Some abstract ruminations...

[Vance]

Often, I find myself thinking and questioning everything around me so much I despair. As Socrates said: "True knowledge only exists in knowing that you know nothing." That is a comforting quote for me. Anyway, almost everyone is familiar with the brain in a vat concept. This is very old territory, but I was thinking about it, and putting various twists on it. What if everyone had their own world? (This is partially less effective because I am the one telling you, so pretend you thought this up on your own) What if the "human race" or, more broadly, sentient beings, all had their own universe that surrounded them and housed them? Everyone, everything and every law of matter, physics or ethics only applied to your completely unique universe. You are effectively the only true, thinking being in your world. Imagine the next person over from you had his own universe, where everything operated differently. This would make you very special. China, beans, asteroids, computers and the French Revolution only exist in your world. Would you feel a certain pride in your environment? Could your enlightened self step back and say: "This is a wonderful world of mine." Obviously, pretending I wasn't telling you now, would you pick out things that were neat about your world? Imagine telling someone else. The Roman Empire was a great civilization that ruled the Italian Peninsula. Your Roman Empire. Does this put you in a different perspective? Maybe it does, maybe this is too abstract or just too simple and boring, but tell me what you think. It's definitely not enlightening or anything, just food for thought.

[hungrymanz]

I think you are getting on something like solipsism. How this philosophy is utilized and how it affects your own actions, if you allow it to, is up to you to decide.

[tkdyo]

so when you interact with someone it is similar to galactic cannabilsim?

[Vance]

so when you interact with someone it is similar to galactic cannabilsim? ?

[tkdyo]

well, I was kind of shrinking what you said to galaxies instead of universes. So Im asking, if two people interact, then do their universes mesh and must come to an equilibrium in their realities?

[Vance]

More like you dying and meeting everyone else who had their own world.

[juroara]

these kinds of what ifs can only go so far. just like the brain in the vat, you will never be able to prove you are a brain in a vat or that you aren't! what is more important is to understand, is essentially, your consciousness is your only reality the perspective of reality that your consciousness creates, is that little bubble of a world that you live in the quality of the world that you live in depends entirely on that which you choose to be conscious of the choice is yours!