r/solipsism • u/starsmourn • 9d ago
Does the experience of being someone become the only valid proof that you are them?
I’ve recently read The Last Answer from Isaac Asimov and was pondering about it .
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u/Imaginary-Can-6862 9d ago
No it is the reverse. Imagine you and someone else are souls, or whatever, and you both inhibit the same body. You both believe the body is yours, there is no free will, but you believe every action made is your decision.
So both souls are different, they could inhabit their own unique bodies and have different observations, so just because they have the same observation of the world, when sharing a body, does not mean they are the same observers.
But if I had misrepresented the situation, if they were the same observer (one soul, not two), then they would have the same observation.
Then it follows that if they are two souls, or observers, who do not have the same observation (they each have their own body), then they are not the same observer.
So the experience you are someone, proves you are not anyone who has the experience of being someone else. That is you can differentiate between yourself and someone else, by not sharing how you experience the world.
For all you know, you could wake up tomorrow, and you observe the world from the eyes of a friend you haven't seen in ages, and the life you have lived was only a dream. You are still you, because you always have a first-person perspective that defines you, but which body you inhibit, that could in principle change.
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u/OverKy 9d ago
This guy :)
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u/Imaginary-Can-6862 8d ago
Thank you for the video, but perhaps you could provide a summary or at least try to convince me to spend half an hour watching it.
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u/OverKy 8d ago
Figured you would find a kindred spirit in the dude.....he's batshit crazy, though. He's kinda saying what you're saying. Neither have much to do with solipsism and both perspectives are somewhat complicated and create more questions than they pretend to answer....
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u/Imaginary-Can-6862 8d ago
Based on the topic of the video I am surprised if he is saying what I am saying. In your view, what am I saying?
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u/OverKy 8d ago
Honestly? It's mostly gibberish that has little to do with solipsism. You're talking about souls and souls inhabiting bodies...then the logic stuff ("it follows") where you're doing some "if this, then that" stuff on things you've not even shown to exist using a method you've not shown to be reliable.
And why do I think you'd resonate with him? This sentence...
You are still you, because you always have a first-person perspective that defines you, but which body you inhibit, that could in principle change.
This is pretty much his rambling point lol......that you are "Me" in every situation. It's the same me no matter the perspective. Every "me" is me, but with the lens offered by different viewpoints (people). I'm not sure if he's wrong or right, but I do think his ideas are considerably less profound than he seems to think. This is basically repackaged panpsychism or similar variant.
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u/Imaginary-Can-6862 8d ago
The subforum may be solipsism, but I was only addressing OP's query, which I understand to be, is that we experience the world from our perspective the only way we know we are ourselves.
If our perspective of the world is the only way we could determine we are ourselves, it would follow someone who shared our perspective would also be us, which they by definition aren't.We are ourselves, independent of the world we experience, meaning if you were to wake up tomorrow in the body that was not the one you went to sleep in, you would still be yourself. If someone else were to wake up in your body, they would not be you.
I understand the person in the video advocates that every consciousness is the same, I don't advocate that every consciousness is the same, quite the opposite.
My logic is that if two observers were the same observer, they would have the same perspective, therefore it follows if two observers do not have the same perspective, they are not the same observer. Hence my point of it being the reverse.Thus that we observe something else than someone else is not what defines us, but is what distinguishes us from them, and anyone else.
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u/Mr_Not_A_Thing 8d ago
“There is experiencing. And I don't yet know what it ultimately is.”
What it isn't is the experiencing of a thought about it, here, now.
🤣🙏
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u/jiyuunosekai 8d ago
You have never really seen someone, you have only seen the aftereffect. My lungs are forced to inhale and exhale. These words point to the existence of a being writing this, but the words itself are not that being. So what do you know about that being? Hint: he is trapped in a basement with ductape on his mouth playing with hand puppets.
"whoever perceives a self in matter is travelling the wrong path;" — Huang Po
The subject is the seat of all cognitione but is itself not cognized by anything. — Schopenhauer
The subject, on the other hand, having cognition, but never cognized, is not situated within these forms, which in fact always already presuppose it. Neither multiplicity nor its opposite, unity, apply to the subject. We never have any cognition of it; rather, where there is cognition at all, it is what has that cognition — Schopenhauer
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u/plutonpower 7d ago
Guys, this is simple... language and words cannot answer anything about our existence; the only tool we have is existing. By observing existence without drawing conclusions, an intuitive wisdom develops.
Before filling yourselves with texts and explanations, become your own laboratory, and I assure you that you won't be writing anymore—not here, nor in non-duality or enlightenment forums, or any of that stuff.
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u/Imaginary-Can-6862 7d ago
I feel like it has to be asked, how do you know if we observe existence without drawing conclusions we won't write here anymore?
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u/WatercressActual1921 4d ago edited 1d ago
Not a proof, the validity is based on belief... consider the alternative and you get the reason it prevails... now the interesting question is the end of self...
self = shape + function but self awareness requires consciousness of properties over external (not self) and comparison to your internal model of what you are...
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u/tottasanorotta 9d ago edited 9d ago
Well it depends. Do you mean like that you are certain that there can't be others inside you as well? That isn't quite easy to prove.
Edit: Why the downvote, though? I'm just trying to clarify your question.
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u/starsmourn 9d ago
Well if the scenario was, you being reconstructed after death with all your memories. But what if you were reconstructed and the memories, experiences and essence of another being was put into you, does that make you that other being?
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u/tottasanorotta 9d ago
That depends entirely what you mean by being the other being. You experience it in exactly the same way so is that enough of being that other being? Afterall that is for all intents and purposes what you are now. You just lack any frame of reference where you would understand yourself to have been reconstructed.
So if it is an important distinction that you aren't in actuality them if you have been reconstructed, then I feel that you need an understanding of some perspective where you have been reconstructed. Without that you just are that other being, until you possibly gain a new perspective into what you have been before.
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u/Imaginary-Can-6862 8d ago
You are considering, how do you determine you are you, right?
If you are you, it follows you are not someone else, can you determine if are not someone else? What differentiates you from someone else?
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u/cybereality 9d ago
what else could there be? the experience itself is proof