A question about solipsism - am I missing something, or is there a step beyond?

[Zeidiez]

Hey everyone,

I've been consuming Leo's content for a while now, and I want to start by saying: I agree with like 90% of what he teaches. The deconstruction of rationality series? Absolutely on point. The stuff about survival, self-deception, the limits of science, the importance of direct experience over belief - all of it resonates deeply. I've done the work. Psychedelics, contemplation, years of reading philosophy and theology (especially Eastern Orthodox mysticism, which I think has some seriously underrated insights on these topics).

So this isn't coming from a place of "Leo is wrong and I'm right." It's coming from a genuine puzzle I can't resolve.

Here's where I get stuck: the solipsism episode.

Leo says: "You are the only conscious thing in existence. There are no other minds. You are God, completely and absolutely."

I've had experiences where the boundary between self and other dissolves. I get it. The partition feels artificial. Everything seems to be "me" in some expanded sense. I'm not denying that experience is real.

But here's my question: Does the dissolution of the boundary between self and other prove that I AM the totality? Or does it just show that both self and other participate in something infinitely larger than both?

Let me put it differently. When Leo says he has "absolute consciousness" and is "conscious of everything," I want to ask: how do you verify the non-existence of what lies outside your current field of awareness? To say "there's nothing outside my consciousness" seems to require you to have already checked "outside" - which is a contradiction.

My alternative interpretation: What if the experience of boundary dissolution is real, but the interpretation is off by one step?

Instead of: "The boundary dissolved, therefore I am everything"

What about: "The boundary dissolved, therefore I participate in something infinitely larger than my previous sense of self - but that something is still infinitely larger than my expanded self"

In other words: God IS us (from God's perspective), but God also transcends us infinitely. We are not God, but we are made in God's image - our consciousness is the finite version of the infinite. It can expand, approach God, but that approach is itself an infinite journey. There's always more.

Why does this matter?

If Leo's version is true, then "awakening" is essentially recognizing a static fact: you were always everything, you just forgot. The journey ends.

If my version is true, awakening is entering an infinite process of expansion. There's no ceiling. Theosis (to use the Orthodox term) is eternal growth into God, not absorption into a blob where distinctions disappear.

A few concrete questions:

Leo, here's where I genuinely get stuck, and I'd love to hear your take: When you say you became "absolutely conscious of everything" and verified this many times - how do you distinguish between "I experienced the actual infinite and I AM that infinite" versus "I experienced an expansion so vast that I couldn't perceive any limits, but what lies beyond those limits still exists"?

A fish that expands to fill its entire ocean won't perceive the sky. But the sky is still there. The absence of perceived exterior doesn't necessarily prove the absence of exterior - it might just mean the exterior is beyond current perception.

Here's an alternative interpretation I'm playing with: maybe we don't perceive "outside" precisely because we're not supposed to. If our barriers dissolved completely, we'd mix with other entities, lose our distinctiveness, get "stained" by everything else. So we have barriers - necessary ones. This makes us, in a sense, always experientially alone. Islands. Enclosed. But that doesn't mean other islands don't exist - it means we interact indirectly, through a shared matrix that is itself a portion of God (not the totality).

The solipsistic intuition would then be a misreading of a real phenomenon: we feel alone because we ARE enclosed. But enclosed doesn't mean "only."

You've said other teachers (Tolle, Spira, etc.) thought they reached the end but hadn't - you went beyond their position of "we're all part of a larger God's mind." Fair enough. But then: what rules out a "beyond" to your "beyond"? If they were wrong about having reached the ceiling, what makes you certain you've actually hit it?

I ask this not as a gotcha, but because the mystical traditions I trust most (Maximus the Confessor, Gregory of Nyssa, the hesychasts) are extremely careful here. Even in the highest union with God, the human remains human. They call it "distinction without separation." Not theological timidity - but recognition that if the finite actually BECOMES the infinite, there's no more relationship, no more love, no more journey. Just collapse into undifferentiated unity.

