know it sounds like a terribly complicated question, but it has re-emerged sporadically during all of my life. I have this unbearable weight of selfhood that I can't get rid of, this feeling of having to put up with my own identity. This is not to mean that I don't like being me; it's that it amazes me to exist at all. I think of the world, of every person alive, and can't understand why, of all the possible ways I could have been experiencing this world, it had to be through this particular body, in this particular time and place. I am me. I am this me. And it boggles my mind.
Along with this feeling is the inevitable conclusion that the universe exists through me. (I know, I know, it's not an objectively meaningful statement; it's just how it feels to me.) What I mean by this is that, when I consider my link to the exterior world, I can't help feeling that the exterior world is only experienced by me. I don't have access to the inner expeiences of other people, only to mine; and mine are the only ones that I can consider real. So, on top of this overwhelming feeling of uniqueness that accompanies my selfhood, I feel like I am the sole watcher of the whole of reality.
Does this sound weird? megalomanical? delusional? nonsensical? familiar?
Not at all unless I'm delusional.
But lately I've been asking myself why we live and then cease to exist... >_<
It's probably more useful to concern yourself as to the meaning of "why".
Meaning, it's better to ask 'how' than 'why'.
And if you ask 'why' a sufficient amount of times, the final answer will always be 'Because'.
_________________
"Purity is for drinking water, not people" - Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
It is an interesting question, as our conscious perception is to some extent placed on top of an arbitrary will, that is created by circumstance and genetics. And this shapes our perceptions of internal and external realities. So, the question of "why does this conscious perception perceive what it perceives?" is sort of interesting.(if I've phrased the question right that is)
Your conclusion sounds interesting. On a certain level it makes sense, as I can see how you might hold to a standard that your own perceptions are the realest, and truest perceptions. I don't think you have proven your sensation, but it is an interesting one, and probably about as supported as most other people's tendencies.
To Carturo22. I could have written your entire post many years ago! It is only recently (over the last few years) that the "answer" has presented itself. I'm not sure I can attempt to express this "answer" as it is more of the nature of a Zen insight rather than an item of "knowledge" or "concept" that is expressible as a pile of words.
All I will say is examine the nature of "I" and the nature of consciousness itself. Not by reading a stack load of books on philosophy but by looking yourself. Meditation is a tool that can help facilitate this enquiry. The "answer" is there if you look.
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I've left WP indefinitely.
I've been having similar thoughts, maybe more along the lines of "why are we (humans) the only ones who are capable of such thoughts?"
I'm starting to think that such thoughts are some side-effect of having a highly developed brain and that in fact the universe does not know or care about things like "how" or "why" or "what for". I'm starting to think that the universe is infinitely simple and uncomplicated and that our minds due to some weird perversion tend to overcomplicate things and generate thoughts like that.
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not a bug - a feature.
I'm starting to think that such thoughts are some side-effect of having a highly developed brain and that in fact the universe does not know or care about things like "how" or "why" or "what for". I'm starting to think that the universe is infinitely simple and uncomplicated and that our minds due to some weird perversion tend to overcomplicate things and generate thoughts like that.
Why are you so sure humans are the only animals that have these thoughts?
I'm starting to think that such thoughts are some side-effect of having a highly developed brain and that in fact the universe does not know or care about things like "how" or "why" or "what for". I'm starting to think that the universe is infinitely simple and uncomplicated and that our minds due to some weird perversion tend to overcomplicate things and generate thoughts like that.
Why are you so sure humans are the only animals that have these thoughts?
I'm not. I just take a wild guess that such thoughts need a language to back it up. or at least, a highly developed frontal lobe.
that's irrelevant though, even if there were 2mlns of alien species capable of such philosophical observations, I bet it still wouldn't make even 1% of all concious thought in the universe.
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not a bug - a feature.
