On the recurring ghost of solipsism

[genandnic]

On these forums, it all starts with a simple, elegant premise, often borrowed from the highest teachings of non-duality:

All is One.

Consciousness is fundamental.

There is no intrinsic, separate self, meaning everything is absolutely and fundamentally connected by virtue of its very Being.

A premise on which we can all agree. It feels true, liberating.

But then, someone takes that beautiful, boundless idea and follows its thread of logic to a stark and desolate conclusion.

Then all hell breaks loose.

The argument is always the same. It is presented with the cold, irrefutable clarity of a mathematical proof. If there is only one indivisible substance—Consciousness—and everything else is merely an appearance within it, then the concept of an "other" conscious being is a logical impossibility. Everyone else then must be an appearance in my own mind, says the lonely solipsist. You, reduced to nothing but a complex, yet convincing puppet, but a puppet nonetheless. Your joys, your sorrows, your inner world—they are all just images playing on the single screen of the speaker's mind.

I have seen this play out over a hundred times. It’s a profound and often painful drama, and it’s almost never about the logic itself. It’s about what happens when the intellectual mind tries to build a fortress around a truth that was meant to be boundless.

The conversation always splits into two camps, two archetypes of the spiritual seeker.

First, there is The Solipsist. It's crucial to understand that they are not usually driven by ego or malice. In fact, it's often the opposite. They are driven by a fierce devotion to intellectual honesty. They have glimpsed the truth of Oneness and feel a sacred duty to protect it from the contamination of duality. To them, admitting the existence of another independent consciousness feels like a betrayal of the ultimate truth, a step backward into the illusion of separation.

They stand on the razor's edge of their logic, and from that vantage point, everything is perfectly clear. The universe is tidy. There are no messy paradoxes, no truly unpredictable others. There is only the Self and its projections. It is an airtight explanation, a complete picture. But it is a picture of a universe with only one inhabitant. They become a ghost in the machine of their own making, rattling the chains of their perfect logic, asking why no one else can see how simple it all is. They are not trying to erase you; they are trying, desperately, to convince themselves.

On the other side, you have The Mediator. This person feels the truth of Oneness just as deeply, but they cannot and will not abandon the truth of their lived experience. Their truth is found not just in silent meditation, but in the eyes of a loved one, in the shared laughter with a friend, in the sting of being misunderstood. They hear the Solipsist’s logic and recognize its power, but they also feel its profound error in their bones.

The Mediator’s task is much harder. They must use the clumsy, dualistic tools of language to describe a reality that is both one and many. They offer analogies—the ocean and its waves, the tree and its branches, the single light shining through countless windows. They speak of dreams, where our one mind creates a multitude of seemingly separate selves. They are trying to build a bridge between the absolute and the relative, to show that Oneness doesn't negate multiplicity, but rather expresses itself through it. They are defending not just their own existence, but the sacredness of relationship itself.

I’ve been in both positions. I know the allure of the Solipsist’s fortress. There was a time when I, too, quantumly tunneled into that solipsistic bubble. It is a dark and lonely place, but it is also strangely safe. Nothing can truly hurt you if it isn't real. No one can truly abandon you if they were never there. I was there of my own will, choosing to dream the world in that way.

What I eventually realized is that the entire debate is a category error. It’s a symptom of believing that Truth is something outside of us that we must capture with the right set of words, the right logical formula. But Truth isn't a destination you arrive at through argument. It's the water we're already swimming in.

The way out of the fortress isn't to build a better argument against it. The way out is to willingly open the door. It is to make a choice. It is an act of faith.

My philosophy now is simple: other people exist and experience because I choose to believe they exist and have experiences by assuming it to be so. This is what it means to be A Creator. I grant them their reality in my perception of the world. I choose to believe in the sanctity of their inner world, not because they can prove it to me—they can’t, just as I can’t prove mine to them—but because a universe with other conscious beings is an infinitely richer, more creative, and more compassionate place. A place where we can be Co-Creators. This choice doesn't violate the principle of Oneness. It fulfills it.

When I see this debate unfold now, I don't see a logical disagreement. I see a deep human need being expressed. The Solipsist is crying out to be seen and understood in their profound, isolating insight. The Mediator is crying out for their connections to be honored as real and meaningful. Both are trying to say something true.

The real non-dual understanding is holding both truths at once. Yes, on an absolute level, we are all expressions of one Being. Your consciousness and my consciousness are not two different things. And because of that, I must honor your perspective as being as real and valid as my own. To cause you suffering is, quite literally, to cause myself suffering. To deny your inner world is to impoverish my own.

