Solipsism Syndrome (rock, quote, memories, band, Lute)

cardboard adolescent · 01-12-2009, 03:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Inuzuka Skysword

Irrational ideas are irrational. Why would I want to believe this?

you don't. that's why i started by saying it's a contagious disease. best to just leave it alone.

Quote:

Originally Posted by adidasss

I've entertained the idea on occasion, mostly when trying to fathom eternity. I figure at the very least, I'm a part of the divine creation that couldn't handle eternity anymore, so a seemingly elaborate and endless system of life and death and illness and fear was created to make it all bearable. Other people might very well be real, but were created as diversions from the horror of neverending existence. This also goes in line with my recent, somewhat oriental line of thinking that everything serves a purpose, and I seem to be finding a lot meaning and obvious purpose in the things that happen around me...which could fit into the ego-universe theory, I think (it's all about me me me). Did any of that seem at all pertinent?

yes, thank you, we're on the same wavelength.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stu

If everything we perceive as reality is in fact a dream, then what are we?

figments of our own imagination?

Sneer · 01-12-2009, 03:52 PM

But what is imagination? What is its source? Basically, what is reality?

swim · 01-12-2009, 03:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cardboard adolescent

I agree, but one realization that scared me was that the system is only as complex as the complexity you read into it. People ask, so you're saying your mind could have generated Shakespeare and Beethoven? You are capable of such things? But their brilliance is only proportional to the brilliance your mind can read into their work, most of us just rely on other people to tell us that they were great which to a solipsist of course proves nothing.

It does get kind of mirrorical (yes I made up a word). I made something complex and great and the reason why it is complex and great is because of criteria that other people made up meaning that I really made it up meaning that it is only great because I'm the only one there is.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stu

If everything we perceive as reality is in fact a dream, then what are we?

It.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Inuzuka Skysword

Irrational ideas are irrational. Why would I want to believe this?

I suppose you wouldn't. Why would anyone believe it? The concept of questioning everything.

cardboard adolescent · 01-12-2009, 03:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stu

But what is imagination? What is its source? Basically, what is reality?

Well to me solipsism leads in one of two directions, either dualism or monism. Either I exist and because there is an external reality, God must also exist, and reality is possible because God supports both me and it in his mind, or only I exist, and I am God, and have essentially split my own personality to escape from an all-engulfing loneliness. In that case the imagination is all that exists, and everything is a product of the imagination, and to produce meaning it also had to produce ignorance.

for instance, what produces my dreams? my imagination, my subconscious perhaps, but most people agree that it is themselves. and yet, i can't consciously access my subconscious. so how do i know my subconscious does not also generate reality? how do i know my subconscious isn't God? hmm...

Quote:

Originally Posted by swim

It does get kind of mirrorical (yes I made up a word). I made something complex and great and the reason why it is complex and great is because of criteria that other people made up meaning that I really made it up meaning that it is only great because I'm the only one there is.

Indeed, which is pretty much the sum of all Buddhist wisdom. Schopenhauer says it pretty well in The World as Will and Representation. It's like the will is in an endless hall of mirrors and the representations it generates are distorted views of itself. Nothin' but smoke and mirrors, as they say.

adidasss · 01-12-2009, 04:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cardboard adolescent

and to produce meaning it also had to produce ignorance.

Right. There's an apt Lovecraft quote for this I think:

Quote:

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

What is better (or worse), an end or no end (to existence)? Neither, the best would be a cycle of life and death, which gives you the illusion of end, yet the impossibility of knowing the real truth opens up hope. Also a hope that, in his (or our) infinitive wisdom, we crafted a foolproof system, which sort of precludes us (or me) from ever knowing the real truth (if you're inclined to have a darker mind, like me and H.P. here). That's why I don't think a simple thought exercise like solipsism could lead us to the truth. If and when we get close to it, someone will hit the reset button...:/

Ramble ramble...

anticipation · 01-12-2009, 04:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by adidasss

Other people might very well be real, but were created as diversions from the horror of neverending existence.

neverending existence is the most beautiful thing in the world.

it's weird, i've actually been thinking alot about this topic lately. however, i had no idea that it was an established line of thought shared by so many people.

the idea that just because reality is one big dream, nothing truly exists in a permanent physical form is ridiculous. just look at the dreams you have now. do you always dream of things that aren't in existance? no, right? so why does it have to be that if life is a dream, then all things in that dream are automatically fictional? i don't see it like that.

Sneer · 01-12-2009, 04:33 PM

So we ourselves must not be real, as who we are is, to a great extent, shaped by our environment and experiences. If this environment and these experiences are only products of our imagination, than our idea of the self must also be a dream. So we are in fact just... nothing. A passive source barely of life? This is the understanding im getting from it.

anticipation · 01-12-2009, 04:38 PM

i don't understand why everyone deals in absolutes.

the idea that you can make something from nothing is very easily grasped, especially if you believe that everything is nothing. i don't really agree that we are defined by the setting we are in, either. a tree isn't shaped by the forest, the forest is shaped by the tree, no?

adidasss · 01-12-2009, 04:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by anticipation

neverending existence is the most beautiful thing in the world.

Really? How do you figure? How is eternity (which should include) of all encompassing knowledge a good thing? There is no progress, no goal to strive to, just stationary (eternity means the absence of time which only leaves space) bleakness. Nothing can happen to you, there is no fear, therefore only indifference which is a euphemism for death. Either way you lose. *party pooper* :/

I should note that this is all just philosophical. If I really believed this was how things were, I'd have gone batshit crazy long ago...I just can't seem to abandon hope.

Sneer · 01-12-2009, 04:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by anticipation

i don't understand why everyone deals in absolutes.

the idea that you can make something from nothing is very easily grasped, especially if you believe that everything is nothing. i don't really agree that we are defined by the setting we are in, either. a tree isn't shaped by the forest, the forest is shaped by the tree, no?

Yes, the forest is the product of many tree's, just as society is the product of the people within it, but i also think we are influenced greatly by our upbringing, our relations with others etc. I dont think the self is defined from within, at least not entirely.

01-12-2009, 03:52 PM	#12 (permalink)
Sneer Let it drip Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 5,430	But what is imagination? What is its source? Basically, what is reality? __________________ LastFM Sneer's Emporium of Sound Fright Team radio show

01-12-2009, 04:33 PM	#17 (permalink)
Sneer Let it drip Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 5,430	So we ourselves must not be real, as who we are is, to a great extent, shaped by our environment and experiences. If this environment and these experiences are only products of our imagination, than our idea of the self must also be a dream. So we are in fact just... nothing. A passive source barely of life? This is the understanding im getting from it. __________________ LastFM Sneer's Emporium of Sound Fright Team radio show

01-12-2009, 04:38 PM	#18 (permalink)
anticipation Music Addict Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 3,565	i don't understand why everyone deals in absolutes. the idea that you can make something from nothing is very easily grasped, especially if you believe that everything is nothing. i don't really agree that we are defined by the setting we are in, either. a tree isn't shaped by the forest, the forest is shaped by the tree, no?