Your model feels like collapse to me. Mine feels like infinite adventure - always more Source, always more Light, always further to go.

But I'm genuinely open to being wrong. What am I missing?

Looking forward to the discussion.

Edited 9 hours ago by Zeidiez

[Someone here]

I don't know...but ...

You are right in that it is obviously relative and more nuanced than "Someone here is the only thing in existence " .it wouldn't need a 3 hours of rambling if it was that simple ..even though Leo does claim that regardless. The point seems to be that the boundaries between me And you dissolve completely as you approach infinite consciousness.  Then you say" but infinity Is ever elastic and there is always  more infinity to infinity"...yes sure but infinity is always you and not other..but in the ordinary state of consciousness like right now there is a dividing line between my left testicle and right testicle..it appears that way to the human eyes..not under a microscope or if you take a Leo brand of 5 meo..so it is relative to state of consciousness. In sober state of consciousness materialism holds true..but in high states of consciousness there is no one but you . But notice that even then that doesn't matter .you can choose to see it as positive or negative thing .or you can Forget about it and enjoy the weather. 

[LastThursday]

I'd just verify it from first principles. Here would be my example thinking on it (this is not necessarily my view don't argue with me over it):

1. If Solipsism is true, then it should hold all the time and all circumstances.

2. It shouldn't matter if I'm high on drugs or sober, it should still hold.

3. I'm aware that there is existence.

4. Is there anything I'm aware of that doesn't exist (in the broadest sense)? No.

5. Then everything I'm aware of exists.  Does the converse hold?

6. Yes, because I can only truly know something exists if I'm aware of it. Anything else is conjecture and construction.

7. What do I mean by aware? That I'm having a direct sensation of it in the moment, right now.

8. Does a thing exist when I stop having a direct awareness of it? Yes, but only as a construction in the mind.

9. Do other people have awareness of existence?

10. Do other people exist? Yes.

11. Am I directly aware of their awareness? No I don't think so. I only seem to have awareness from "my" viewpoint. It's possible my idea of other people having awareness is a pure construction in my mind.

12. Aren't other people the same as me? I have arms and legs and need to eat and sleep just like them. If I'm aware, surely they're aware too. Can I prove it? No. Because I only have their body language and what they tell me to go on, and that is second hand knowledge, and possibly unreliable or untrue. Secondly second hand knowledge is in no way the same thing as direct awareness, the map is not the territory.

13. What is fundamentally stopping my awareness being "transferred" to someone else? Is it a fundamental limitation?

14. Many options for solving 13 are apparent. Perhaps, "my" awareness is completly incompatible with "their" awareness, so I can't "see" theirs. Maybe there is only one awareness and it is split into many disconnected compartments. Maybe there is only one awareness full stop. Maybe my awareness is a patchwork of very many different awarenesses, that fight for attention, and we all share them.  But we each have a different makeup of awarenesses.

15. Is awareness here more fundamental than the stuff in awareness? Yes, because for existence to be true only awareness can confirm it, it doesn't matter what is being made aware of.

16. Ah, so awareness is more fundamental than materiality (content of awareness)? Yes. So materiality comes from awareness, not the other way round.

17. If everything must come through awareness, then everything is awareness and there is nothing outside of it. Then everything that exists is in awareness: yes. If it isn't in awareness it doesn't exist: yes. 

18. When I say awareness do I also mean consciousness? Absolutely, I'd use the two words interchangeably in this context.

19. But surely in 17, stuff doesn't just pop out of existence and back again that's ridiculous. Yes, but what is my direct experience telling me? Exactly that. But then, where does stuff go when it is not in awareness? Nowhere, it is out of awareness, it doesn't exist. How does it come back then? There is a difference between awareness itself and the content of awareness. There's absolutely nothing stopping the content doing what it likes.

20. Surely materiality must be true, because the same stuff comes in and out of awareness all the time? Yes, it's true in that sense, because it explains the content of awareness well, but materiality doesn't explain awareness itself.