We are all cells in one larger organism, learning to communicate. Sometimes, a cell might forget it's part of a body and believe it is the entire body. It’s a phase of its development. The role of the other cells isn't to attack it, but to gently keep sending their signals, to keep participating in the shared life of the whole, until that isolated cell remembers where it belongs. The argument is just part of the process. It’s the sound of us learning to be one, together.

What I’ve also come to see is that this debate is rarely about what we think it’s about. On the surface, it’s a clash of metaphysical models. But underneath, it’s a drama about fear and control. The world of "others" is messy, unpredictable, and often painful. Other people have their own wills, their own desires, their own mysterious inner lives that we can never fully access or control. They can misunderstand us, reject us, or leave us. This fundamental otherness is the source of both our greatest joy and our deepest suffering.

The solipsistic conclusion, in its cold and lonely way, offers a perfect solution to this problem. It’s the ultimate defense mechanism. If no one else is real, no one can truly hurt you. The chaos of the world is tamed, reduced to a predictable script playing out in the theater of your own mind. It is the ego’s final, most brilliant trick: to co-opt the ultimate truth of Oneness and turn it into a fortress for the individual self. The "I" that claims to be the one and only consciousness is not the boundless, universal Self of the mystics. It is the small, frightened self, cloaking itself in the robes of the Absolute.

And this is where language fails us so profoundly. We are trying to describe the ocean with a thimble. The words themselves—"one," "many," "I," "you," "self," "other"—are the very tools of separation. Every time we speak, we carve the seamless reality into pieces. The Solipsist takes the word "One" and wields it like a sword, cutting away everything that doesn't fit. The Mediator tries to glue the pieces back together with phrases like "many perspectives of the one," but the seams always show.

We get stuck in the grammar of illusion. We argue over whether the waves are separate from the ocean, forgetting that we are the water itself, trying to describe its own wetness. The argument becomes a feedback loop, a hall of mirrors where the mind can see nothing but its own reflections.

So, how do we break the spell?

Not with a better argument. Not with a more clever analogy. The spell is broken by shifting our attention from the mind to the heart. The real question is not, "What is the most logically consistent model of reality?" The real question is, "Which view makes me more loving? Which view expands my capacity for compassion?"

This is the ultimate test. When you encounter suffering in another being—a friend in tears, a stranger in pain—what does your philosophy do?

The purely logical solipsist is forced into a corner. They must conclude that this suffering is an illusion, a phantom pain in a phantom being. It is a drama on the screen, and while it might be sad, it isn't real. This path, followed to its end, leads to a profound disassociation, a cold and sterile existence. It is the peace of the void, not the peace of a full and open heart.

The other path, the path of the Mediator, leads to a radical empathy. When you see suffering in another, you recognize it as your own. Not metaphorically, but literally. The One Being is experiencing pain through that particular focal point. Their tears are your tears. Their struggle is your struggle. This understanding doesn't erase the boundaries between you and them; it makes those boundaries sacred meeting places. It transforms every interaction into an opportunity for the universe to care for itself.

This is why I no longer engage in the debate on its own terms. I don't deny the solipsist's logic; I simply don't find it to be the most useful or beautiful or life-affirming map of the territory. I choose the map that leads to connection.

The way forward, for all of us caught in these loops, is to practice a kind of gentle humility. It is to admit that the mystery is larger than our minds. It is to listen more than we assert. It is to look at the person arguing for solipsism and see not an opponent, but a reflection of our own capacity for fear and isolation. And it is to look at the person arguing for connection and see a reflection of our own deep yearning to love and be loved.

They are both us. The fortress and the bridge are both structures we build within ourselves. The real spiritual work is not to prove one is right and the other is wrong, but to learn to live in the open field between them, where we can be both unique and united, both an individual and the whole. It’s a paradox, yes. But maybe the truth isn’t a solution to a problem. Maybe it’s a paradox we’re meant to live inside of, with grace.

Edited August 16 by genandnic

[Sempiternity]

Very well written and thoughtful write-up! I'm impressed. 

This forum seems to not value intelligent conversation or viewpoints, but seems more a place that people like to argue. 

I am a hardcore Solipsist. It's the way I see everything, as it's just the most logical conclusion, to me, of what This is all about (verified by many Spiritual God-Consciousness Awakenings). 

It's the way of seeing reality that, for me, leads to the best possible version of reality. It all being One is unity, it collapses the separateness and disconnect. Unity=Love. To me, it's all Self, and Self-Love is to love all of it as Self. Not I love this, but not that, but love it all equally.

