It might relate to a fluctuating ego also. — Andrew4Handel

Can you expand on this>?

I would not be surprised if solipsism was true and I was at the centre — Andrew4Handel

In a way, I think everyone can feel that way at times. Nothing is as real as your own experiences, and other people's experiences are only presumed to exist. Other people's behavior often does not make sense -- certainly not to me (or the "you" who did the OP) and maybe not to themselves. If some people's behavior makes sense to them, then they must be crazy.

There are times when I am around other people when I feel totally irrelevant. It's like I had become as insubstantial as ghosts are reputed to be. Is it them or is it me? Hard to say. Maybe I am real and the other people are insubstantial ghosts.

One's fluctuating ego (you aren't the only one whose Ego Indicator sometimes registers a zero--non-entity--and later can register a whopping 10.) I feel that way either when other people act as if I don't exist, or I act as if I didn't exist and they, of course, can't see me then. Yeah, it's crazy. That's our problem of being smart apes. I'm pretty sure other animals don't have these sorts of problems. A cat never has existential doubt. Neither do orangutans.

How powerful you feel or how attached you feel could be linked to ego. Someone with a healthy ego might feel really connected to life and part of it. Low ego might be alienating and lead to a cycle of self reflection or self absorption. I wouldn't necessarily say ego and solipsistic feelings reliably correlate but that mental health might influence how one views one self in the world.

I suppose at one extreme is paranoia where someone believes everyone is out to get them for some reason which is like the ultimate conspiracy. I am on the Autism spectrum so that probably doesn't help me feeling like I understand others or want to conform etc.

I am not sure to what extent our mental health/emotions influences our philosophy or whether it might even be a product of philosophy. I think solipsism is a logical position to reach on its own via reflecting on nature of subjective consciousness and the object/subject divide. Our unique perspective and lack of direct access to other minds. But I am being cautious and allowing for ones mental health to distort insight I suppose.

People sometimes respond to solipsism as if it is self indulgent but it can reflect an alienation of the individual as opposed to rampant ego or fantasy.

I feel it should be natural for most people to occasionally feel solipsistic.

The conspiracy I am referring to is not necessarily solipsism but more like maybe a God giving you your life as a trial to master or some alternative reality hidden behind this one governing it.
Can this be disproved.

Other people's behavior often does not make sense — Bitter Crank

It is a case of "Is it me or is it them?" Am I mad or everyone else?

A conspiracy necessarily involves more than one person in pursuit of a common goal. If God is a conspirator, he conspires with someone.

It might relate to a fluctuating ego also — Andrew4Handel

If I remember correctly (it's been a long time) Freud's concept of the ego was the "I" who negotiated between the rude impulses of the Id, and the demands of the socially oriented Superego. The Id wants what it wants when it wants it, and the Superego is the nagging voice, sometimes shrill, of what we OUGHT to do, because that is what is appropriate, proper, right, good, nice, etc. Id, Ego, and Superego come into conflict because we are social beings, and other people (who also have Ids, Egos, and Superegos) aren't going to let us have just what we want. You may want to eat all the cookies yourself, but so might several other people. If you do eat all the cookies (before others can make a play for the whole batch) you will be denounced.

Other people are not going to let us deviate too far out of the mainline without lettings us know that we risk becoming unacceptable, unlikeable assholes. The Superegos are oriented toward maintaining law and order, and making sure that the rules of etiquette are followed (if at all possible).

So, getting back to your question... why do our egos end up feeling like flat tires? It seems fairly obvious (but "obvious" doesn't mean "easy" or "simple"). If we are not aligned with the demands of society, we will get a lot of negative blowback. We may tend to be excluded from the group we identify with or are surrounded by. We are likely to feel degrees of exclusion, isolation, alienation, anomie, and so on.

Sometimes the only "true, right, and good thing" one can do is buck society but there will be costs, sometimes quite high.

The solution is to find a group with whom we can be congruent. That's not always easy; and besides, groups change, we change, and comfort levels can change.

On a personal note, I've found the most congruence with gay men, socialists, and other 'deviants'. Of course, the society of deviants can be very demanding too. Take the wrong approach and socialists can become very chilly, for instance. I'm kind of an odd ball so I get along best with people who are pretty tolerant.

When I have been immersed in unfriendly crowds (like at some workplaces), my ego has definitely suffered, and I didn't do well, flourish, perform as I might have, and so on.

If there is something wrong with you or me, it might be an unwillingness to align with the dominant paradigm. It may be true, right, and good to remain out of alignment -- but you have to find a way of taking care of your self, and not getting crushed.

