Intense feelings of solipsism

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Ben_Sinner

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Every once in a while I will have a thought that maybe existence…including God, Jesus, the church and every other living thing on the Earth is just an illusion or my imagination…in other words my consciousness is existence. Nothing exists without it. I am the only living entity.

Tonight this thought has been coming on strong to the point where I keep trying to reassure myself that I am a physicial, conscious individual amongsts other conscious individuals…but I don’t have proof that I am…I can only go by faith on that.

Then a thought in my head kept popping up that said "Well there is only a 50% chance God is real. The other 50% could be that he is just a figment of your imagination and your consciousness is the only thing that exists…50% isn’t a very re-assuring number:eek:

Now I know I can never fully prove that the world exists outside of my consciousness…but is there a way I can know that the odds are extremely, extremely, extremely high that it does?
 
A sickness of our times is that we think it’s all in our heads. What is drought, famine, earthquake, disease? Your invention?

Some things are affected or collected by our consciousness but please, individually, we are just a portion of reality.

We do not make our own reality.

If you think so, don’t come to my garden. I need smart, kind, sharing, reality-based gardeners who want real food that we all can eat. I don’t want people sitting on the cabbage, nourishing the weeds, inviting the gophers andcrows, and throwing good tomatoes in the garbage. The existence of God is as tangible to me as the garden. And even more important since God created me and you and the garden.
 
Hi Ben, I’M an EXISTENTIALIST, too, at times!
I am self aware, therefore I AM.
But there IS a God, and a Real World, and it is NOT me!
Therefore, humbly admit your NEED for others, and esp. God!
"tho the Lord is exalted, He regards the needy,
but the haughty He knows from afar!"Ps 138
 
Consider your experience of the world in all its variety and diversity. There are just so many unique objects, places, animals, plants, people, etc. Do you believe that your mind really possesses the powers of imagination and creativity for this entire universe to be emanating from your mind? Have you really dreamed up all the great works of literature, designed the world’s cities, constructed the personalities of people whom you’ve met, imagined visible galaxies, etc, all while being previously and currently unconscious of your vast creativity? And, isn’t it remarkable that this unconscious process, being so vast and complex, has never erred? For an example:

Let’s say you walked into a library and opened a book at random only to find gibberish, nonsense, or blank pages. If your mind is creating all of your experiences without you knowing it, and made a mistake by forgetting to write a book or substituting nonsense, you shouldn’t be too surprised right? And yet, you would be shocked, because you do not expect even the tiniest of errors of this kind in your mental creation. Why not? How can anyone be expected to unconsciously dream up a perfectly consistent, vast, immeasurably large and diverse universe without making a mistake and while maintaining the notion that you have only one distinct mind and set of experiences?

Indeed, if you possessed the kind of unconscious creative and imaginative powers to create the entire universe of your experiences within your own mind, wouldn’t you also expect vast conscious creativity? Do you author a new novel everyday? Compose a symphony? Cure a disease? Discover a new mathematical proof? Invent a new language? I mean, if you have this vast unconscious power, wouldn’t it be reasonable to assume you had at least a tiny fraction of that power while awake?

To me, these thoughts make it seem unlikely that the entire universe emanates from my own mind. Hopefully these are helpful thoughts to you also. Of course, none of this proves that you aren’t the only mind generating everything else, but it makes it seem unlikely to me at least. I would give it way less than a 50% likelihood.
 
Ben_Sinner said:
Every once in a while I will have a thought that maybe existence…including God, Jesus, the church and every other living thing on the Earth is just an illusion or my imagination…in other words my consciousness is existence. Nothing exists without it. I am the only living entity.

Tonight this thought has been coming on strong to the point where I keep trying to reassure myself that I am a physicial, conscious individual amongsts other conscious individuals…but I don’t have proof that I am…I can only go by faith on that.

Then a thought in my head kept popping up that said "Well there is only a 50% chance God is real. The other 50% could be that he is just a figment of your imagination and your consciousness is the only thing that exists…50% isn’t a very re-assuring number:eek:

Now I know I can never fully prove that the world exists outside of my consciousness…but is there a way I can know that the odds are extremely, extremely, extremely high that it does?
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I like PumpkinCookie’s response. Everytime I think the world might be a figment of my imagination, I pause for a second and remember that I’m not very good at math, so I wouldn’t have been able to use it to create the beautiful laws of the universe. Our world is too complex for me to fully understand, much less create.
 