And it brings my world down to just this, what is being experienced in Direct Experience, right Now. To me, there is nothing else than this, this right Now. So to me, this, whatever this is Now, is the greatest moment that has ever existed, as it's the only moment that exists. Always Now, no Past, nothing to compare to, no suffering (as suffering is to compare Now to something else), just awe and wonderment at the miracle that is Now/Reality/Being/God/Self. 

So whether it is true is somewhat irrelevant to me. Solipsism is by far the best way to view Reality for me. Solipsism is Peace, is Love.

And I appreciate thoughtful counter-debates like yours, as it keeps me looking at and pondering different viewpoints. Thank you for your post 🙏

 

[Breakingthewall]

5 hours ago, genandnic said:

The argument is always the same. It is presented with the cold, irrefutable clarity of a mathematical proof. If there is only one indivisible substance—Consciousness—and everything else is merely an appearance within it, then the concept of an "other" conscious being is a logical impossibility.

Here is the mistake. The substance is not conciousness, conciousness is a relative idea that leads to solipsism. The one, the absolute, is the open totally, not conciousness. If you want I could develop it because it's obvious 

[Sempiternity]

20 minutes ago, Sempiternity said:

This forum seems to not value intelligent conversation or viewpoints, but seems more a place that people like to argue. 

 

5 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

Here is the mistake. The substance is not conciousness, conciousness is a relative idea that leads to solipsism. The one, the absolute, is the open totally, not conciousness. If you want I could develop it because it's obvious 

Perfect example.

[Breakingthewall]

25 minutes ago, Sempiternity said:

 

Perfect example.

It's not an argue, it's a posible explanation of a mistake, but if the user is not interested it's ok

[tuku747]

4 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

Here is the mistake. The substance is not conciousness, conciousness is a relative idea that leads to solipsism. The one, the absolute, is the open totally, not conciousness. If you want I could develop it because it's obvious 

All I heard was "it's not x it's y"

Implying x is not y

Dualism

If the substance is all things, and all things are made of this one substance, then you have no grounds to say it isn't anything. I could call the substance whatever I want and still be correct. I could give you an argument that the substance of all things is made of galaxies and it would be no different from saying the universe is made of atoms, or energy, or consciousness, or motion, or vibration. Everything is made of everything else. Indra's Net.

Edited August 17 by tuku747

[Breakingthewall]

4 minutes ago, tuku747 said:

All I heard was "it's not x it's y"

Implying x is not y

Dualism

If the substance is all things, and all things are made of this one substance, then you have no grounds to say it isn't anything. I could call the substance whatever I want and still be correct. I could give you an argument that the substance of all things is made of galaxies and it would be no different from saying the universe is made of atoms, or energy, or consciousness, or motion, or vibration. Everything is made of everything else. Indra's Net.

You could say that reality is made of bananas, but that would be a confusing definition. If you say that bananas are made of reality, you communicate more clearly, since you're speaking to another mind and want your vision to be its vision

[OBEler]

@genandnic thanks, very well written. I can totally understand your position and I share it too.

[theleelajoker]

8 hours ago, OBEler said:

@genandnic thanks, very well written. I can totally understand your position and I share it too.

+1

Really liked the write up, too. Quite impressive.

 

There's power in choosing and assuming. And I hope your choices pay off for you.

IME just not always simple to change believes just like that, it requires certain kind of experiences. 

Like the paradox> "truth" 

[Razard86]

There is only nothingness which is a blank, a complete blank and because it is blank it is able to hold infinite potential, and the actualization of that potential is an appearance. That appearance is an expression of nothingness which creates an illusion of solidity because it is infinitely powerful but upon honest investigation that appearance is not tangible. Touch a wall, notice that the physicality you experience is just a sensory feeling. All of experience is just a sensory feeling, you have only ever experienced sensory feeling your entire life. 

Reality is just sensory feeling aware of itself, its sound aware of itself, touch aware of itself, interpretation aware of itself, emotion aware of itself, silence aware of itself, smell aware of itself, it really is just one experience aware of itself and that is it. If I take away your sensory experience, sound (both internal chatter and what you call outside noises), physical touch, smell, sight, and the ability to think at all, you would cease to be human. This means that what we call human is just a bundle of sensory feelings aware of itself.

Human is a state of mind. Now notice that the human is afraid of its true nature. Its true nature is DEATH. It spends all of its life running from its true nature. For all the poetic things you wrote all you are communicating is that you are afraid to be what you truly are. You are limitless potentiality with NO MANIFESTATION. No manifestation is a LACK OF APPEARANCE. The funny thing is every time you sleep at night you get closer to your true nature than you do when you wake up every morning. Notice when you went to sleep nothing was harmed. 

