Solipsism as a hallmark of consciousness

[Loveeee]

When someone talks about spirituality, I automatically try and determine if the person believes in other minds

If they do, they're too lost in imagination for my taste, not realizing that God is you, nothing more, nothing less

If they don't they've got my attention 

[Carl-Richard]

If solipsism was a country I'd nuke it.

[Sincerity]

There’s truth to that. I agree.

[aurum]

That's an extremely high bar though.

You might as well dismiss everyone.

[Ramasta9]

The answer to the deeper truths are always paradoxical. So yes and no, both and none.

If you lean only into oneness, you miss the expression. If you lean only into separation, you miss the source.

"What is and what is not create each other." Reality is a Trinity / 1 + 1 = 3

The mind will never grasp it, for I am older than the world - The Tao that can be told is not the Eternal Tao.

Thus why Buddha invented (the middle way). Its not this or that, its this AND that.

 

[Natasha Tori Maru]

1 hour ago, aurum said:

That's an extremely high bar though.

You might as well dismiss everyone.

I was going to point this out in my own twisted words but yours are far more succint.

I would have said 'Okay, but you will end up jabbering to only yourself locked in a room'

 

[Carl-Richard]

3 hours ago, Ramasta9 said:

The answer to the deeper truths are always paradoxical. So yes and no, both and none.

If you lean only into oneness, you miss the expression. If you lean only into separation, you miss the source.

"What is and what is not create each other." Reality is a Trinity / 1 + 1 = 3

The mind will never grasp it, for I am older than the world - The Tao that can be told is not the Eternal Tao.

Thus why Buddha invented (the middle way). Its not this or that, its this AND that.

"But my grandma doesn't exist when I close my eyes" 🐒

Honestly, one of the very few that gets it. I applaud you.

But I will give my dry formulation of the same thing: whether minds exist or not outside your field of view, is a relative matter. The Absolute ultimately doesn't care. Therefore, to invoke the Absolute to say that minds do not exist outside your field of view, is a misunderstanding.

[Someone here]

9 hours ago, Loveeee said:

When someone talks about spirituality, I automatically try and determine if the person believes in other minds

If they do, they're too lost in imagination for my taste, not realizing that God is you, nothing more, nothing less

If they don't they've got my attention 

Isn’t it hilarious that you judge whether other people are awake or not by whether they believe other people believe in other people?

[Carl-Richard]

I think Plato's cave is a brilliant way to illustrate what the solipsists that confuse relative with Absolute (and that have had legitimate glimpses into the Absolute) often do:

So the people in the cave only see shadows on the wall, and then when they climb out, they see the light and they realize "this is what is truly real, and it's One, it's the only thing that exists!". But then what they erroneously do is they go back into the cave and start saying "these shadows on the wall, they're the only things that exist!".

So despite their legitimate glimpses of the Absolute, perhaps due to inexperience, perhaps due to a lack of intellect, they make this unfortunate conflation, of conflating the shadows on the wall with the Sun that shines.

The Sun creates the shadows (hence the Absolute creates the relative), and indeed the Sun shines ultimately as one, but to start taking the insights of the Sun and presenting them as shadows, that is the misunderstanding. The Sun is self-luminous, ever-shining. It does not need limitation, it does not need shadows, to exist.

[Eskilon]

6 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

confuse relative with Absolute

But then the solipisist can say something like: "But that distinction itself is just an arbitrary thing you made to make sense of reality, there's no such thing as relative and absolute, its all absolute. My d*ck is the only thing that exists". How would you reply?

Edited 9 hours ago by Eskilon

[Carl-Richard]

37 minutes ago, Eskilon said:

But then the solipisist can say something like: "But that distinction itself is just an arbitrary thing you made to make sense of reality, there's no such thing as relative and absolute, its all absolute. My d*ck is the only thing that exists". How would you reply?

I would hurdle the comment above in a heroic last ditch attempt to save their minds from the shadowy grips of their own mind.

So the Absolute and relative is a distinction, there is no distinction, yet the distinction of "my mind" vs "other minds" exists and it says "my mind" exists and "other minds" don't?

