My Latest Solipsistic Insight

[Nemra]

16 hours ago, Yimpa said:

You won’t need to restrict your communication when you absolutely understand and are directly conscious of what God is.

Sure, but I wanted to say that if people think solipsism is ineffective, then they should throw out the word "God" as well from their vocabulary, knowing how people have been using that word.

Edited yesterday at 07:25 AM by Nemra

[Carl-Richard]

On 4.10.2026 at 10:53 PM, Willy Phallicus said:

You don't have an argument, you have a belief system about the word solipsism and its effectiveness which isn't coming off as objective.  You can't reasonably suggest that its problematic when applied to the reality of One mind inventing all other minds.

The solipsism word seems to be unique in that it works through a conflation that many people are just very inequipped to deal with (the distinction between personal minds and transpersonal Mind). For me personally, it wasn't before I had started my psychology degree that I started to get a firm grasp on the distinction. If you don't have that kind of background or haven't read similar stuff or other relevant fields like philosophy, it seems like the default is to not know the difference.

The word is culturally contaminated in the sense that in the most common cultural conception of it, it holds the personal mind to be the center, while the non-dual geeks hold the transpersonal Mind to be the center (and Absolute), and then when the non-dual noobie starts to learn about non-duality and then learns that the solipsism word is actually (allegedly) a way to describe non-duality, then they get pulled into the culturally contaminated version while at the same time holding on to the notion that it's non-dual and Absolute, which is of course contradictory, but they don't know the difference so they don't know that.

The antidote is of course educating oneself about the difference, but this is not as easy as it sounds (evidenced by the countless threads expressing confusion on the topic; see the latest one on solipsism apparently contradicting veganism), and it might simply be better to not bother with that particular word.

 

On 5.10.2026 at 3:52 PM, Nemra said:

"God" is probably one of the most abused words. People use it to brainwash others.

So, we shouldn't use that word?

Many teachers and traditions (Buddhism) are careful with that word exactly because of its cultural connotations. But it seems to be less pernicious than solipsism, at least on this forum, because you arguably see less threads of people being very confused about what "God" actually means or trying very hard to grasp or logically prove it to themselves.

"God" is also a much more general concept than "solipsism" even in the general culture (it can be deistic, monotheistic, polytheistic, pantheistic, etc.), so you'll perhaps be more open and questioning rather than conclusive when learning about it in the context of non-duality, while solipsism in the general culture is reliably interpreted in a very specific way ("personal mind is the center"), so you're much more reliably forced towards one specific and in this case contradictory interpretation and to be more conclusive. You can of course use it to mean "Cosmic solipsism" if you know about that philosophical interpretation, but again, that requires actually knowing about that, and it doesn't seem to be meaningfully the case for most people.

Edited 11 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Nemra]

@Carl-Richard, for people, God is personal and biased towards their own culture and traditions. 

I think what's more powerful and dangerous is to have a biased idea of God. People already view God through an egoic lens.

I don't think solipsism based on ego would survive on a large scale. Even though people are always in some sort of an ego-solipsistic bubble as long as they want to have a life.

People can come to a solipsistic conclusion based on direct experience or could experience God, but their ego will try to hijack those.

Edited 23 hours ago by Nemra

[Carl-Richard]

@Nemra If I were to describe non-duality and God as "materialism", what problems would you have with that?

[Nemra]

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

If I were to describe non-duality and God as "materialism", what problems would you have with that?

The problem is that materialism assumes it could describe reality by the interactions of matter, which makes God an emergent thing. It defines matter as an indirect, invisible thing that is beyond sensory experience and yet tries to find inside it, dividing the experience into subjective and objective.

If you want to describe them as materialism, you would have to change what materialism is.

Solipsism starts from the claim that only your own mind is certain to exist.

Edited 22 hours ago by Nemra

[Carl-Richard]

11 hours ago, Nemra said:

The problem is that materialism assumes it could describe reality by the interactions of matter, which makes God an emergent thing. It defines matter as an indirect, invisible thing that is beyond sensory experience and yet tries to find inside it, dividing the experience into subjective and objective.

If you want to describe them as materialism, you would have to change what materialism is.

But that's just the common cultural conception of the word, right?

"Materialism: God is the only material that can be known to exist, it precedes the knowing of anything else." What's the problem there?

 

11 hours ago, Nemra said:

Solipsism starts from the claim that only your own mind is certain to exist.

The problem lies in what "your own mind" means. The common conception of "your own mind" is different from the one you're probably intending (if you're intending to communicate non-dualism and "God's" infinite mind). The common conception is the ego-mind, the body-sensory structure. So the common conception of solipsism is probably different from the one you're intending.

