LastThursday

That's exactly how it works. It's up to you if you want to call positive space real or not. I prefer to call it a different type of existence. There's positive space existence and negative space existence. The present moment of yesterday went into negative space. The present moment is always positive space. Negative space is always relative to positive space that's its function. Like a hole in a doughnut, it can't exist without the doughnut itself. You can exist and experience yesterday, but only from the vantage point of now (positive space). Stuff moves between negative and positive space all the time. But the movement isn't totally random. There's rules to follow, some things are seemingly impossible. Your memory of yesterday is part of negative space. To travel back you'd have to force it into positive space.

If I take my direct experience as gospel truth, then the past and future are very different things from the now. The now encompasses everything including the past and future. Your question would assume that the past, present and future are the same thing. What exists is what I can experience directly. Everything else is like a hole in a doughnut, see here: If it's not in your direct experience it has a different sort of existence, what I call "negative space" in my journal. Direct experience is then "positive space". Your other selves would exist only in negative space. If by some miracle or process they entered into your positive space, then they would exist in your direct experience and would be "real" in some sense. Until that happens they are only "potential".

That is telling. It suggests you do have a blockage. Maybe some form of inhibition when sober - whatever that may be. It also shows you that you already have what you want, and some form of therapy or self-development work will improve that.

@Bobby_2021 something that also comes to mind is that play and experimentation is also crucial to speedy learning. For example if in Badminton you learn that a different grip is needed for backhand shots, then you would experiment with different grips on the same type of shot and feel the difference. Maybe you try and use the new grip for everything and see what happens. Children do this all the time, they learn something new and start using it all the time in different ways and combinations. In chess you might experiment with different openings or gambits. The trick with play is to do it innocently and be happy to make mistakes and laugh at yourself if you get things wrong, make it light. Sometimes doing things wrong is more instructive than always doing things right. If you've ever driven a car on snow and ice, you'll know what I mean. You need to "feel" what it's like when things are not right, so you can recognise it more quickly in future. You need both positive and negative feedback to learn more quickly. Curiosity and reading around a subject is also very helpful. So often something that doesn't seem that related to what you're studying increases your understanding later down the line. Maybe you're studying to be a cook, but start looking into the chemical reactions around bread-making. Then you realise later down the line when you want to make bread, you have a deeper understanding than you would have done. Organic learning is very useful for accelerating learning.

Or you experience everything at once.

In a sense all explanations are false. If you strip it right down, one moment you're "enlightened" and at some other moment you're not. That's a simpler explanation. Maybe that's less false? I don't know. In general there seems to be a lot things were it doesn't matter what you think, it happens the same way every time anyway - that should be a flag to show you that there are situations were thought does not influence what happens. No, there is just constant change. But it's hard to escape the feeling that the constant change happens at a constant rate. So time in the conventional sense is just an extrapolation of this constancy of change. This is what Galileo realised when a pendulum swings. But the deep question is why does it seem constant, and what does this even mean? It's like there is a tug of war between constant change and constant stillness and they're both evenly matched. The stillness gives the world order and constancy and the change gives it chaos and creativity.

Full immersion is generally the way to go to quickly and deeply understand a thing. But that takes a certain level of commitment. For example you're clearly going to learn chess more quickly and thoroughly if you consistently play it, than if you just play occasionally. Full immersion is almost a prerequisite for language fluency as another example. One obvious thing to do is to take a course, whether online or IRL. That will at least ground you in the basics of a subject and it will systematically take you through the main points of a subject. I think from the beginning stages you should be fully in action mode, you need to get a real feel for what you're learning. As you progress you should ramp up the contemplation and theory. For example if you're practising a new sport, it wouldn't make much sense to go straight into theory, you just need to do the actions to learn - it's much the same with most things. It's only when you become more proficient do you start theorising and learning techniques. Another way, is to have a teacher or have someone mentor you. If they're good, they can systematically take you through the parts of a new subject. Lastly, a lot of subjects have their own language and jargon. It's good to pick up at least the most important terms and have a good understanding of them. For example in IT, the ideas of information and storage and processing are important - learn what the jargon means. That will give you a foothold into a new subject.

Practice, practice and more practice. Learn new vocabulary. I prefer to do it in reverse and learn new concepts, and then the vocabulary that goes along with it. If you want to improve your writing then learn good spelling, punctuation and syntax (word order). Learn some basic theory behind grammar, such as how tenses work, what adjectives are and so on, what a participle is. Play with words in general. Do you zone out, or do you just lack clarity, or are you thinking about too many things at once? If you tend to zone out, practise meditation regularly. Practise being present and putting your whole attention on the other person when speaking. If you lack clarity then you need to fully understand what you are talking about - either shut up if you don't know, or go learn the stuff first. Saying that, thinking clearly is a very hard skill to acquire: you have to be aware of when you're being inconsistent or talking rubbish and then stop doing it. BTW you expressed yourself quite clearly.

