NOTE: If you haven’t seen this movie, you really shouldn’t watch this video. It’s a great low budget sci-fi comedy, and the video gives away the ending.
ETA: If you look both ways before crossing the street, you’ve at least proven that you don’t believe in solipsism.
May I ask why you are so obsessed with finding a metaphysical theory to define your existence? Buddhism for example. Why chase this so much?
If you absolutely must find a metaphysical structure for your life, create one. Do not read any books. Do not watch YouTube. Do not surf the web. With no other input except your own, create a structure that seems plausible to you.
Stop trying on philosophies like they are clothes. Clearly, none of them fit you. Think instead about what you want and need, and go from there.
The thing is that suddenly everything I see seems like proof of Solipsism. In a “gacha” game I play I got two high level characters whose lore had them tied together and I attributed that to solipsism. It’s stupid I know but right now with it one the brain every lucky break or good thing or even things not going my way seems like evidence of it.
I can’t really create a structure for myself I have to search out what is the “right” answer and live by it. It’s not about what I need but what is true and I can’t really live if the existence of other people and an external reality are both uncertain.
Are you familiar with the tv show The Good Place? It explored philosophical questions with humor. Basically, the entire show revolved around the philosophical question of what it means to live a good life.
Spoiler: You help others. Duh.
Yes, that’s the most obvious answer in the world. But it’s the one you need to hear.
Find a way to help other people. There are zillions; cast around until you find the ones that work for you and your abilities. You will find that other peoples’ problems and concerns are realer than any doubts you have and that you cannot simply dismiss them by claiming they don’t exist. The work you put in will take you out of your head. You need that desperately. Do not delay. Your happiness and theirs depends on it. You’ll soon find that their happiness is the only important thing. That is the way to make yourself happy, too.
I was thinking about that! And the scene before that, where they ask for advice on how to deal with the bomb and ________ [spoiler redacted] says “Talk… Phenomenology…!”
But I agree, do watch the movie if you haven’t, everyone.
(Unless you’re figments of Machinaforce’s fevered brain. Then do whatever, dawgs! I mean, stand up at 88mph in a stolen Mustang convertible, while swilling Captain Morgan naked and singing along to your ABBA playlist with that 8th grade teacher you had a crush on… also standing up in the convertible naked).
This is good advice. I hope OP takes it.
OP, there is a sense in which you are alone. You clearly see the world in a rather atypical way–maybe not qualitatively different, but with an unusually low tolerance for uncertainty and an unusually high degree of distress at life’s what-ifs. But we’ve all got weird things that color our respective worlds differently. And really, we each aren’t even one person, but many versions of a person over time. Sometimes I go back and eat or watch or experience my favorite thing from back when, and it just isn’t the same. That me is dead and never coming back. I don’t even have all my selves to keep me company.
But there’s a sense in which you aren’t alone. Nothing about you is actually unique; you’re made up of the same building blocks as everyone. Spend some time really connecting with another person, and you’ll find you share some of the same desires, frustrations, and fears. Get to know what moves them that’s different from what moves you, and find a way to care about it. Try to see the world from their perspective. Keep doing this until it’s intuitively obvious that everyone feels like the star of their own show, but no one really is. Including you.
How can you help others when you can’t even be sure that others even exist or have minds?
I mean the answers on this Quora give me pause: https://www.quora.com/What-if-solipsism-is-true
One says it’s true but a dead end.
Another one says that “all attempts to dismiss solipsism are conjurings of my own mind”.
And another one there says: “Solipsism just can’t be true.”
You do get that anyone can just sort of say stuff, right? One person can tell you they rode a giant blue doggy to the candy planet last night, and another can respond with a quick no, that’s not true — and you can, if you want, ponder that exchange and reply with a quick well, I can’t be sure — much like how a president can say he’s not a crook, and someone else can say uh, actually, he is, since nothing stops either of them from saying whatever they please.
In other words, that they said stuff isn’t interesting; why they said it is interesting. What are the arguments for solipsism that impress you? What doesn’t impress you about the arguments against it? What’s the difference between (a) other minds that interact with you the way other minds would, and (b) things that aren’t other minds, but that interact with you the way other minds would?
Why are you bothering to post here if you’re not sure we exist or have minds?
It’s a category mistake.
There isn’t any difference between a universe that “really” exists, and what we have now. None. The distinction that solipsism tries to draw doesn’t exist. A universe that “really” existed would be exactly the same as this one. And I do mean exactly - there is nothing, even in principle, that you could find to differentiate a “real” universe from a real universe.
Plus, what The Other Waldo Pepper said. Other people, and the rest of reality, exist, and we know this because they bring us things that don’t exist inside ourselves.
If I were making up a universe, this isn’t what I would choose to make up. But I have to accept the universe, because it forces itself on my attention whether I like it or not. It doesn’t often do what I want. Therefore, it isn’t being generated by me or my desires. It’s different - something which is not me.
Regards,
Shodan
Also, every now and then, there are brief but unmistakable sounds of laughter coming from behind us; It’s unnerving.
OK, so you are the only person in the universe, or a brain in a vat, whatever. Now what. What should you do differently? If reality isn’t real, then it really doesn’t matter what you do. Cause and effect are no longer necessarily linked. However whatever tricks your mind is playing on you seems to be arranged in such a way that standard physical and sociological laws do apply. So for lack of a better way to behave, you may as well pretend that the world is as you perceive it. What else are you going to do?
In the meantime laugh at the crazy things your brain/vat came up with to entertain you. In my case my brain invented a guy called Mechinaforce who seemed to bring up some thoughts that I perceive remembering from what I think was my adolescent years shortly after I watched Dark Star for the first time. I Mechinaforce may not actually exist and there may not actually be a movie called Dark Star, but lack of a better idea I of how to behave I decided to pretend to type a note to him that explains how I think I decided to handle this conundrum. Maybe it will have no effect since Mechaniforce doesn’t exist, but it doesn’t hurt to try. Next I will pretend to click on the Dark Star link, and in all likelihood by amazing coincidence see the scene that I am pretending to remember involving a talking bomb. Exactly as it should if the world really did exist like I thought.
Excuse me, sir, but I’d like a ride on a giant blue doggy to the candy planet, too…
I have more of a problem overcoming solecism.
Oh, you’re a solipsist, too? I’m surprised there aren’t more of us.
NB: With apologies to that famous philosopher who first told the story.
Your first post after lurking for five years is a neat pun?
Please stop by more often.
It doesn’t work that way. If everything isn’t real then it doesn’t matter what I do and any enjoyment is immediately gone.
How do you know there is no difference? You can’t be sure this isn’t like the one that “really” exists. Also what Waldo said doesn’t verify that other people and the rest exists, awareness of something doesn’t necessarily mean it does or does not exist I mean there is an unconscious to humans right? Also who said anything about being able to control reality?
Logically, therefore, you should not do anything and enjoy it. Including posting here.
I enjoy logic, even if I don’t exist.