Contemplating solipsism in direct experience

[Someone here]

I hope no one locks this and accuse me of mental masturbation.  Thanks .

 

I'm looking at the forum page right now .at the top there is a picture of Leo. At the bottom there is the list of members who are online.  I'm perceiving this with my eyes . I close my eyes ..usually when I close my eyes I immediately experience a mental image of the last thing I just saw before closing my eyes .so I see a mental image of the forum page .that mental image has no objective existence except in my mind .I mean the mental image of the forum page . Now I look at the forum page again..Leo at the top ..online members list at the bottom. Memories arise and say :I just saw this page seconds ago and I'm seeing it again now ..the same page . Obviously it is not the same page ..simply because this is a totally new fresh moment of time .the first time I saw the page is now swallowed in the past forever.  What does this imply?  That that event that just happened seconds ago doesn't actually exist at all right now . 

Moving on ..all the time there are mental images popping in my mind. ..Leo..Natasha..youtube video I've watched earlier today . We call that daydreaming .none of that is actual . Its in the mind .you obviously do realize how much time you spend daydreaming ? Put on your headphones and listen to your favourite music album and immediately you are fantasising about a past scenario about yourself.  OK.  That image of yourself is not yourself. Because it is an image of yourself.  Likewise the reflection of your face on the mirror is the reflection of your face in the mirror..it is not you . I hope this is clear . Stop reading and get it .

Moving on ..spend just an hour without daydreaming .what exists ? Direct immediate existence. That is actual .here it is .

Moving on..sit alone . My mom is in the next room . I don't see her right now . I see a mental image of her sitting in the other room .that is not the actual mother .there is no actual mother right now in direct experience..there is the mental image of her . A thought arises "my mother is in the next room ". That is not an actual mother ..that's a thought . "Yes sure but beyond the entire realm of thought there is an actual mother in the other room!". That ..is..a thought . I'm trying my best to reach outside my thoughts ..but the reaching outside of thoughts is thoughts .

Moving on ..a question:just because an actual perception is not presently here and now means it doesn't exist at all in actual reality ? That's the million dollars question. 

An answer : well yeah that's literally what's happening.  There is no escaping that if something is not here and now directly then it's imagined by me . "OK sure but it exists outside the imagination ".."well that Is me imagining that there is something beyond my imagining ". You follow ? So the point Is: you can't reach outside your mental world .if you stopped imagining or thinking ..there is no thing but what is directly present.  

actual existence is this . Any other place or time isn't actual existence. 

🤷‍♂️

Edited Friday at 01:39 AM by Someone here

[Frenk]

Nice one. Question: if your mother sitting in the next room, not present in your direct experience, asks you a question. You hear it and you respond to her. You have an entire conversation with your mother just by listening to her and not seeing her. Does your mother exist?

[Hojo]

@FrenkJust as a sound. We exist as many different perceptions. For instance here I exist as text on a monitor and your own voice in your head.

Edited Friday at 06:35 AM by Hojo

[LastThursday]

@Someone here good. You mother in direct experience doesn't exist either, she's just light and shade, splashes of colour, soothing sound and warm touch.

[Rishabh R]

@Someone here Another great question is : How direct experience is different from concepts and imagination ?

[Someone here]

11 hours ago, Frenk said:

Nice one. Question: if your mother sitting in the next room, not present in your direct experience, asks you a question. You hear it and you respond to her. You have an entire conversation with your mother just by listening to her and not seeing her. Does your mother exist?

Look at it..the answer is literally inside the question. You hear the voice but you don't see her .therefore what exists is the voice not the imagery. Is this accurate in your opinion? 

[Someone here]

7 hours ago, Rishabh R said:

@Someone here Another great question is : How direct experience is different from concepts and imagination ?

There is never ever anything other than direct experience. 

Direct perception of Eiffel tower is a visual and auditory experience .

A Thought or memory or mental image of the Effiel tower is also direct experience but is not made out of visual perception or auditory perception..rather...mental shady vague image in your mind . 

[Someone here]

8 hours ago, LastThursday said:

@Someone here good. You mother in direct experience doesn't exist either, she's just light and shade, splashes of colour, soothing sound and warm touch.

Yeah I'm aware. The raw direct experience is a collection of sounds and visuals .. the mind creates out of that egoless cocktail an illusion of "object ".

Like now I'm holding my IPhone. There is no IPhone it's just a stream of visuals and sensations ..but mind fills in the blanks .

[Breakingthewall]

you can call it a dream or whatever you like. All movement is relationship, and every relationship is caused by a chain of relationships that has no beginning, because a beginning would be an absolute limit.

Therefore, your direct experience is caused by an infinite chain of events that unfolds in infinite directions and dimensions. Therefore, it is absolutely certain that your point of view is one among infinities. Maybe the other pov were in another dimension, time, reality, but time is not lineal, there are infinite timelines, because there can't be límits. 

[Someone here]

On 13/02/2026 at 9:31 PM, Breakingthewall said:

you can call it a dream or whatever you like. All movement is relationship, and every relationship is caused by a chain of relationships that has no beginning, because a beginning would be an absolute limit.