Again I'm in that funny zone with work, where I have much stuff to do, but no interest in doing it. It's just a game a play with myself really. So instead I'm propping up my journal. What's the gossip? Well, I went on a blind date on the weekend. It went well. Except, that I can get on with most people, and the entire experience was more like speaking to a friend than a potential lover. She wasn't quite attractive enough, not quite exciting enough. I'm going to have to let it slide, but it's going to have to be me that does it. You'd think it'd be easy with my verbal skills - lol. But I have to do it today or it goes into awkward zone. It was all arranged through/by friends and I just kind of agreed to it! Unfortunately, that creates an expectation and excitement. So I'll be letting many people off the hook so to speak. Ah well. I've been away on holiday for a week. I always love going away with these particular friends, we just know each other well and are easy around each other. This is how real relationships should work, neuroticism be gone! I don't have any more room for neurotic relationships in my life. My mum's style was mostly this and it's something I've always abhorred in people, I don't deal with it well. The converted barn we stayed in had its own indoor swimming pool, which I used daily. I'm no great swimmer, but the novelty was fun and it beats a shower for waking me up. Strangely the swimmer in the group used it less than me. But I guess for her its less of a novelty. We stayed in the same place about seven years ago. It was a good mental exercise to compare how things had changed from then to now. Mostly, it went by a lot more quickly this time. One of our group, I'll call her A, seemed a bit distant. She set up her art stuff in the kitchen and painted most of the time. She was with us, but not. The last time we had stayed up talking together into the wee hours. Being older perhaps we can't take it any more. The rest of us played card games (a lot of Big Two) and drank. I took no photos this time. Despite bringing my fancy camera and promising some competition - just a few snaps on my phone - I just wasn't feeling it. I enjoyed this country house walled garden. A secret garden if you will: The roads of Devon (county) are narrow car-widthed affairs and I managed to prang my rear bumper reversing back down one of these lanes. Life throws crap at us and we have to deal with it. Philosophically speaking, I've never been one for having to deal with crap I don't want to deal with. I'll procrastinate and then do it begrudgingly. I sort of admire people who just get on with it. I'll fix the bumper eventually. Just in the same way I'll fix all the broken things eventually... Right then. That's out of my system. Now to work and rejection.

Philosophy in general seems to be this way. Each philosophy has its axioms or ground truths and you build everything up from there. Mathematics also has this. It's no coincidence I think, mathematics is a form of philosophy, albeit very abstracted away. Also science itself is a branch of philosophy (originally natural philosophy) and has a similar way of working from axioms (called laws there). I think psychology is sort of a hybrid between hard science and philosophy. There have also been attempts at creating artificial languages that reduce ambiguity. Edward De Bono I think attempted this - see his The De Bono Code Book.

Some throwaway thoughts that come to mind: Maybe hedonism is more prevalent in affluent societies. In some way, hedonism seems to be disconnected from the everyday process of survival. If you have to constantly think about survival, that crowds out any non-survival related activities. I think there's a strong human need to "be outside yourself" or "get out of your head". Parties, drugs, music, clubs, immersive games and so on all provide an alternate to normality. If everyday reality is harsh or difficult, then maybe the only break from that is to have periods of hedonism as an escape. Maybe there is some survival component in it, if it allows someone to maintain good mental health. I think that many religious societies or at least those were the culture has a religious history or undertone, shun hedonism. If strongly religious then the only hedonism allowed is to connect with God. Any other sort of hedonism is a corruption and possibly related to the Devil or other such negative things. Even nowadays non-organised dancing in the streets - as an example - would be seen as odd or even provocative. The late 80's rave culture in the UK springs to mind. Hedonism could lead to addiction if the pleasure reward is high enough. Some drugs: nicotene, cocaine, heroine are super addictive precisely because of the high pleasure reward from them. A large majority of people are not hedonistic in any way and they will view hedonism with distaste or suspicion. They will see it as some form of threat to their way of being. I think there's an age component too. As you get older and you've tried many different hedonistic activities, the need to do them so much falls away. You kind of burn through the desire to engage with some hedonistic activities. Hedonism is cultural mostly, large numbers engage in the same hedonistic activities (alcohol, clubs etc). There's nearly always some sort of negative side-effect from hedonism, such as addiction, high cost, come down, violence, loss of control.

