Do you ever suspect that nobody else is real?

[cloudyday2]

Often I suspect that I am being tested inside a phony universe for unknown reasons. Like maybe other people are only pretending to be people and actually they are angels who can read my mind and orchestrate reality to test my reactions.

Just wondering if this is a common thought. Believing that others can read your mind is a common delusion in mentally ill. I don't believe this, but often the thought crosses my mind. I wonder if this is a common thought in others. Maybe the reason that this is such a common delusion among mentally ill is that this suspicion resides in so many sane people ready to transform from suspicion to delusion under psychological stress.

If this was true, then it would be an interesting religious cosmology that might eliminate some problems. For example "why is life good for some and bad for others?" - they aren't real people and only I am real. It seems odd that there are not some religions claiming this.

 

[public hermit]

Solipsism. It's been around for a long time. Well, it's been around as long I have existed.

 

[ewq1938]

That reminds me of a version of the Simulation Theory.

 

[Tone]

Often I suspect that I am being tested inside a phony universe for unknown reasons. Like maybe other people are only pretending to be people and actually they are angels who can read my mind and orchestrate reality to test my reactions.

How often do you suspect this?

Why a "phony universe", why not real?

Can you think of any possible reasons?

Aren't angels people? So, why would they have to pretend?

Why would they need to test your reactions if they can read your mind?


And yes...yes...I suspect a lot of what you say may be true, but I think it's a real world with other people just like me being tested in their reality as well.

Otherwise how can anybody really love others...if there really is no other?

 

[MehGuy]

Maybe no one else is real? I don't really care honestly.. lol..

 

[Going_Nowhere]

Solipsism. It's been around for a long time. Well, it's been around as long I have existed.

Beat me to it. The basic idea of solipsism can be summed up like this:


I think, therefore I am. However, I do not know that you think and therefore, I do not know that you are.


It's an interesting philosophy. Especially since it cannot be proven or disproven.


But I try not to think too much about it. All we can do....wait....all I can do is live and try to enjoy life....whether the people and things around me are real or not. And that's that.

 

[jacks]

If it is all a test, I think I'm failing. At best maybe a "C-". My only hope was that I was being graded on a curve.

 

[Going_Nowhere]

I don't really care honestly.. lol..

Seems like you picked the right name for yourself then.

 

[Jok]

Beat me to it. The basic idea of solipsism can be summed up like this:


I think, therefore I am. However, I do not know that you think and therefore, I do not know that you are.


It's an interesting philosophy. Especially since it cannot be proven or disproven.


But I try not to think too much about it. All we can do....wait....all I can do is live and try to enjoy life....whether the people and things around me are real or not. And that's that.

So it is not necessarily a total belief that you are all that exist? Can you be a solipsist if you are a solipsist agnostic?

 

[Jok]

.

 

[Aryeh Jay]

I was in the Navy with a guy that thought there were only about 10,000 real people and everyone else was background.

 

[cloudyday2]

How often do you suspect this?

Why a "phony universe", why not real?

Can you think of any possible reasons?

Aren't angels people? So, why would they have to pretend?

Why would they need to test your reactions if they can read your mind?


And yes...yes...I suspect a lot of what you say may be true, but I think it's a real world with other people just like me being tested in their reality as well.

Otherwise how can anybody really love others...if there really is no other?

Those are lots of good questions. Rather than answering each question, let me describe more fully what I sometimes suspect.

I have this suspicion at least weekly and sometimes daily. The impetus for the suspicion is patterns and purpose I notice in events that should be random. For example, I might be thinking something, and then somebody will say something related almost as though they read my mind. Last evening, I was thinking about a homeless woman who has been camping on the sidewalk near me since March when COVID began. I couldn't help relating this to the gospel story of the "rich man and Lazarus" and the suspicion arose that both the homeless person and the bible story are fabrications designed to test me. When the homeless woman first appeared in March, one of our customers called describing a horrible situation her husband had created by inviting a homeless person into their home - as though warning me of the dangers of trying to help the homeless woman. Things like that make me wonder if this is all a test. I am surrounded by movie set with angels portraying humans and two-dimensional facades as backdrops. If you saw the movie "The Truman Show", that is similar.

My specific suspicion is that many people exist, but we each exist in separate universes with projections of each other. So if I kill you in my universe it is only killing a phony projection and you continue to live in your own private universe with a phony projection of me.

 

[cloudyday2]

I was in the Navy with a guy that thought there were only about 10,000 real people and everyone else was background.

Did he explain the significance of 10,000? At first I assumed that 10,000 came from Christian eschatology somewhere such as the Book of Revelation, but I believe it would 144,000 if that was the case.

 

[Chris V++]

If we Christians believe in invisible angels and demons who can influence us and in heavenly and hellish realms it's hard not to believe we are co existing in some sort of matrix -like reality. Like the Bible says, we see as if in a mirror, dimly. Also the Bible foretells the end from the beginning which suggests time is also more abstract than it appears.