"But what I'm actually saying is that there is only one thing that exists in existence". Ok, say that, but don't say "when I close my eyes, my grandma has now stopped existing, and this is somehow a result from there being no distinctions", because that is obviously not true. "Grandma" is a distinction, "eyes" is a distinction, "stopped existing" is a distinction, "because of closing my eyes" is a distinction.

You're fighting with shadows. If you want to affirm or deny anything in existence but existence itself, you are not talking about the Absolute, you are not talking about "no distinctions", you are distinguishing, you are affirming or denying. If you are about the Absolute and the Absolute only, it cannot be captured by anything but itself. Hence the Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao.

Edited 9 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Eskilon]

11 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

I would hurdle the comment above in a heroic last ditch attempt to save their minds from the shadowy grips of their own mind.

So the Absolute and relative is a distinction, there is no distinction, yet the distinction of "my mind" vs "other minds" exists and it says "my mind" exists and "other minds" don't?

"But what I'm actually saying is that there is only one thing that exists in existence". Ok, say that, but don't say "when I close my eyes, my grandma has now stopped existing, and this is somehow a result from there being no distinctions", because that is obviously not true. "Grandma" is a distinction, "eyes" is a distinction, "stopped existing" is a distinction, "because of closing my eyes" is a distinction.

You're fighting with shadows. If you want to affirm or deny anything in existence but existence itself, you are not talking about the Absolute, you are not talking about "no distinctions", you are distinguishing, you are affirming or denying. If you are about the Absolute and the Absolute only, it cannot be captured by anything but itself. Hence the Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao.

Well said. 

Need to pin this so that no other solipsism thread gets created

Edited 9 hours ago by Eskilon

[Nemra]

@Carl-Richard, I think complete proof of solipsism would be to say that other's private experience is imagined, which is not to say that one can not imagine them by closing one's eyes or thinking about it.

It's true that the experience of others is non-existent to each one of us; however, that's not a proof of solipsism, because then how are people aware of stuff in your experience.

Edited 7 hours ago by Nemra

[Someone here]

2 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

 but don't say "when I close my eyes, my grandma has now stopped existing, and this is somehow a result from there being no distinctions", because that is obviously not true.

Not to pressure you but how is this known to be “obviously not true “? 
let’s explore this thoroughly.

[Davino]

10 hours ago, aurum said:

That's an extremely high bar though.

You might as well dismiss everyone.

It's actually a low bar.

Almost the bare minimum to get the ball rolling. Let's say Solipsism is true and then you think it's false, just see how seriously wrong would that make all your metaphysics and epistemology.

[aurum]

14 minutes ago, Davino said:

It's actually a low bar.

Almost the bare minimum to get the ball rolling. Let's say Solipsism is true and then you think it's false, just see how seriously wrong would that make all your metaphysics and epistemology.

Sure, but still most people will not understand that.

[aurum]

9 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

I would have said 'Okay, but you will end up jabbering to only yourself locked in a room'

True solipsism 

[LastThursday]

@Loveeee I don't believe you have a mind. Then again I'm just seeking attention, from a zombie.

[Carl-Richard]

4 hours ago, Someone here said:

Not to pressure you but how is this known to be “obviously not true “? 
let’s explore this thoroughly.

If the first thing you're saying is a result of distinctions, and then you go onto say "and this is a result of there being no distinctions", is that true or false?

"Distinctions" because "no distinctions". That's not true. But then the non-dually awakened "solipsist" will retort and say, like @Eskilon points out, "but there is no distinction between distinctions and no distinctions", as if that is an argument that supports their position and doesn't defeat it. I'm pointing out how it defeats it. They are making distinctions, but then when pressured on it, they say that there are no distinctions.

"Absolute solipsists" are nihilistic addicts with the memory of a goldfish. They will contradict themselves like it's the only thing that brings them pleasure, and you can trust them to always repeat the cycle when pressured on it. They will reliably make distinctions and then they will reliably retreat to "but no distinctions" when pressured on it. And that's the only way they will ever be reliable, the addicts that they are.

Edited 2 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Oppositionless]

15 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

If solipsism was a country I'd nuke it.

I assumed that when ppl talked about solipsism they were talking about the ego living in its own dream world , not literally the ego being the only thing that exits