I've never laughed so hard. I feel as though I ought to tell you that you should touch grass occasionally. To put the cat amongst the pigeons: specifically here he talks about how numbers are not the thing itself.

I guess you would call Carton Wolf state C and normal human state N. Then you'd have an transformation function called H (for high) and apply it C=H(N). This sort of shenanigans is why the universe is not "made of maths". It only ever maps patterns, it's never the thing itself.

You can have an infinity without all possibilities. So this statement doesn't follow necessarily. As an example, imagine the infinitude of numbers starting from 1. Now take one random number out of it, say 3. How many are left? Maybe reality doesn't have type a purple dog. It's interesting to think about an infinity where all possibilities do exist. You'll come to the conclusion that there can only be one of them - because the infinity must include itself! And. if there is only one of them, then you must be in it - because if you weren't then it wouldn't be "accessible" to you. That's because if you can access that sort of infinity, then you must necessarily be part of it. You can of course comprehend infinity with intellect - we're doing it here.

I'd always have some sort of ventilation with incense, no sort of smoke is good for your health. Saying that I use it to to relax and to meditate. The scent is good for giving yourself a slightly different sensory experience than normal.

@Vibes sigh. I'll go interact with some grown ups. Moving on...

I was pretty young when I became interested. I think at that time it was just a fascination with symbols in general. Playing with a calculator was more like a process of discovery and deciphering what it all meant. But there was an overlap with reading, as I had also recently learned to read (Spanish) too - so I had an unconscious inkling that it was just like another language. It's only much more recently that the penny dropped about maths being mostly about describing transformations between different patterns.

There is Truth. Truth is simply the illusion spoiled and reality seen for what it is. If you're not into that kind of thing - then walk your dog and go on with your day. But here we are about uncovering Truth. The illusion and Truth are one and the same thing - it is just that one makes many out of one - and the other is pulling the many back into the one. Honestly, we're singing from the same hymn sheet. It's just that applying the veneer of solipsism to truth is unnecessary. For Truth itself I simply observe - no words, descriptions or explanations are necessary - they're all distractions from Truth.

Whether external or internal or whatever, believing it to be an illusion would presuppose that there was something "outside" of the illusion - i.e. something that wasn't the illusion. Again, solipism would fail because there's supposed to be nothing outside of it. Maybe you can destroy some imagined illusion, but it's not going to be solipsism.

Fuck your attitude I'd say. However, it's your prerogative if you want to throw away its usefulness. And, it's not my science, it belongs to all of us.

I agreed that there is nothing outside of (my) direct experience - mostly because "outside" is meaningless in this context. However, that isn't solipsism. Is my experience one monolithic thing or many different things? Actually, it's not so easy to answer that. And what does "my" mean anyway? Do I own this experience, or am I somehow responsible for it? The word "my" presuposes that there is an entity separate from the experience itself. Taking on solipsism means believing that experience is monolithic, and that a separate entity is experiencing it. But without those two things, solipsism fails.

I'd say maths is a language like any other. The difference is that its purpose is to reduce ambiguity and to be self-consistent. It is also largely about transformation. One "sentence" in the language of maths gets transformed into other "sentences", using a precise and self-consistent number of steps. That way you can "prove" things. It's also about the essence of capturing patterns in the world, by mapping symbols and operations onto those patterns and also their relationships. English language is about conveying information in generality, so has much wider scope.

I agree wholeheartedly. But calling it a dream makes no difference to me, in the same way as calling it solipsism makes no difference - I've entertained both and nothing broke. Neither label will "enlighten" me any further. The only shocking thing about the dream of solipsism is falling for its allure.

Solipsism is a phase, you'll get over it eventually. Whatever "you" is, can just be without attaching a story to it.

I'm bilingual, so you could say I have two overlapping characters that I occupy. People have mentioned that I have a different timbre to my voice when I speak Spanish. And in my experience there are kind of two different hooks that a lot of things hang off of, my Spanish identity and my British one. I think what happens when expressing different identities is that certain traits are amplified and others diminished. So if you identify strongly with the voice in your head and were to change it, you would express different parts of yourself more strongly and others less so. It's like playing dress up and digging into a box full of different outfits, and then embodying the character that suits the clothing. Changing the voice in your head is like putting on a different outfit. The main point, is that everyone's character is in fact very fluid - and we have a large reservoir of characters we could be. It's just that we chose to express certain traits more than others, out of habit, practice and social pressure.