 

[Tone]

Those are lots of good questions. Rather than answering each question, let me describe more fully what I sometimes suspect.

I have this suspicion at least weekly and sometimes daily. The impetus for the suspicion is patterns and purpose I notice in events that should be random. For example, I might be thinking something, and then somebody will say something related almost as though they read my mind. Last evening, I was thinking about a homeless woman who has been camping on the sidewalk near me since March when COVID began. I couldn't help relating this to the gospel story of the "rich man and Lazarus" and the suspicion arose that both the homeless person and the bible story are fabrications designed to test me. When the homeless woman first appeared in March, one of our customers called describing a horrible situation her husband had created by inviting a homeless person into their home - as though warning me of the dangers of trying to help the homeless woman. Things like that make me wonder if this is all a test. I am surrounded by movie set with angels portraying humans and two-dimensional facades as backdrops. If you saw the movie "The Truman Show", that is similar.

My specific suspicion is that many people exist, but we each exist in separate universes with projections of each other. So if I kill you in my universe it is only killing a phony projection and you continue to live in your own private universe with a phony projection of me.

Hmmmm, yeah, I can relate and I do believe in a grand design...all believers do, as the most basic part of there being a god.

I just did a thread on the Truman Show since it's the last movie I watched.

I'm not sure that if I wasn't involved with drug use, I would have the same ideas. I'm sure it is common to man though, which you may be tapping into with the mind reading stuff.

There is some truth in it, of course, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that killing someone here wouldn't really be killing them.

I believe there are real consequences in this real world. But, it is a testing ground.

I believe faith is key to passing, by grace.

This work in progress came to me recently too, which I posted in the poetry section:


Fabric

And behind it all

There seems to be

This grand design

A tapestry not of me

He's the Weaver, I'm the twine

 

[cloudyday2]

This work in progress came to me recently too, which I posted in the poetry section:


Fabric

And behind it all

There seems to be

This grand design

A tapestry not of me

He's the Weaver, I'm the twine

I like it.

 

[Aryeh Jay]

Did he explain the significance of 10,000? At first I assumed that 10,000 came from Christian eschatology somewhere such as the Book of Revelation, but I believe it would 144,000 if that was the case.

No, it had nothing to do with Christianity. I think it had to do with the total number of people that you could actually know.

 

[ViaCrucis]

If we Christians believe in invisible angels and demons who can influence us and in heavenly and hellish realms it's hard not to believe we are co existing in some sort of matrix -like reality. Like the Bible says, we see as if in a mirror, dimly. Also the Bible foretells the end from the beginning which suggests time is also more abstract than it appears.

That would have more to do with Platonism at best and Gnosticism at worst. The biblical emphasis is on external, material reality being real and really good. In fact the core tenet of the Christian religion is that God has become part of this material world through the Incarnation; and that God works through material things for our own salvation and benefit. For example, the Sacraments.

Our seeing through a dim mirror or glass points to the fact that not all, as it will be, is yet known. But will, one day, be known.

Everything in Christianity is there to assert that even the very dirt beneath our feet is good and meant for eternity.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[cloudyday2]

Everything in Christianity is there to assert that even the very dirt beneath our feet is good and meant for eternity.

It seems to me that change is the only constant.
Without change how can time exist?
Without time how can life exist?

The only way I can see your idea working is if we imagine the biography of our universe from birth to death available on God's bookshelf for eternity.

However, I suppose cycles provide a way for change and sameness to coexist (such as the seasons each year).

 

[ke gray]

philosophy 101:

What is real?

How do I know I'm not dreaming and your existence is not part of my dream, or how do I know your not dreaming and my existence is part of your dream?

How do we know reality is by the answer "I think, therefore I am" for all of us. This is the axiom of reality..an accepted truth without proof.

What did Moses ask the burning bush? What is your name...and the response was "I am"

God is saying he is a real living being....not just a concept! What your experiencing now is the reality of God's world...not a dream. Life is an experience of creation's reality...the trees are real, the sun, the dirt, and you and me in the flesh.

You do realize the concept of absolute nothingness is mathematically "absurd"? No beginning to material matter. Material matter had to always exist because something out of nothing is absurd? The reality of material matter is existence without beginning or end. A concept difficult to grasp because of our own beginning and death. And does not the Bible say God has no beginning or end?

If science is the observation of nature's phenomenon, then math is the explanation of that observation. The Bible does not contradict Science, nor can Science contradict the Bible. Both must be in agreement. Such that...new world science is wrong, and evolution for animals is correct (excluding man). Example: "Be fruitful and multiple!" before they left the garden. So, the world was already populated when Adam and Eve went out of the Garden...what was Adams punishment..."to toil the land?" 6000 years ago it is estimated Adam left the Garden of Eden by Biblical Scholars...By Science, the beginning of agriculture was also 6000 years.