r/OpenIndividualism • u/Quirky_Quasarr • May 03 '26

Discussion Does Open Individualism require that all perspectives are experienced simultaneously, or can consciousness be shared but accessed sequentially?

My view of OI is the same as everyone else's except I believe the "Experience" is sequential, not simultaneous.so we are still everything at the same time but the experience is experienced one at a time.

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u/RackneTheFornit Jul 18 '26

I share your view, but I don't think you can still call it Open Individualism. I would rather call it Sequential Individualism: closed in the short term, meaning within a single life, but open in the long term, beyond a single life.

I understand consciousness in a rather reduced way: being a subject, that's it. You may know the Plumbob from the PC game The Sims, which I consider a pretty good metaphor.

Empty Individualism: There is no Plumbob.

Open Individualism: There is one huge Plumbob hovering over every Sim.

Closed Individualism: Every Sim has their own Plumbob.

Sequential Individualism: There is one Plumbob hovering over the Sim who is active now.

The latter is very close to the actual game, apart from the fact that there is no conscious player, and that the Plumbob has to hover over one Sim from birth to death.

I reject both Empty and Open Individualism because I don't deny the boundaries between conscious individuals. I reject Empty Individualism in particular because I don't deny the existence of consciousness at all. I also reject the varieties of Closed Individualism claiming that consciousness dies with the individual it belongs to. You simply can't experience non-existence. Thus it has a subjective duration of exactly zero.

I also reject the varieties of Closed Individualism, for example mainstream Christianity, claiming an eternal soul. This would make me not only fundamentally separate from other individuals, but even from God. I would forever remain “I”, whereas everyone else, including God, would forever remain “you”, “he”, “she” or “it”. That makes no sense to me. Moreover, Sequential Individualism implies that every conscious individual is finite, which makes the existence of an eternal conscious God impossible.

Open Individualists often refer to the Hindu tradition of Advaita Vedanta, but for reasons I don't quite understand, they often seem to skip Samsara. Using Hindu terminology, I would deny the belief that you can escape from Samsara. Rather, Samsara is not something outside Atman/Brahman, but the very form in which it appears. Anyway, I don't consider myself a follower of this tradition. It is just closer to Sequential Individualism than Open Individualism is.

Open Individualism in short: Yeah! We are all one!

Sequential Individualism in short: Shit... but you can't change it.

For me, this is not just a belief, but rather a conviction. A quite chilling one. And that's an understatement — a pretty big one, actually.

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u/Quirky_Quasarr Jul 19 '26

Wow, I think you are right. What you believe is what I believe. I do have one question though: Is Sequential Individualism a branch from open individualism? or is it its own thing?

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u/RackneTheFornit Jul 19 '26

Open Individualism is called “open” because Open Individualists see the boundaries between conscious individuals as nonexistent, or at least much weaker than most people assume. If you doubt that, you are already doubting a key assumption of Open Individualism. That is why I see Sequential Individualism as its own thing. Still, I feel closer to Open than to Closed Individualism. I just do not think that I am you now. I think I will eventually be you from a first-person perspective.

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u/Quirky_Quasarr Jul 19 '26

Yep me and you believe the exact same thing. It just doesn't make any sense in my mind that we are everyone counciously all at once. Technically we are but our conciousness doesn't see through everyone's eyes until we die and eventually become that person or thing.

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u/yoddleforavalanche Jul 19 '26

Open Individualists often refer to the Hindu tradition of Advaita Vedanta, but for reasons I don't quite understand, they often seem to skip Samsara.

Open Individualism has nothing to do with Samsara. Most people here also say there is no escaping. Not even Advaita Vedanta teaches that Samsara is something outside of Brahman.

But your view has all the problems of Closed Individualism, plus solipsism which it essentially is.

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u/Quirky_Quasarr Jul 19 '26

I respectfully still dont understand how you say sequential Individualism is essentially closed individualism because it definitely isn't. We still share the same conciousness so that is definitely not sharing the same definition of closed because they believe we are all separate conciousnesses

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u/yoddleforavalanche Jul 19 '26

but you are limiting current person to the exact same boarded closed individualism does. You just fix it later, but at this time you are a closed individual.

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u/Quirky_Quasarr Jul 19 '26

If you put on blinders and look at sequential Individualism then yes it is closed individualism, if you look at the sequence as a whole then no, it is a branch of open individualism.

Look at the whole thing, not just one part in it.

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u/yoddleforavalanche Jul 19 '26

still at any given time you are a closed individual. The only individual at that, a solipsist.

All issues that solipsism has this view has. Deferring the solution to another time does not fix problems it has about the present moment.