I think solipsism is a logical position to reach on its own via reflecting on nature of subjective consciousness and the object/subject divide. — Andrew4Handel

I agree. I think solipsism is a logical conclusion of self-reflection. It intrigues me that solipsism is seen with such contempt as if philosophy's joke on the world. It's a logical conclusion, again, of self-reflection. There is no other alternative than adopt a pseudo-solipsistic view of life. You might find comfort in Wittgenstein's Tractatus. Join me in my Ongoing Wittgenstein reading group.

Maybe the only thing that exists is the all loving Creator who needs to experience what it feels to be the opposite to what it is, but as there is no opposite it pretends that there is, acting out all the different roles but deliberately forgetting who it really is so that the different roles seem real, getting into all sorts of bittersweet adventures and getting lost on the way, imagining itself to be individual and developing egos to reinforce that.

So maybe life is a conspiracy, a conspiracy by the Creator against itself.

I would not be surprised if solipsism was true — Andrew4Handel

There's no reason to believe that Subjective Idealism isn't true, or in particular, Ontic Structural Subjective idealism.

"Solipsism" is variously defined, but Subjective Idealism is routinely called "Solipsism", with an implication that that name discredits it.

Of course no metaphysics can be proved, because no unfalsifiable-proposition can be disproved.

Michael Ossipoff

"Solipsism" is variously defined, but Subjective Idealism is routinely called "Solipsism", with an implication that that name discredits it. — Michael Ossipoff

There's also what Hacker calls: "transcendental solipsism" as defined in the Tractatus.

God giving you your life as a trial to master
Can this be disproved. — Andrew4Handel

I don't think much can be disproved. But it I suggest that there's something to what you say.

But whose idea is it? I suggest that it's your own idea (at least subconsciously/emotionally), and that you're in a life because of yourself, as the protagonist of a hypothetical life experience story, possessing "Will-To-Life" as your defining attribute which is what makes you that protagonist, making there be that hypothetical life-experience story....and hence a universe that is the setting for that experiene-story.

Einstein asked if God had a choice in creating the universe. He had a point, it seems to me. I feel that the abstract-implications that I've referred to, and the complex systems of inter-referring abstract implicateions, one of which is your hypothetical life experience story...are inevitable, as inter-relation of abstract-implications. ...hence the hypothetical story about your experience, from your point-of-view...hence the universe that is that story's setting.

In other words:

There'd be experience for you if... ...and away it goes.

After all, no one would say that God can make there be a square circle, or a true and false proposition, or two mutually inconsistent facts. So the notion of perfect and complete "Omnipotence" is unrealistic.

I don't think that is inconsistent with Reality being Benevolence itself.

I don't know what reason there'd be for God to want to create us and subject us to tests. But it makes sense that we're here because of our own intrinsic need or inclination. Things are still as good as possible under those circumstances...which amounts to pretty good.

Despite the inevitability of such things--which inevitably aren't always locally-good, in some particular temporary life one chapter of a temporary finite sequence of lives followed by well-deserved rest, a return to the natural, normal, usual state of affairs --things are good overall.

Michael Ossipoff

If God is a conspirator, he conspires with someone. — Ciceronianus the White

It could be the Gods and Goddesses like in Greek mythology.

I am trying to think of synonyms for the word I want. Maybe trickery? Illusion? Contrivance. Deception. Artifice. Game. Scenario. Plato's cave.

One of the main things that puzzles me is peoples reactions to life. I don't know what the appropriate reaction to being alive ought to be, but a lot of the reactions I see are banal or non existent.

I think you could, be shocked, puzzled, perplexed, frightened or awed by being alive. But not complacent and conformist or apathetic.

To me it is not a case of just saying words, like "extraordinary", "breathtaking" and "vast". It is a case of responding viscerally and reacting.

If people realised they were in the middle of an apparently infinite reality/universe with inexplicable consciousness and a body consisting of billions of tiny intricate machines you would think it would cause in the them surprise, fear, questioning, puzzlement, inspiration and so on. Yet a lot of peoples lives or aspirations seem really mundane or repetitive even demeaning. In the midst of this vast universal spectacle there is an absurdity and bleakness in some of life's mundanities.

Life is an astonishing temporary phenomenon.

Michael Ossipoff

A conspiracy necessarily involves more than one person in pursuit of a common goal. If God is a conspirator, he conspires with someone — Ciceronianus the White

God can do anything, including lifting the rock he can't lift.