PumpkinCookie said:
Consider your experience of the world in all its variety and diversity. There are just so many unique objects, places, animals, plants, people, etc. Do you believe that your mind really possesses the powers of imagination and creativity for this entire universe to be emanating from your mind? Have you really dreamed up all the great works of literature, designed the world’s cities, constructed the personalities of people whom you’ve met, imagined visible galaxies, etc, all while being previously and currently unconscious of your vast creativity? And, isn’t it remarkable that this unconscious process, being so vast and complex, has never erred? For an example:

Let’s say you walked into a library and opened a book at random only to find gibberish, nonsense, or blank pages. If your mind is creating all of your experiences without you knowing it, and made a mistake by forgetting to write a book or substituting nonsense, you shouldn’t be too surprised right? And yet, you would be shocked, because you do not expect even the tiniest of errors of this kind in your mental creation. Why not? How can anyone be expected to unconsciously dream up a perfectly consistent, vast, immeasurably large and diverse universe without making a mistake and while maintaining the notion that you have only one distinct mind and set of experiences?

Indeed, if you possessed the kind of unconscious creative and imaginative powers to create the entire universe of your experiences within your own mind, wouldn’t you also expect vast conscious creativity? Do you author a new novel everyday? Compose a symphony? Cure a disease? Discover a new mathematical proof? Invent a new language? I mean, if you have this vast unconscious power, wouldn’t it be reasonable to assume you had at least a tiny fraction of that power while awake?

To me, these thoughts make it seem unlikely that the entire universe emanates from my own mind. Hopefully these are helpful thoughts to you also. Of course, none of this proves that you aren’t the only mind generating everything else, but it makes it seem unlikely to me at least. I would give it way less than a 50% likelihood.
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Beautiful, excellent answer!

Thank you for that-- I was looking forward to a satisfying answer as I have had the same thoughts as the OP, questioning reality and wondering if it’s all my doing…then I go to the complete opposite and think what if this entire universe is completely encapsulated in a single cell or even an angstrom – (an angstrom is 10 million times smaller than a Millimeter). Aargh, so small!! I’m nothing! :eek: Too much thinking, not enough faith in my case… OP, you’re not alone. I hope this and the other posts have helped you.
 
Ben_Sinner said:
Every once in a while I will have a thought that maybe existence…including God, Jesus, the church and every other living thing on the Earth is just an illusion or my imagination…in other words my consciousness is existence. Nothing exists without it. I am the only living entity.

Tonight this thought has been coming on strong to the point where I keep trying to reassure myself that I am a physicial, conscious individual amongsts other conscious individuals…but I don’t have proof that I am…I can only go by faith on that.

Then a thought in my head kept popping up that said "Well there is only a 50% chance God is real. The other 50% could be that he is just a figment of your imagination and your consciousness is the only thing that exists…50% isn’t a very re-assuring number:eek:

Now I know I can never fully prove that the world exists outside of my consciousness…but is there a way I can know that the odds are extremely, extremely, extremely high that it does?
Click to expand...
Believe me that after you die the sun will still rise and fall, flowers will still blossom, parents with still love their children, etc… God bless you.
 
I s’pose God is the Great Solipist.

After all, he DID think everything up!
 
So would it be fair to say that it actually takes ALOT more faith to believe in solipsism than it does to believe solipsism is false?
 
I wouldn’t say it requires faith so much as the given evidence doesn’t seem to support the truth that you are the only mind in the universe and the universe is in fact your own mental projection/creation/whatever. I think it’s true that the evidence doesn’t conclusively refute that you aren’t the only mind. I think you can rationally doubt the existence of anything other than your own imagination, but nonetheless it seems incredibly unlikely to me given the variety and diversity of nature, art, and human personalities and our relatively pitiful lack of conscious creativity. Vast, seemingly infinite unconscious creativity and pathetic conscious creativity existing within the same mind seems absurd to me.

That doesn’t mean I’m right, but it certainly seems absurd, like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich eating giraffe wearing a tuxedo. Now…did you expect me to say that? Random right? We perceive randomness and are surprised by unexpected things all the time. And yet, given solipsism, you’d have to conclude that you are the one generating all this stuff, and are incredibly, amazingly good at deceiving yourself into thinking these things are random. Given solipsism, you’re the author of the world’s longest and most detailed book ever written, with a seeming infinity of volumes, and yet somehow you read every page with surprise and the story only sometimes seems to make any sense to you. This isn’t impossible, but it seems more likely that you have only a limited mind and perceive something like reality through your senses.

Instead of focusing on why solipsism probably isn’t true, maybe switch focus to discovering the mode by which we access truth? plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-correspondence/

Also maybe look into Aquinas’ epistemology. No matter my other disagreements with and misunderstandings of Aquinas, his epistemology has always made sense to me and seems right. Moderate Realism seems likely to me.
 
I don’t know about you, but if reality was only created in my head, it wouldn’t be a 50-50 guess. Having the capacity to create all that I have seen, I would also have the capacity to be 100% sure that I created it all.

That “50-50” feeling comes from our Creator who gives us some, but not all, consciousness of our place in reality. There is room for our awareness to expand but, with infinity, we never arrive at the end. There will always be more reality beyond our imagination.
 
