Thread: None of you exist!!!

Short answer: You don't know.

But I could just as easily ask the same about you.

Yes, yes. of course we could never know for sure. But the idea is just mind blowing!

I could operate under this belief and walk outside naked, with no worries from being judged by another consciousness. It's all pretend after all. If I get sent to prision, I could end my gaming session with suicide.

Don't worry for me, I haven't lost it that far... yet

No one knows what happens after you die. Death could be just the beginning.

Lucid dreaming, and dreaming in general (really nonlucid dreaming, mostly) has a lot to do with this idea. I've always found it best to just assume that everyone else is, in some capacity, real, even if they're only real insofar as a 3-dimensional digital representation of a Tauren mage is real. If no one else is real, finding out would probably drive a person insane (either gibbering or a megalomaniacal sociopath). If everyone is real (insofar as a bunch of wads of energy joining together to make what appears to be a human being is real), then it's not worth finding out the hard way. So I dont; think it really matters, until we find some way to prove this definitively (and either everyone is real, and we disprove it or not, or everyone is fake, and either I assume everyone;s proved real, I assume everyone;s proved fake, or nothing is ever asumed to be proven).

If no one else is real, and they are just npcs, it wouldn't really make any difference. Everyone would just "think" you're crazy, and you'd probably be locked away regardless of if it's true or not. Real or not, their actions have real effects on your life.

How do we know the topic of this thread really exists?

I think it would be impossible to explain to someone that everyone around him does exist and isn't like a non-playable-character in a game.

Wow, after thinking about this, I'm never going to think about people around me the same way again. Thanks, now I think everybody is an automated character designed to annoy or entertain me.

Originally Posted by Everlong

Wow, after thinking about this, I'm never going to think about people around me the same way again. Thanks, now I think everybody is an automated character designed to annoy or entertain me.

See, that's what they WANT you to think...

We are real...and this message wasn't made to make you think we arn't real.

Yeah this dates back to Descartes.

Basically you can't know, but really, the one consciousness we know for sure to exist, our own, is assosciated with our body and our brain, so it seems reasonable to assume that every other body and brain we see is connected to its own consciousness.

Originally Posted by NeoSioType

I am the only conscious human on this world. You however could easily be compared to as a non-playable-character in a video game. You have no sense of self, no will, ect. Your animated to behave like me, and prepare responses like "I think, therefore I am". It's all just an act, stop pretending.

Ok, all jokes aside. How do I know if this really isn't true? I coud never be you. Or better yet how do you know I'm not an npc and your the only consciousness playing this "massive game"?

ever felt like a ghost? where you can't feel touch? even while inhaling a cigarette, you just don't feel anything but the wind blowing right through you. float off with it say you'z!

Originally Posted by NeoSioType

I am the only conscious human on this world. You however could easily be compared to as a non-playable-character in a video game. You have no sense of self, no will, ect. Your animated to behave like me, and prepare responses like "I think, therefore I am". It's all just an act, stop pretending.

Ok, all jokes aside. How do I know if this really isn't true? I coud never be you. Or better yet how do you know I'm not an npc and your the only consciousness playing this "massive game"?

Excellent, then I can't be blamed for saying this: "Fuck you", I was merely programmed to be a troll.

Just joking, I believe that there was a related thread recently.

Originally Posted by slayer

I think it would be impossible to explain to someone that everyone around him does exist and isn't like a non-playable-character in a game.

I'm feeling in the mood for a particularly cruel psychological prank today, what say we go find someone and pester them in a room full of people told ahead of time to ignore us? See how long it takes him to believe either he's hallucinating, or nobody else is real.

(I'm half kidding. We should run a scientific record of the prank- erm, I mean 'experiment.')

Originally Posted by slayer

See, that's what they WANT you to think...

We are real...and this message wasn't made to make you think we arn't real.

or is it? How do I know you weren't programmed to say that?

I think most people at some point or another entertain the notion that maybe they are the only "real person."

But when you're done mulling that over, give this one a try... Maybe you're the only non-real person! Maybe you are a shared hallucination by the general population.

Originally Posted by NeoSioType

I am the only conscious human on this world. You however could easily be compared to as a non-playable-character in a video game. You have no sense of self, no will, ect. Your animated to behave like me, and prepare responses like "I think, therefore I am". It's all just an act, stop pretending.

Ok, all jokes aside. How do I know if this really isn't true? I coud never be you. Or better yet how do you know I'm not an npc and your the only consciousness playing this "massive game"?

I didn't know you were autistic. Also...who says I act like you bitch! I never heard of you untill whenever it was I heard of you, shit.

http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/~aleslie/Ba...ith%201985.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind

Or perhaps only one person is real in the world, and you are simply the hallucination of that person. For everything is merely that one person's dream...

Or perhaps we are the dream of a giant God who has a flower growing out of his belly button and when he wakes up we go poof.

Oh btw none of the people you think exist really exist since who you think they are is different than who they really are =P. So technically you are right and wrong at the same time.

However I'm confident that Blue exists...as long as I define blue as whatever blue defines himself to be =P.

No, no, no! You're all doing it wrong! We're supposed to agree with him to freak him out! >:U

Originally Posted by Abra

No, no, no! You're all doing it wrong! We're supposed to agree with him to freak him out! >:U

Quiet, you. This thread is for real people to post.

Originally Posted by skysaw

Quiet, you. This thread is for real people to post.

How do I know that you're not real and your just saying that...

Originally Posted by slayer

How do I know that you're not real and your just saying that...

Those who are real, know.

I'm offended how dare you say I exist...

What is this "real" mean? A soul?

Edit: I just had a thought: suppose we were all in the matrix. One day you rise out of the matrix and find that there are only 13 people in the "real world." You think, "What? All those people were just illusions?" But let's suppose you find out there's another level and when you rise into that one, you find only 4 people are real. And suppose you take that one level further again, and find out only YOU are real. But what if there are more levels, and up above, you don't even exist? Basically, what is real?