Do you ever suspect that nobody else is real?

[ViaCrucis]

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).

That's certainly how the Greek philosopher Heraclitus saw it, that "everything was change", there was no permanence in the cosmos. The opposing view was that of Parmenides, that in fact nothing changes at all, that everything is sameness.

Is reality fundamentally about the ever-shifting flux of everything; or is reality fundamentally about something truly real and solid?

Is the tree behind the ever growing trunk and spreading branches and dying-and-regrowing leaves every year something real in itself; or is the only reality the growing trunk, the branches, the leaves which wither, die, and regrow?

Is there a real you, a you that is more than just the sum of your parts, the sum of your experiences, more than just the shifting feelings and sentiments that can wane and fade with the passing of days and the growing of age--are you, as you, something that is actually real?

The Christian answer to that is yes. You really do exist, not just as the sum of parts and experiences, but as yourself. And, in the same way, this is also true of the whole universe. The tree is more than just a growing-and-then-dying woody sprout, there is something inherently and fundamentally real about the tree as a tree. Something real about the stone as a stone. The universe is objectively really real.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[2PhiloVoid]

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.

...Oh sure! I suspect people aren't for real all the time, like every other day. So, I ask them, "Hey you! Are you for real?"

Then, I give them this puzzled look, and [surprisingly for me] they give me a puzzled look in return ...

... and I never can figure out why.

 

[Daniel Marsh]

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.

Only them that I can put my hand through.

 

[Unqualified]

We all think therefore we all are. Do you think you are capable of being so many people. I have people in my head but not all these. I have imagination but not to cause this website to write to me. Solipsism sounds egocentric that only I exist because it is so hard to cross boundaries. Are we so free and unencumbered to create satisfying relationships with our whole mind being enraptured by someone of our own making. And what about suffering? Why do we chose that if not victims of an outside world. How lonely when we realize the darkness all around. Where would our coping be then. Other people are an answer.
I think drugs bring about the thing and the movie, wearing away at the encompassing membrane of reality. That is what we wanted to expand our minds and now to clean up the messes? Or to figure out if it’s true or if we should go there. Would we lose ourselves and life or not, so we dabble. It’s all part of growing up I gess.
Only some thoughts. Do you doubt yourself? So you have a full range of emotions inherently and nobody else exists. For what purpose. If you don’t believe in God and the Bible it could be true. If you have experienced some pretty wild stuff this can seem like an intriguing truth. I hope you are good for yourself.

 

[Tone]

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.

Are you saying that eternal matter is God?

Also, I would like to quote this post in another thread.

May I?

 

[cloudyday2]

We all think therefore we all are. Do you think you are capable of being so many people. I have people in my head but not all these. I have imagination but not to cause this website to write to me. Solipsism sounds egocentric that only I exist because it is so hard to cross boundaries. Are we so free and unencumbered to create satisfying relationships with our whole mind being enraptured by someone of our own making. And what about suffering? Why do we chose that if not victims of an outside world. How lonely when we realize the darkness all around. Where would our coping be then. Other people are an answer.
I think drugs bring about the thing and the movie, wearing away at the encompassing membrane of reality. That is what we wanted to expand our minds and now to clean up the messes? Or to figure out if it’s true or if we should go there. Would we lose ourselves and life or not, so we dabble. It’s all part of growing up I gess.
Only some thoughts. Do you doubt yourself? So you have a full range of emotions inherently and nobody else exists. For what purpose. If you don’t believe in God and the Bible it could be true. If you have experienced some pretty wild stuff this can seem like an intriguing truth. I hope you are good for yourself.

Dreams can be very vivid. Also if only my mind exists to search for glitches in my own dream then there is a good chance that glitches will go unnoticed. We live in a moment and a limited perspective. I don't know what happens out of my sight, and often I can't remember what I saw just a few moments ago.

 

[Unqualified]

But if you are a mind you invented sight. Quick let’s be circumspect, I said to myself. Yes we are a little dull sometimes. I’m having a heck of a time with boredom. We are finite beings with a need for Gods mercy and protection behind the scenes.

 

[renniks]

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.