The acceptance of Solipsism threatens nothing in actuality because YOU CANNOT BE HARMED. Even saying your identity is threatened isn't even true. What is threatened is your INTERPRETATION. You fear that if you some how accept Nothingness that you are accepting meaninglessness not realizing that Nothingness is actually = INFINITE VALUE. Nothingness is the creation, the expression of all value. The only thing that limits value is SOMETHINGNESS which IS THE ILLUSION. It's the belief, and rejection of nothingness that creates the experience of LACK. 

One of the biggest human issues of selfishness, of individualism, is FOMO which is the Fear Of Missing Out. As long as you think and actually believe that OTHER is not YOU, you will believe you are missing out or that somehow that other human is better than you or is living a better life than you. When you realize that human is YOU then you realize you can't actually live an inferior life. So the TRUTH brings peace because it ends all comparison, it ends all drama, it even ends all conflict because when your enemy succeeds against you, its just you succeeding against yourself.

It is the attachment to individuality that creates all evil. Evil is just individuality. Individuality doesn't disappear in Solipsism it EXPANDS and becomes UNLIMITED!!! Its Expansion of individuality that is Pure Goodness, because it is a Goodness that equally takes and expresses all sides. This is the beauty of Solipsism which can only be raged against when there is a profound misunderstanding that it is ABSOLUTELY TRUE regardless of how you feel about it.

[Someone here]

Well solipsism is quite radical isn't it ? The Point is that doesn't have anything to do with assessing truth-value to it .

Anyone who wholeheartedly think that another human beings are not seeing him while he sees them is literally mentally ill and its a matter of few hundred years before this will get classified as mental illness issue and all solipsists are going to be locked in a nut ward. 

With that being said..that is ..solipsism being a mental disease..that has ABSOLUTELY Nothing to do with its truth-value .

 

[OBEler]

@Someone here you will also be locked in for claiming you are god. 

You give psych wards the authority for holding the truth.

 

[Someone here]

3 hours ago, OBEler said:

@Someone here you will also be locked in for claiming you are god. 

You give psych wards the authority for holding the truth.

 

Then you misunderstood everything I said .

What I said again is that solipsism is madness but that doesn't mean it's false (doesn't mean its true either).

Is solipsism true ? 

Who the FUCK knows am I right? 

"This" might be a dream but It can be a joyful one. And that is all that matters.

[OBEler]

@Someone here ah yes, now I understand.

[Oppositionless]

On 8/19/2025 at 9:56 AM, Someone here said:

With that being said..that is ..solipsism being a mental disease..that has ABSOLUTELY Nothing to do with its truth-value .

 

I think solipsism is true in a sense. You really don't know anything, solipsism is pure not knowing . 

[Oppositionless]

On 8/19/2025 at 9:56 AM, Someone here said:

With that being said..that is ..solipsism being a mental disease..that has ABSOLUTELY Nothing to do with its truth-value .

 

I think solipsism is true in a sense. You really don't know anything, solipsism is pure not knowing . 

[Yeah Yeah]

I can understand oneness but see it is the fact of duality to be human and this supposed other of which who can love you or fight you or gift you or kill you as an undeniable contradiction to the idea of a lonely dreamer. Like if I was solipsist then my personal life would surely have been most optimal for myself like a conscious mind imagination environment blissing and blessing and enlightening me with my being maybe even a physical experience of a personalized heaven paradise dream but instead it seems other people are chaotic out in the scaffolding of my linear finite perception or how an animal could desire me dead or natural events or just social manifestations as taxes or mental wards or prisons or survival needs, I mean things go on that seems wild sometimes or opposing or challenging or lacking spiritual reward and existential resonance - Correct or challenge me on anything I'm blind sighted against 

Edited Saturday at 09:39 AM by Yeah Yeah

[Yeah Yeah]

It gives me the impression that say if solipsism is the truth, and say you are all my dream, then I'd be the only one here if solipsism is true, (I am independently typing this, but from your view this could just be put off as dream material pretending to be conscious) anyways from my pov if this philosophy were true well for some reason I'm a wounded dreamer in survival mortality vulnerability seeking ... And I wonder to what extent of the dream scaffolding is dream material - I could name some pinacle ideas I have going as the lonely dreamer, one is god ... So Leo would be my dream character and so when dream characters speak of god or love to what extent is that just dream too and not even beyond the dream like there would be no waking to white light like nde reports are just dream equal in substance to Leo being a dream character 

Edited Saturday at 09:46 AM by Yeah Yeah

[Yeah Yeah]

@Someone hereSolipsism isn't madness if for some people they find integration I mean paying taxes is madness bro, to have to die is madness bro, to have to survive daily is madness bro, have you ever been behind on rent madness bro 

Edited Saturday at 09:52 AM by Yeah Yeah