21. Isn't the content of awareness the same as awareness itself? Yes you could argue that. I have no answer to that way of seeing things. But if it's true then every single thing in existence has the quality of awareness attached to it. The question is, are each of those awarenesses the same? No because if the content is awareness, then each bit of content is different. But isn't there an overarching awareness? Yes and no, you could argue both ways.

22. Surely Solipsism requires an "I" to be aware off stuff. Yes, yes it does. 

23. Do "I" exist? Yes I am aware of myself. Am I a construct or do I exist absolutely? That is the crux of Solipsism. If I am a construct then Solipsism is hogwash. If not, and I can disprove the existence of other awarenesses, then Solipsism is absolute and True (but see 12).

 

Edited 1 hour ago by LastThursday

[Monster Energy]

There is no “beyond.”

The need for something more is just the ego projecting infinity outside of itself.

When that collapses, the search ends.

 

[Zeidiez]

2 hours ago, Someone here said:

I don't know...but ...

You are right in that it is obviously relative and more nuanced than "Someone here is the only thing in existence " .it wouldn't need a 3 hours of rambling if it was that simple ..even though Leo does claim that regardless. The point seems to be that the boundaries between me And you dissolve completely as you approach infinite consciousness.  Then you say" but infinity Is ever elastic and there is always  more infinity to infinity"...yes sure but infinity is always you and not other..but in the ordinary state of consciousness like right now there is a dividing line between my left testicle and right testicle..it appears that way to the human eyes..not under a microscope or if you take a Leo brand of 5 meo..so it is relative to state of consciousness. In sober state of consciousness materialism holds true..but in high states of consciousness there is no one but you . But notice that even then that doesn't matter .you can choose to see it as positive or negative thing .or you can Forget about it and enjoy the weather. 

Interesting point, but I think you're kind of restating the position rather than addressing the question.

Let me try to explain where I'm coming from, because I realize I didn't fully unpack it.

I use the term "subjective matrix" to describe something specific. Everything you perceive right now - this screen, the room around you, your body, other people, the sky, memories, thoughts, emotions - all of that is being "rendered" somewhere. That somewhere is what I call your subjective matrix. It's the totality of your experiential field. Not just the visual stuff - everything. The whole bubble of your existence as you live it.

Now take this idea for a moment (for the sake of my argument 😅): this matrix is made in the image of God. It's a microcosm. A fractal of the infinite. That's why, when you go deep enough into it, it FEELS infinite. Because in a sense it is - it's the finite version of infinity. It reflects the whole, but it's not the whole.

So when anyone takes 5-MeO and experiences "being everything" - what I think is actually happening is this: the barriers WITHIN the matrix dissolve. The usual partition between your ego/avatar and the rest of your experiential content collapses. You become one with everything inside your bubble.

And that feels like becoming God. Because your bubble is godlike - it's structured in His image.

But here's the key move solipsism misses: the barrier OF the matrix itself doesn't dissolve. You're not suddenly perceiving other people's subjective matrices from the inside. You're perceiving your own representations of them - their avatars as they appear within YOUR matrix.

Think of it this way: other people show up in your experience as characters, as rendered representations. When your internal barriers dissolve, you feel unified with those representations too. "I am them, they are me." But those representations are not the same as their actual subjective matrices. You're experiencing your interface with them, not their inner reality.

So the solipsistic intuition is reading something real - within your matrix, there's only you (in the expanded sense). But that doesn't prove other matrices don't exist. It just proves you can't access them directly. You only see their projections in the shared space.

The feeling of infinity is real. But feeling infinite and BEING the totality of existence are two different things. One is experiencing your microcosm fully. The other is a metaphysical claim that requires more than the experience itself to justify.

Does that make sense? I'm not saying the experience isn't profound or genuine. I'm saying the interpretation "therefore I am literally all that exists" might be one step too far.

 

1 hour ago, LastThursday said:

I'd just verify it from first principles. Here would be my example thinking on it (this is not necessarily my view don't argue with me over it):

(...)