Edited 11 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Nemra]

3 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

But that's just the common cultural conception of the word, right?

"Materialism: God is the only material that can be known to exist, it precedes the knowing of anything else." What's the problem there?

If that were truly the foundational claim, it wouldn't be an issue.

Even if people conceived of matter differently, I would disregard that and define it as you did.

3 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

The problem lies in what "your own mind" means. The common conception of "your own mind" is different from the one you're probably intending (if you're intending to communicate non-dualism and "God's" infinite mind). The common conception is the ego-mind, the body-sensory structure. So the common conception of solipsism is different from the one you're intending.

In this case, I'm free to disregard others' conceptions of the mind and apply solipsism in my own way.

Edited 18 hours ago by Nemra

[Nemra]

@Carl-Richard, you redefined materialism by breaking the logic, but you wouldn't break the logic of solipsism when you refer to God or anything as the mind, as long as it doesn't imply independent existence to anything outside of it.

Edited 17 hours ago by Nemra

[Carl-Richard]

22 minutes ago, Nemra said:

@Carl-Richard, you redefined materialism by breaking the logic, but you wouldn't break the logic of solipsism when you refer to God or anything as the mind,

But the logic depends on how each word is defined. And that if you define "your own mind" as ego-mind, it changes the logic of "your mind is alone" entirely. So there is no difference there (in my example vs what you're doing); in both cases, the words are defined differently (by myself/us vs the larger culture). So what is the real issue? Why is referring to "materialism" to explain God an issue?

 

22 minutes ago, Nemra said:

as long as it doesn't imply independent existence to anything outside of it.

That's exactly what is not implied when you define "your own mind" as ego-mind. That implication goes out the window. The logic is changed.

Edited 16 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Carl-Richard]

The fact of the matter is that words have cultural connotations and it's your job as a communicator if you wish to be understood and teach effectively to tailor your use of words to what leads to the least confusion, misunderstanding, conflation of terms and ideas. So defining "materialism" in a way that suits a non-dual interpretation of God, even if it's perfectly valid and internally consistent within your framework, might not be the best choice. I'm saying that might also apply to "solipsism".

Edited 16 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Nemra]

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

So what is the real issue? Why is referring to "materialism" to explain God an issue?

Because materialism is a bottom-up approach, you broke it when you equated matter to God. You can break it, but materialism won't stay as materialism.

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

That's exactly what is not implied when you define "your own mind" as ego-mind. That implication goes out the window. The logic is changed.

People would break the logic if they based solipsism on the ego. It would turn into some sort of narcissistic pseudo-solipsism.

Quote

So defining "materialism" in a way that suits a non-dual interpretation of God, even if it's perfectly valid and internally consistent within your framework, might not be the best choice. I'm saying that might also apply to "solipsism".

By that logic, "God" is not the best choice of word to use as well, as people have biases and dogmas about it.

Edited 15 hours ago by Nemra

[Joseph Maynor]

My latest solipsistic insight is I was wrong and I have the balls to admit it!

[kavaris]

17 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

My latest solipsistic insight is I was wrong and I have the balls to admit it!

Hey, if we had more of that in the world ~ it might just be the right catalyst towards making the world better...on a practical lvl.

Like, we are using tech right now, predicated on the inability for the lead designers , or those in charge of the tech direction, etc, who r  af'raid to admit when theyve been wrong ...

Take Gmail or Apple mail for instance, it borrowed ideas from others making similar things at the time, Aol, yahoo, etc, etc, but as it turns out, it doesnt actually make sense in the app, functionally speaking... Like you can create a message, but that message is attached to something fundamental across all the other inboxes you manage, like its an old system made fake-modern... One that is actually less functional than having a stripped down message system that you manually arrange things in, without metadata or any of that junking up the place, since thats literally wat "trash" and "sent" things already are, like... "A copy" is also a reference, in my opinion, And it doesnt have all the garbage collected junk in it...

And thats just the tip of the iceburg... Theres so many things that are just terribly wrong, but that we gotta deal w/ for now cause someone wasnt brave enough to say "Im wrong and the idea doesnt make sense, so we should try again.. give it another try..."typeve thing.

Or maybe they didnt even realize it was wrong either... Iuno.. i guess im saying that, i dont know how prevalent honesty and innovation is ~i guess thats wat im tryina sae

[Carl-Richard]

4 hours ago, Nemra said:

Because materialism is a bottom-up approach

in the common conception of it.

 

4 hours ago, Nemra said:

People would break the logic if they based solipsism on the ego. It would turn into some sort of narcissistic pseudo-solipsism.