Sounds like a fun game...are you serious?

 

[Unqualified]

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.

christians can take thoughts captive... through it all we have a sound mind, we know the truth. Anything not in obedience to Jesus, I take captive so it won’t harm me.

 

[Albion]

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.

Not with me. I figure that Descartes was right.

 

[cloudyday2]

Sounds like a fun game...are you serious?

Yep. I am not convinced this is the case, but I wonder about it. Often random events seem suspiciously convenient.

 

[renniks]

Yep. I am not convinced this is the case, but I wonder about it. Often random events seem suspiciously convenient.

I read a science fiction story once, where the main character was convinced that everything was for his benefit... And that all the roads and towns were being built out in front of him as he traveled. It was quite entertaining but I didn't take it seriously. We used to discuss this kind of stuff at work when I had a boring job. One of my favorites is: what if you're really just a figment of someone else's imagination?

Wouldn't random events being not so random, actually be evidence for a Creator behind the scenes? I don't mean as a puppet master, but someone who would intervene in certain circumstances, that we tend to call miracles.

 

[Jok]

Yep. I am not convinced this is the case, but I wonder about it. Often random events seem suspiciously convenient.

I think it’s funny when someone pointed out to me the irony of somebody arguing with another person that Solipsism is true. It’s like if that’s what you believe then would you please get a grip and stop arguing with yourself lol!?

 

[Zoness]

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.

Thinking on this it occurred to me that Pantheism and Panpsychism kind of imply the same idea from a different angle; we are all of one unified substance wherein consciousness is a fundamental property but since we are all one substance, arguing with others would be like arguing with yourself!

 

[cloudyday2]

Wouldn't random events being not so random, actually be evidence for a Creator behind the scenes? I don't mean as a puppet master, but someone who would intervene in certain circumstances, that we tend to call miracles.

The problem is that something to help me might harm you. I might learn something important from the news that my best friend died in some horribly painful and pointless way. It works much better if my best friend isn't real.

 

[cloudyday2]

Thinking on this it occurred to me that Pantheism and Panpsychism kind of imply the same idea from a different angle; we are all of one unified substance wherein consciousness is a fundamental property but since we are all one substance, arguing with others would be like arguing with yourself!

What I actually suspect (at times) is that there are other people, but we all exist in our personalized universes with shadow-versions of other people. So in my universe, the shadow-you is loosely inspired by the real-you, but it isn't quite the same and doesn't live the same life. Similarly there is a shadow-me in your universe. At times our universes might have some content that is nearly identical, and sometimes it might be somewhat different. How we behave in our personalized universes might inspire similar behavior or personality of our shadow-selves in the universes of others, so they are somewhat linked together.

 

[renniks]

The problem is that something to help me might harm you. I might learn something important from the news that my best friend died in some horribly painful and pointless way. It works much better if my best friend isn't real.

I'm not seeing how living in a fantasy world helps anyone.

 

[cloudyday2]

I'm not seeing how living in a fantasy world helps anyone.

It would be similar to a pilot learning in a flight simulator.

 

[renniks]

It would be similar to a pilot learning in a flight simulator.

Sooner or later you have to fly a real plane.

 

[Oseas]

Often I suspect that I am being tested inside a phony universe for unknown reasons.

Analyzing your list of conjectures and fantasies, your brain "travels" through unknown and false environments or "phony universe", or yet environments that do not exist except in your imaginations, wandering around in nothingness, lost in space, and the worst is that you suspect unconciously is being tested, as if being dragged by a black hole, as an unknown and "phony universe".

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.

What I know that is able to read your mind is the Word of God, because the Word is God, He created the angels, He is Omniscient, Omnipresent, and Omnipotent. Therefore, who is able to read your mind is the Word of God; For the Word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged Sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Hebrews 4:v.12

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.

As I said above, only the Word of God is able to read your mind, it because the Word is God, understand? He is Omniscient, Omnipresent, and Omnipotent. Marvelous.

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.

Only the Word of God can help you to discern and understand those things, but exclusively by the Spirit of God, not by other spirits, spirits of lie, as is revealed in John 8:v.44-45- Check it out.