13. What is fundamentally stopping my awareness being "transferred" to someone else? Is it a fundamental limitation?

(...)

23. Do "I" exist? Yes I am aware of myself. Am I a construct or do I exist absolutely? That is the crux of Solipsism. If I am a construct then Solipsism is hogwash. If not, and I can disprove the existence of other awarenesses, then Solipsism is absolute and True (but see 12).

 

This is really well thought out. I appreciate you laying it out step by step - it helps me see where we converge and where we might diverge.

Let me push back gently on point 17, because I think that's where the leap happens.

You say: "If everything must come through awareness, then everything IS awareness and there is nothing outside of it."

But I'm not sure that follows. Let me try to explain how I see it.

For me, awareness is basically rendering something inside your subjective matrix. When I "see" an apple, what's actually happening is that an apple-representation appears on my subjective screen. There's no direct contact with the apple-in-itself. I only ever deal with my rendering of it.

Now here's what's interesting: how do I distinguish that rendered apple from, say, an apple I just imagine? Both appear in my matrix. Both are "content of awareness."

The difference, I think, is consistency across matrices.

When I talk to another person (who is also rendered in my matrix, of course - I have no direct access to them either), and they describe the same apple in the same location with the same properties... that tells me something. It suggests the apple-representation isn't just my imagination - it's being generated by some shared input. Something external to my matrix that multiple matrices are picking up and rendering, each in their own way.

We're like bubbles inside God, communicating through smoke signals that we each recreate inside our own bubble. I never touch your bubble directly. But the consistency of our smoke signals suggests we're both responding to something real.

So when you ask in point 17 "does stuff exist when it's not in awareness?" - I'd say: it depends on whether I'm the only matrix or not.

If solipsism is true and I'm literally all that exists, then yeah, maybe unperceived stuff only exists as potentiality within my infinite.

But if there are other matrices (which I can't prove but seems more parsimonious to me), then something I've never perceived might still be "materialized" inside someone else's matrix. It exists - just not for me.

The shared material reality would then be like a consistent input-layer that all our matrices tap into. Not the ultimate reality, but a real interface. A portion of the Infinite that we all render from our own angles.

Point 23 is gold, by the way. You're right that solipsism requires an "I." And if that "I" is a construct... things get weird. My take: the ego/avatar is definitely a construct inside the matrix. But the matrix itself - the field of subjectivity - is real. The question is whether it's the ONLY one.

I genuinely don't know. But "I can't access other matrices" feels different from "other matrices don't exist." The first is an epistemic limitation. The second is a metaphysical claim that seems to require more than the experience alone can provide.

Does that make sense?

1 hour ago, Monster Energy said:

There is no “beyond.”

The need for something more is just the ego projecting infinity outside of itself.

When that collapses, the search ends.

 

Interesting move, but I think it cuts both ways.

You say my need for a "beyond" is ego projecting infinity outside itself. Ok, maybe. But couldn't the opposite also be true? Couldn't "I am literally everything, there's nothing else" be the ego making the ultimate power-grab?

Think about it: which claim is more humble? "I participate in something infinitely larger than me" or "I am the totality of existence"? If we're going to play the "that's just ego" card, I'm not sure solipsism wins that game.

But let's set that aside. I'm more interested in the epistemics.

When you say "there is no beyond" - how do you know? I'm genuinely asking. Is it purely experiential? You felt no limits, therefore there are none?

Because here's my concern: what if the subjective matrix (the totality of your experiential field) feels infinite precisely because it's made in the image of infinity? A fractal of the whole. From inside, it would feel boundless - because it reflects boundlessness. But reflecting the infinite and being the totality of the infinite are two different things.

There's this Rick and Morty episode - "Roy: A Life Well Lived" - where Morty puts on a VR headset and lives an entire life as a guy named Roy. He forgets he's Morty. When Roy dies, Morty wakes up in the arcade and realizes it was all a game.