Therefore, your direct experience is caused by an infinite chain of events that unfolds in infinite directions and dimensions. Therefore, it is absolutely certain that your point of view is one among infinities. Maybe the other pov were in another dimension, time, reality, but time is not lineal, there are infinite timelines, because there can't be límits. 

This argument is 100% correct ..coherent..and consistent with itself logically. 

However..I'm NOT contemplating solipsism logically.  I'm contemplating directly by testing it against direct experience. Not logic . Logic is second order reality .direct experience can never be wrong. 

Edited yesterday at 02:44 AM by Someone here

[Joseph Maynor]

3 hours ago, Someone here said:

direct experience can never be wrong. 

What is direct experience?

[Mellowmarsh]

On 13/02/2026 at 5:53 PM, Someone here said:

Like now I'm holding my IPhone. There is no IPhone it's just a stream of visuals and sensations ..but mind fills in the blanks .

Just Thoughts about Thoughts then?

 

That’s the beauty of Space 🙂 There’s no painted image to look at without it. The image is literally made out of the space in which it’s appearing. So magical.

[kavaris]

@Someone here "Contemplating solipsism in direct experience"

You can also call that sortve idea a stream of consciousness, or you can say that its

ἡ ἱερὰ γλωσσα (he hiera' glossa)

Whats that mean? "The Divine Language". That is, if you intend to raise your writing piece to that level of appreciation (i realize yours sortve blends poetic language and critical thinking, so thats not missed on me, though even if it wasnt intended to be poetic, i personally read it as).

And that icsh all to say that, thats perfectly normal. And theres nothin wrong w/ speaking in stream of consciousness type ways. I do it all the time. I think we would get a better sense for each other if we were to write like that more often.

Another reason why i prefer, and like to call it stream of consciousness is, it gives you the wiggle room to speak on anything, like in other words, you dont have to emphasize "THIS ONE IDEA RAWR", like you can just frame it as ~stream of consciousness, and then begin talking about anything that crosses through spirituality, and/or mysticism and/or any of those things listed under the channel name.

Like ill give yous an example  (though keep in mind, it is rare that i ever even follow my own rules/ideas)

Title: (SOC) Divine Wanderings

What is Divine Wanderings? Iuno. I just made it up. Im just giving yous an idea to play w/

 

Edited 19 hours ago by kavaris

[Breakingthewall]

9 hours ago, Someone here said:

This argument is 100% correct ..coherent..and consistent with itself logically. 

However..I'm NOT contemplating solipsism logically.  I'm contemplating directly by testing it against direct experience. Not logic . Logic is second order reality .direct experience can never be wrong. 

Very well, except for the subtle detail that your direct experience, without logic, is meaningless. There are no others who may or may not exist, nor you,  there is no question of whether only you exist, or even whether you exist at all. All of that is logical formulation you create. So, since you're creating them, explore them thoroughly, Einstein-style, don't get stuck in a simplistic, flawed logic.

[Someone here]

13 hours ago, Joseph Maynor said:

What is direct experience?

What is immediately present here and now. 

[Someone here]

7 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

Very well, except for the subtle detail that your direct experience, without logic, is meaningless. There are no others who may or may not exist, nor you,  there is no question of whether only you exist, or even whether you exist at all. All of that is logical formulation you create. So, since you're creating them, explore them thoroughly, Einstein-style, don't get stuck in a simplistic, flawed logic.

Sure ..in the sense that if we don't use language or concepts and just sit in silent meditation in a thoughtless state then there is no question about the nature of direct experience or whether it's solipsistic or not . But the difference is I'm using "direct logic"..which means I'm investigating direct sensory experience as it is ..whereas you are reasoning about additional layers of abstractions (relationships ..casuality ..point of views ..absence of limits etc).

Edited 9 hours ago by Someone here

[Joseph Maynor]

10 minutes ago, Someone here said:

What is immediately present here and now. 

Is direct experience something we always have, or do we have to focus on it to have it? 

[Someone here]

1 minute ago, Joseph Maynor said:

Is direct experience something we always have, or do we have to focus on it to have it? 

Two sides :

1-there is something that is always present and ever-present. Whether you are awake or sleeping or dead or whatever. And it doesn't need conscious attention to give it existence or credence.

2- conscious attention obviously is not ever-present.  You can create a distinction between pure presence which is always there and conscious attention which is not always there.

[Joseph Maynor]

5 minutes ago, Someone here said:

Two sides :

1-there is something that is always present and ever-present. Whether you are awake or sleeping or dead or whatever. And it doesn't need conscious attention to give it existence or credence.

2- conscious attention obviously is not ever-present.  You can create a distinction between pure presence which is always there and conscious attention which is not always there.

This is what I was driving at.  Direct experience to me is a kind of focusing that isn't always present and not always needed.  It takes work to focus.

[Someone here]

9 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

This is what I was driving at.  Direct experience to me is a kind of focusing that isn't always present and not always needed.  It takes work to focus.

The most fundamental thing ever (and there has to be a most fundamental thing ever to give rise to anything at all that exists ) is pure presence. It's present all times and all places and in all conditions.. Right now and before an hour and after a million years .

"Consciousness " in the sense of "perception " is not that .

i get that spiritual teachers call ultimate reality as "consciousness " but it can be confusing .