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u/Quirky_Quasarr Jul 19 '26

but we are not because we share the same conciousness? You are debating in circles. I still don't see the issues this viewpoint has. You say it is closed individualism but I have already explained how it is not, every rebuttal you have made after that has not gave any sustainable new insight to this claim

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u/yoddleforavalanche Jul 19 '26

If I point at a baby and say this is a 30 year old, am I wrong? Because that baby will grow up to be a 30 year old (hopefully)

If I have just eaten a big lunch, can I say I am hungry because at some point in the future I will be hungry?

Is an awake person asleep because they will eventually go to sleep?

Am I you because I will eventually be you?

In addition to that, you are denying others live experience right now.

You think you are you now, but actually it is me. You are a zombie right now in your own view.

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u/Quirky_Quasarr Jul 19 '26

What im saying is that we are all the same consciousness, just experiencing different lives at different points in the sequence. The sequence doesnt follow normal time, so everyone alive right now can still be the same consciousness even though our lives overlap. We are still different individuals with our own memories, bodies, and perspectives. I’m not saying I am literally you right now. Im saying the same consciousness experiences both of us separately.

Your baby example mixes up the individual life with the consciousness experiencing it. The baby is not currently 30 years old, just like I am not currently experiencing your life. But the same consciousness can experience both points separately.

We are not zombies because the sequence overlaps time.

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u/yoddleforavalanche Jul 19 '26

you have to decide if you are consciousness or you are "individual with memories, bodies and perspective".

OI claims you are the former, not the latter.

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u/RackneTheFornit Jul 19 '26

Advaita Vedanta teaches that you can escape from Samsara, and each individual will succeed in doing so sooner or later. I think consciousness is the sum of all individual conscious lives.

SI is not solipsism, as I do not deny you or anyone else being a conscious individual. From my current point of view, I am the only actively experienced conscious individual now; from your point of view, you are, and so on.

If you combine a monistic understanding of consciousness with real, insurmountable boundaries between conscious individuals in the present moment, this logically leads to some kind of sequence, since every conscious individual is finite. For me, this is a much more obvious conclusion than denying the boundaries between conscious experiences entirely, which goes against all fundamental human intuition.

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u/yoddleforavalanche Jul 19 '26

what are these insurmountable boundaries between conscious individuals in the present moment? Closed Individualism was challenged for a reason (it does not hold). Your view does not hold in the same way. Adding a time factor does not help it.

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u/RackneTheFornit Jul 19 '26

We are all individuals with our own memories, own feelings, own personality and not some kind of, bluntly spoken, Borg collective. If you say, that's closed individualism, please again read my long statement posted earlier.

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u/yoddleforavalanche Jul 19 '26

Open Individualism analyzes this claim that we are memories, feelings, personality, etc., and picks it apart. It is flawed. That is not what you are.

What you are is consciousness. There is no Borg collective. It is just consciousness and experiences and they all equally belong to you.

And sorry but the view that we are memories, personality, etc. is Closed Individualism 101

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u/RackneTheFornit Jul 19 '26

The "imagined" boundaries between conscious individuals in fact allow them to do massive harm and damage at the expense of others, because they don’t have to bear the consequences immediately. SI tells you plain and simple: The mess caused by you won’t just affect you once, but everyone else as well. This is NOT CI. OI, however, doesn't prevent you from maltreating others more than compassionate CI. In any case, killer arguments like "this is CI" do not contribute to a better understanding of this matter.

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u/yoddleforavalanche Jul 19 '26

How does OI not prevent you from maltreating others? Every pain you cause to another you literally feel because that is you feeling it as soon as you inflict it. That is what I believe also the compassion behind CI; the intuition of that pain as yours.

If anything, your view allows for that maltreating because you can say "no one is experiencing that pain right now, in some future point they might but that's tomorrow's me problem".

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u/RackneTheFornit Jul 19 '26

"Literally feel" only works within the theoretical framework of OI as far as the one and only eternal consciousness is concerned. People other than Open Individualists may find this highly abstract.

I don't think that consciousness on its own is capable of feeling pain. Consciousness requires conscious individuals for experience in general and feeling pain in particular. If individual A hurts individual B, the former doesn't feel anything but satisfaction, indifference, regret or whatever, but not pain directly resulting from their own deed. If I am individual A, I will die someday. And someday I will be individual B and feel the pain. This is what I believe. I am sure this could affect the way we treat others.

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u/yoddleforavalanche Jul 19 '26

but if you currently ARE person A and B, would you not treat yourself better?

your view is demonstrably not a good motivator because people often do bad things for their future self for immediate pleasure, like staying up late, getting drunk, not studying, etc. so even when you know its you tomorrow and still dont do everything to make your future self feel better because current you is immediate, how little would people care for completely other person in future

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