Leo's model feels like that. God puts on the headset, forgets it's God, lives as human, then "wakes up" and remembers. Single-player game. The other characters were also Morty, but playing in a timeless-way... or they could be NPCs too... who knows. It's doesn't matter.

But what if there are multiple headsets? What if it's a multiplayer server, and each player can only see their own screen? From inside the game, the experience would be identical - you'd feel like the only real one. But other players would still exist.

How do you rule that out?

I'll be honest: there's part of me that fears dissolving completely. Losing the "me" in an ocean of undifferentiated experience. Maybe that biases me toward wanting a "beyond." I admit that.

But I think solipsism has its own shadow too - the desire to be everything, to need nothing outside yourself, to never truly depend on an other because there is no other.

Both positions have their temptations. I'm just not sure experience alone can settle which one is true.

Edited 21 minutes ago by Zeidiez

[Monster Energy]

16 minutes ago, Zeidiez said:

Interesting point, but I think you're kind of restating the position rather than addressing the question.

Let me try to explain where I'm coming from, because I realize I didn't fully unpack it.

I use the term "subjective matrix" to describe something specific. Everything you perceive right now - this screen, the room around you, your body, other people, the sky, memories, thoughts, emotions - all of that is being "rendered" somewhere. That somewhere is what I call your subjective matrix. It's the totality of your experiential field. Not just the visual stuff - everything. The whole bubble of your existence as you live it.

Now take this idea for a moment (for the sake of my argument 😅): this matrix is made in the image of God. It's a microcosm. A fractal of the infinite. That's why, when you go deep enough into it, it FEELS infinite. Because in a sense it is - it's the finite version of infinity. It reflects the whole, but it's not the whole.

So when anyone takes 5-MeO and experiences "being everything" - what I think is actually happening is this: the barriers WITHIN the matrix dissolve. The usual partition between your ego/avatar and the rest of your experiential content collapses. You become one with everything inside your bubble.

And that feels like becoming God. Because your bubble is godlike - it's structured in His image.

But here's the key move solipsism misses: the barrier OF the matrix itself doesn't dissolve. You're not suddenly perceiving other people's subjective matrices from the inside. You're perceiving your own representations of them - their avatars as they appear within YOUR matrix.

Think of it this way: other people show up in your experience as characters, as rendered representations. When your internal barriers dissolve, you feel unified with those representations too. "I am them, they are me." But those representations are not the same as their actual subjective matrices. You're experiencing your interface with them, not their inner reality.

So the solipsistic intuition is reading something real - within your matrix, there's only you (in the expanded sense). But that doesn't prove other matrices don't exist. It just proves you can't access them directly. You only see their projections in the shared space.

The feeling of infinity is real. But feeling infinite and BEING the totality of existence are two different things. One is experiencing your microcosm fully. The other is a metaphysical claim that requires more than the experience itself to justify.

Does that make sense? I'm not saying the experience isn't profound or genuine. I'm saying the interpretation "therefore I am literally all that exists" might be one step too far.

 

This is really well thought out. I appreciate you laying it out step by step - it helps me see where we converge and where we might diverge.

Let me push back gently on point 17, because I think that's where the leap happens.

You say: "If everything must come through awareness, then everything IS awareness and there is nothing outside of it."

But I'm not sure that follows. Let me try to explain how I see it.

For me, awareness is basically rendering something inside your subjective matrix. When I "see" an apple, what's actually happening is that an apple-representation appears on my subjective screen. There's no direct contact with the apple-in-itself. I only ever deal with my rendering of it.

Now here's what's interesting: how do I distinguish that rendered apple from, say, an apple I just imagine? Both appear in my matrix. Both are "content of awareness."

The difference, I think, is consistency across matrices.

When I talk to another person (who is also rendered in my matrix, of course - I have no direct access to them either), and they describe the same apple in the same location with the same properties... that tells me something. It suggests the apple-representation isn't just my imagination - it's being generated by some shared input. Something external to my matrix that multiple matrices are picking up and rendering, each in their own way.