Let's also not forget that God could conspire with the son and holy spirit, thereby self-conspiring.

Life is an astonishing temporary phenomenon. — Michael Ossipoff

But there appear to be infinities involved.

I remember thinking about infinity as a child. I imagined going far into space and then coming to a large brick wall but realising there must be something beyond that wall.

I also thought that if God created the earth at what time in an infinite past did he decide to create it?

God can do anything, including lifting the rock he can't lift.
— Hanover

That's Hanover's religious belief, but I don't agree with it.

Hanover believes uncritically in the doctrine of a completely omnipotent God. Presumably Hanover also believes that God can make there be a square circle, or a true and false proposition, or two mutually-contradictory, mutually-consistent.

To each is own.

Let's also not forget that God could conspire with the son and holy spirit, thereby self-conspiring.

Now Hanover is a believer in Catholic doctrine too.

Michael Ossipoff

God can do anything, including lifting the rock he can't lift. — Hanover

Actually...
https://media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/1126cbCOMIC-gm-god-god-man.jpg

”Life is an astonishing temporary phenomenon.” — Michael Ossipoff

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But there appear to be infinities involved.

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Yes, but Eternity doesn’t mean an infinite amount of time—It means timelessness.
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But yes, there is Eternity, timelessness, for us, at the end-of-lives. During the increasingly-deep sleep at the end-of-lives, an experience of Nothing is approached, but never quite reached during our experience. …because of course we never experience a time without experience. …just the arrival of increasingly deep sleep.
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Eventually, there’s no knowledge that there ever was or could have been such things as identity, individuality, time, events, concerns, lack, need, or incompletion.
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Because then there’s no knowledge of there being such a thing as time or events, it can be said that, then, the person has reached timelessness. Of course (from the point-of-view of the person’s survivors) the shut-down of the body is imminent, but the person neither knows nor cares anything about that, and it’s irrelevant. S/he has reached timelessness.
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That’s part of why I say that peaceful, completed, contented rest, in increasingly deep sleep is the natural, normal and usual state of affairs. …because it’s the final state of affairs for a living being, and because it’s timeless.
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Compared to it, this temporary life, and the temporary finite sequence of lives of which it’s a part, is just a temporary blip in timelessness.
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But life is astonishing. That we’re in a life is astonishing. As you mentioned, we’ve been used to it for so long that we forget how amazing it is.
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Of course that experience of deepening, peaceful approach to Nothingness is only available to someone because they’re a being who has been born into a life. …something that happened because you were/are the protagonist of a hypothetical life-experience story. …as someone with “Will-To-Life. …because of that Will-To-Life….want or perceived need for life.
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That peaceful, restful and contented eternal end-of-lives is, as I said, a return to the natural, normal, and usual state of affairs, from which a life (or a finite sequence of them) is a temporary anomalistic phenomenon, due the abovementioned (subconscious/emotional) want or perceived need for life.
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Though explainable, our life is nonetheless an astounding temporary phenomenon.
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I also thought that if God created the earth at what time in an infinite past did he decide to create it?

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I suggest that the creation of the describable world, including this universe, needn’t be part of God’s relation to this world. I suggest that this universe is here as the setting for your life-experience-story, of which we’re the protagonist because we emotionally wanted, or emotionally perceived a need for life.
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So, the decision that was the reason for this universe was our emotional want or perceived need for life, as the protagonist of an experience story, among the infinity of hypothetical experience-stories, among the infinity of complex hypothetical systems of inter-referring abstract facts about hypothetical propositions about hypothetical things.
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I don’t think that there would be a reason for God to create or ordain that situation. God’s relation to that situation isn’t describable, other than Benevolence toward living beings. Thomas Aquinas said that God isn’t describable, and I’d agree that practically nothing can be said.
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I’ve been saying that it’s my impression that there’s good intent behind what-is, and that Reality is Benevolence itself. Of course that’s what is meant when God is spoken of.
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Anyway, I don’t think that any more than that can be said about God or Reality.
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Thomas Aquinas said those things, when he said that God is Goodness itself, and that nothing (else) can be said about God.
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Michael Ossipoff

That's Hanover's religious belief, but I don't agree with it. — Michael Ossipoff

I was being facetious.

That's Hanover's religious belief, but I don't agree with it. — Michael Ossipoff


I was being facetious. — Hanover

No sh*t? :D

It's the religious belief that you were espousing. Whether you're serious about what you say is a whole other matter, which, of course, determines the worth of and justification for your postings.

Michael Ossipoff