How do you discuss solipsism with other people?

[Paulus Amadeus]

22 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Goodness can have no reason.

If Goodness has a reason, it would be evil, not Goodness.

To be Good you must act out of delight for Goodness itself.

This seems pretty absurd to me. Are you as compassionate towards video game characters as to actual humans? 

Goodness can have no reason. But what we direct our goodness towards depends on our worldview. If I don't believe that other people are conscious, I would only be good to myself. If I believe that other beings on this planet are conscious, then maybe I will try very hard to become a benevolent force in the world. 

A solipsist's idea of goodness might as well be raping everyone and doing heroin. Only himself to be good to! 

[Nahm]

9 hours ago, romansoloviov said:

How do you discuss solipsism with other people?

I find that Leo's worldview is hard to make popular/attractive among most groups of people (both big groups, like the mainstream, and small groups of smart/open-minded people) because it claims that other people don't exist. So when discussing it with others, you have two options:

1. Tell people how it is, and essentially claim that only your consciousness exists. Obviously nobody likes it because it comes across as very selfish. You might lose respect of your friends over this, not just money/status.

2. Compromise integrity a bit and pretend that you believe in some other version of idealism. People are more open-minded to this view, and you're sort of easing them in, but the downside is you're not really speaking what you know to be true.

What do you all think is the best way to navigate this?

Option 3, share honestly your world view rather than your beliefs. 1 & 2 are assumptive a priori claims. 

[Tim R]

@Paulus Amadeus As I (and now also Leo) said, you won't be able to think your way out of solipsism. 

The only way to realize the unreality of solipsism is through direct realization of no-self. Which is the same as realizing no-other. Which is the same as realizing that solipsism is false. 

 

[romansoloviov]

14 hours ago, Tim R said:

"your" bubble of consciousness is as ridiculous of an notion as "other" bubbles of consciousness. 

Consciousness is impersonal, without a center (ego = belief that you are a separate center of consciousness). 

This doesn't seem true in my direct experience, because of the following observations: (1) I have control of my body, (2) all thoughts in my direct experience are pertinent to my ego, (3) I am at the center of my visual field.

13 hours ago, Blackhawk said:

Are you guys kidding? Can't you see what you are saying?

You are saying 2 incompatible things: 1 that there is other people who are "in denial about Truth", and 2 that solipsism is true. You need to drop one of those.

13 hours ago, Paulus Amadeus said:

Yeah it is completely ridiculous. Trying to convince someone of solipsism is about the most absurd thing you could ever do. 

Yeah, but I'll still have to discuss metaphysics with others at some point. I can't just disengage and refuse to discuss it for the rest of my life.

13 hours ago, Paulus Amadeus said:

@Tim R I know we share one consciousness underneath. I know we are ultimately the same. 

But then it's interesting to talk about how these seemingly separate perspectives came into being no? And it's interesting to discuss whether or not other people on the planet have a separate perspective, or whether they are just a cardboard figures without a perspective. 

I don't think we disagree on what is going on. I'm just saying that its interesting to talk about how these different perspectives came to be. What is the purpose of them? where are they located? How is it possible that they seemingly walk around in the same world? 

These are questions that I personally find very interesting.

Agreed, I too find these questions interesting and not sure how to answer them.

9 hours ago, Nahm said:

Option 3, share honestly your world view rather than your beliefs. 1 & 2 are assumptive a priori claims. 

Could you elaborate? How is it different from option 1?

––––--

I see people suggesting to formulate it as a dream. I agree this is easier on the mind.

That said, the dream analogy still implies that within a dream, there is a dream player that the consciousness is playing, and NPCs. So between me and the person I'm explaining this to, either I'm the dream player and they're an NPC, or vise versa; either way would be hard for that person to accept.

And there is definitely a difference in my direct experience between being a dream player and an NPC, please see the beginning of this comment.

Edited September 12, 2021 by romansoloviov
Style

[Nahm]

1 hour ago, romansoloviov said:

How is it different from option 1?

1 is conjecture, belief, someone else’s view. 

[Adrian325]

@Paulus Amadeus the way I interprete it is, from my perspective, this is all happening fully and totally in my dream and from your perspective, it's all happening fully and totally in your dream. Your like the Neo of your Matrix and I'm the Neo of my Matrix. We exist outside of time and space so the character I'm playing now is you from the "future" or "past" and there could be a million years between us. Like there's this trippy portal thing happening. At the same time there is no future or past but just the illusion of one because this moment is all that exists. The next moment never comes. Whatever your conscious of, is Everything in existence. Whatever is in your immediate experience is the entire Universe.

Edited September 13, 2021 by Adrian325

[allislove]

On 9/12/2021 at 6:08 AM, romansoloviov said:

What do you all think is the best way to navigate this?

1 hour daily morning meditation & psychedelics occasionally (?) --- investigating of the direct experience solely.

Imagine you are holding to N beliefs. By discussing "other people don't exist" idea you are making one more spiritual belief stronger. The spiritual growth comes from letting go the beliefs. The goal is to hold to 0 beliefs, then you (relatively speaking) can truly appreciate the present moment.

This pointer is golden:

Quote

Jesus said to them, "When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter [the kingdom]."