We're like bubbles inside God, communicating through smoke signals that we each recreate inside our own bubble. I never touch your bubble directly. But the consistency of our smoke signals suggests we're both responding to something real.

So when you ask in point 17 "does stuff exist when it's not in awareness?" - I'd say: it depends on whether I'm the only matrix or not.

If solipsism is true and I'm literally all that exists, then yeah, maybe unperceived stuff only exists as potentiality within my infinite.

But if there are other matrices (which I can't prove but seems more parsimonious to me), then something I've never perceived might still be "materialized" inside someone else's matrix. It exists - just not for me.

The shared material reality would then be like a consistent input-layer that all our matrices tap into. Not the ultimate reality, but a real interface. A portion of the Infinite that we all render from our own angles.

Point 23 is gold, by the way. You're right that solipsism requires an "I." And if that "I" is a construct... things get weird. My take: the ego/avatar is definitely a construct inside the matrix. But the matrix itself - the field of subjectivity - is real. The question is whether it's the ONLY one.

I genuinely don't know. But "I can't access other matrices" feels different from "other matrices don't exist." The first is an epistemic limitation. The second is a metaphysical claim that seems to require more than the experience alone can provide.

Does that make sense?

Interesting move, but I think it cuts both ways.

You say my need for a "beyond" is ego projecting infinity outside itself. Ok, maybe. But couldn't the opposite also be true? Couldn't "I am literally everything, there's nothing else" be the ego making the ultimate power-grab?

Think about it: which claim is more humble? "I participate in something infinitely larger than me" or "I am the totality of existence"? If we're going to play the "that's just ego" card, I'm not sure solipsism wins that game.

But let's set that aside. I'm more interested in the epistemics.

When you say "there is no beyond" - how do you know? I'm genuinely asking. Is it purely experiential? You felt no limits, therefore there are none?

Because here's my concern: what if the subjective matrix (the totality of your experiential field) feels infinite precisely because it's made in the image of infinity? A fractal of the whole. From inside, it would feel boundless - because it reflects boundlessness. But reflecting the infinite and being the totality of the infinite are two different things.

There's this Rick and Morty episode - "Roy: A Life Well Lived" - where Morty puts on a VR headset and lives an entire life as a guy named Roy. He forgets he's Morty. When Roy dies, Morty wakes up in the arcade and realizes it was all a game.

Leo's model feels like that. God puts on the headset, forgets it's God, lives as human, then "wakes up" and remembers. Single-player game. The other characters were also Morty, but playing in a timeless-way... or they could be NPCs too... who knows. It's doesn't matter.

But what if there are multiple headsets? What if it's a multiplayer server, and each player can only see their own screen? From inside the game, the experience would be identical - you'd feel like the only real one. But other players would still exist.

How do you rule that out?

I'll be honest: there's part of me that fears dissolving completely. Losing the "me" in an ocean of undifferentiated experience. Maybe that biases me toward wanting a "beyond." I admit that.

But I think solipsism has its own shadow too - the desire to be everything, to need nothing outside yourself, to never truly depend on an other because there is no other.

Both positions have their temptations. I'm just not sure experience alone can settle which one is true.

I’m not making a metaphysical claim that multiple headsets are impossible. I’m pointing to something more basic. All claims, single-player or multiplayer, appear inside the same field of experience. You never step outside that field to verify an external “server.” You only imagine one.

So epistemically, both models are equal. The difference isn’t logic, it’s where infinity is placed. Either infinity is deferred outward, beyond, others, server, or it’s recognized as already present as the very capacity for experience itself.

As for ego, it can inflate in either direction. Wanting to dissolve into a greater whole can be ego. Wanting to be the whole can be ego. The tell isn’t the concept, it’s whether the sense of lack disappears.

When the need for a beyond drops, not because it’s disproven but because it’s unnecessary, the search naturally relaxes. That’s all I’m pointing at.

Not a belief. A noticing.