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Old Apr 02, 2014, 09:25 PM
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Curiosity77 Curiosity77 is offline
Poohbah
 
Member Since: Feb 2014
Location: Earth
Posts: 1,083
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheatreKid View Post
I don't think reality exists, at least not in a collective sense.

It makes me feel incredibly isolated, but what is true in my mind is only true in my mind. Other people will view reality with their own biases and their own interpretations.

So how do we know that other people actually exist and are not just created by our own minds? I don't have autism, but in the autism community there is a term called "mindblindness" and I honestly feel that way. I have absolutely no idea what anyone else is thinking, what their perceptions are, how they see me or anything else. And since I have no idea what they're thinking, I use my own experiences and opinions to fill that in. So in my head, other people are only a creation of my own mind. I mean, other people exist. But the person I know is made up of my own assumptions. No one really knows anyone.

When I was a kid I would try to figure out whether everyone saw colour the same. Like, we're taught that blue is blue. But if I could see through your eyes, what if your blue looked like a completely different colour, maybe everyone sees different colours, but if we're all taught it's blue, no one knows.
I wondered the exact same thing about colours as a kid. I'm still not sure the answer

I don't know about reality. I guess it's usually based on the consensus view of what is happening, so if enough people agree on something it must be real. I used to do a lot of hallucinogenic drugs when I was a teenager, and I thought about the concept of reality a lot. If I experience something, it is real to me, even if others don't experience it or agree. I had a few pretty terrifying experiences of loosing touch with consensus reality. I'm still not sure how to make sense of those kind of experiences, because I wonder if I was just able to tap into some other level of consciousness that is usually imperceptible or if it was purely psychosis.

Interesting topic
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Thanks for this!
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