Yes, which is what they do. So why associate with that?

 

4 hours ago, Nemra said:

By that logic, "God" is not the best choice of word to use as well, as people have biases and dogmas about it.

It's not a very good choice, I agree; I would be very hesitant about pulling out that word to a noobie to explain non-duality, I have always been that.

But solipsism is arguably even worse, as per my earlier argument about people being particularly bad at distinguishing between personal minds and transpersonal Mind, and that it's a very specific concept with a very specific cultural connotation (concentrating the erroneous conclusion) while God is more general, leaving a more open and indecisive approach to the term ("what do you even mean by God?").

The thing about solipsism is people don't seem to ask much what it really means, it's that they ask whether it's true or not. They have already made the conclusion about what it is but they are uncertain about whether to accept it (because it seems so counterintuitive, because again, I would propose they are making that conflation between ego-mind and God's mind and they don't actually believe that the ego-mind could be the only thing that exists).

And I would say "materialism" (to explain non-duality) is probably even worse than that again. I was simply using an extreme example to show how it works.

Edited 12 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Sugarcoat]

Not being able to experience another's POV doesn't prove that they don't have subjective experience like you. Not being able to access anything beyond your own POV/direct experience doesn't prove all of reality is limited to it. 

If you define consciousness as reality itself, why simultaneously apply that meaning to subjective experience of being aware? Mixing to distinct concepts together. As if "all is one, everything is consciousness" proves subjective experiences cannot arise in different bodies.....when it's talking about two different things....

In my perspective, the words people use to describe reality, reveals something about their psyche. I think theres trend here where this place is very intellectually focused, makes sense to me that "mind", and solipsism/ "only one mind" is popular here to use.....

I could go on and on....

Edited 12 hours ago by Sugarcoat

[Carl-Richard]

9 minutes ago, Sugarcoat said:

In my perspective, the words people use to describe reality, reveals something about their psyche. I think theres trend here where this place is very intellectually focused, makes sense to me that "mind", and solipsism/ "only one mind" is popular here to use.....

It's less intellectual, more autism; lack of social awareness and being self-focused.

Edited 12 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Sugarcoat]

16 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

It's not intellectual, it's autism; lack of social awareness and being self-focused.

I get what you mean, those terms have lot of complexity to them, so can mean different things, for example a narcissist can be called self focused, but a deeply inward spiritual person too, but it's totally different how it works in them. 

I've thought along those lines too, especially the social awareness part, and then also lack of self awareness. It was refreshing to read your comments. 

Edited 11 hours ago by Sugarcoat

[Nemra]

2 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

Yes, which is what they do. So why associate with that?

In the end, I won't really care what it's called as long as I understand what I'm talking about.

I think if I don't break the logic, I still can use it and say that others aren't using solipsism correctly, like the word "God".

If I break the logic, then I should either not use it or tell people my redefinition.

2 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

But solipsism is arguably even worse, as per my earlier argument about people being particularly bad at distinguishing between personal minds and transpersonal Mind, and that it's a very specific concept with a very specific cultural connotation (concentrating the erroneous conclusion) while God is more general, leaving a more open and indecisive approach to the term ("what do you even mean by God?").

The thing about solipsism is people don't seem to ask much what it really means, it's that they ask whether it's true or not. They have already made the conclusion about what it is but they are uncertain about whether to accept it (because it seems so counterintuitive, because again, I would propose they are making that conflation between ego-mind and God's mind and they don't actually believe that the ego-mind could be the only thing that exists).

Doesn't that say that the issue comes from people assuming that their ego is absolute?

I agree with you in that solipsism doesn't go far enough to say what the mind means.

Materialism establishes what matter is by making assumptions.

Different types of materialism stick to the common assumption of what matter is, but different types of solipsism stick to the logic that there isn't stuff outside of the mind or that external minds cannot be proven, even if they disagree on what the mind is.

Edited 9 hours ago by Nemra

[Nemra]

1 hour ago, Sugarcoat said:

Not being able to experience another's POV doesn't prove that they don't have subjective experience like you. Not being able to access anything beyond your own POV/direct experience doesn't prove all of reality is limited to it. 

If you deconstruct your experience, you will understand how your experience, whatever that is, being the only one is not a limitation.

You can view my previous posts to understand what I mean.

[JoshB]

2 hours ago, Nemra said:

If you deconstruct your experience, you will understand how your experience, whatever that is, being the only one is not a limitation.

You can view my previous posts to understand what I mean.

If other is an illusion you have infinte capacity to deny other in any shape or form.