Let’s assume that everything is all in your head.
Does anything change?
Of course not! Even if you think that the world is a dream, you still act as if it were not.

Now, notice how you have no idea either way as to whether this world is fake or not. Both theories fit the facts.

Therefore, since you act as though it isn’t an illusion, and that you have no way of knowing if the world is an illusion or not, you should just assume the option that is more practical, one that you act as though it were true. You should choose the option that is based more on experience, the one that is more sane, the one based on common sense, the one that is the “bigger” view of reality (an outer world, if it exists, would be greater than yourself)…

…which is of course the belief in the external world, and its God.

This is how I deal with such thoughts and feelings. This meditation is based on some comments that G. K. Chesterton made on these sort of philosophical views in his book Orthodoxy, which can be found here (in the Chapter titled, “The Maniac”): pagebypagebooks.com/Gilbert_K_Chesterton/Orthodoxy/The_Maniac_p1.htm. You might have to read the Chapter a couple of times, if you decide to read it.

Also, thank you 🙂 Your question enlightened me on other philosophical problems I have been mediating on.

Lord,
We pray that You will either deliver Ben Sinner from these feelings, or You will use them to sanctify him. Lord, we ask that You provide Ben Sinner with the strength to carry his cross patiently, hoping along the way that you plan on bringing out a greater Good out of his suffering. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Christi pax,

Lucretius
 
Ah i see youve caught the solipsism bug . I struggle with these thoughts too at times since I have OCD so mine are especially bad. Unfortunately it is probably the hardest thought to fight because our mind always finds little excuses and the doubt persists.

But maybe this will help you. There is solid proof for Gods existence despite what many atheists and poorly educated Christians claim ( Gods existence is NOT meant to be merely taken on faith). One of the greatest proofs for Gods existence is the proof from contingency. Since matter and energy require a cause and they couldnt have just popped into existence on their own and infinite regression is logically absurd we can only conclude that there must be a supernatural first cause. Now even if solipsism were true and you were just a brain in a vat somewhere. You still have to ask: who created the creators? You would arrive at the same conclusion. So you can still pray to God and he still knows about you. I cant prove to you that this world exists, but I can prove to you God does. 🙂
 
When people feel this way, it is sometimes just brain chemistry that is off. That said, I endorse PumpkinCookie’s very philosophically astute comments.
 
Has this philosophy ever been discussed amongst church leaders and stuff? (people like Aquinas and Augustine, etc)

My mind keeps trying to find a “loophole” within this where somehow, I will think up of something that no other philosopher ever thought on this topic, which would somehow give conclusive evidence that I am all alone in existence. Has anyone else ever had those feelings?
 
I think here is the thing that keeps this fear going…

With every thing else, no matter how scary an convincing,…I always have the safety route of “The church is right. This fear is against church teaching. Therefore the fear is false.”

For this its a little different though. I don’t know if I can use that because for this fear is the fear that Jesus and the church are just figments of my imagination…so any declaration of dogma would be an illusion.

If I can get over this aspect of the solipist/brain in a vat fear, I believe I will be in good shape.

Any suggestions?
 
Ben_Sinner said:
. . . Any suggestions?
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  • avoid psychoactive chemicals,
  • spend more time with people,
  • think about something else like where you want to go in your life,
  • go dancing
  • find a girlfriend
  • do some volunteer work
  • take a break from video games and the computer
  • join a gym/get into shape
  • to be continued
 
You are toying with the notion that objective reality does not exist.

Modern man has been toying with this idea for centuries. It is due to the loss of the very object of discussion, namely the objective world - the object.

Just take note that the universe exists as an objective reality. It can be studied, understood, etc.

Modern thinking and philosophy has lost track of the simple notion of objective reality.

Objective reality: I am, therefore I think
Loss of objective reality: I think, therefore I am
 
Frankenfurter said:
Objective reality: I am, therefore I think
Loss of objective reality: I think, therefore I am
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Objective reality: agere sequitur esse
Loss of objective reality: esse sequitur agere

Is this what you mean?

Christi pax,

Lucretius
 
Lucretius said:
Objective reality: agere sequitur esse
Loss of objective reality: esse sequitur agere

Is this what you mean?
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It’s both. As John Paul II says in his book Memory and Identity:

“We have to go back to the period before the Enlightenment, especially to the revolution brought about by the philosophical thought of Descartes. The cogito, ergo sum (I think, therefore I am) radically changed the way of doing philosophy. In the pre-Cartesian period, philosophy, that is to say the cogito, or rather the cognosco, was subordinate to esse, which was considered prior. To Descartes, however, the esse seemed secondary, and he judged the cogito to be prior. This not only changed the direction of philosophizing, but it marked the decisive abandonment of what philosophy had been hitherto, particularly the philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinas, and namely the philosophy of esse.”
 
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