How am I supposed to deal with the fact that I'll just expirence life through my eyes and thoughts when there are so many verions of reality out there? — raindrop

What's there to deal with it?
You're a piece of the pie like everyone else, just not the same piece.

Rather than worrying over not being part of a hivemind, thinking in monotone, be glad for the creative and colourful interactions the world provides.

I think it all really comes down to me not being able to understand what the point of being alive is. I don't want to die, but I can't seem to understand why I am here (on a deeper level than just being born). Because the world would have been here even if I wasn't born. I just think existence is so weird, both for me and everybody else.

I think it all really comes down to me not being able to understand what the point of being alive is. — raindrop

The point is the same as in everything else, and you'll figure it out as you go along.

How am I supposed to deal with the fact that I'll just expirence life through my eyes and thoughts when there are so many verions of reality out there? — raindrop

When you listen to other people’s stories, one would assume that it provides you with a glimpse of how reality looks to them. You probably notice that many elements of their reality relate to yours in some way. Perhaps they took the same bus as you, or watched the same TV show, etc. When you put these two perspectives of the same experience side by side in your mind and accept them both as reality, this alternative perspective adds another aspect to reality.

Picture an art studio, with several easels set up around an object. One artist draws the object from each easel position, and then the artworks are piled on top of each other and flipped through, creating the effect of rotating around the object. The information gathered from 2D images of these different perspectives creates a 3D image of the object in your mind.

Now imagine a group of random people in an art gallery, looking at the same installation. They each walk around it several times, so they have a clear 3D image of it in their mind. They are also there all at the same time, so the event for them has little difference. And yet in a discussion about the artwork, no two perspectives would be the same. Some may feel strongly about it, loving it or hating it, others may not have thought much about the piece at all, or else they’re so inspired/offended that they cannot stop talking about it. These differences stem not just from the way they physically see the artwork, but from the sum of past experiences and body of knowledge that they also bring to this experience.

The reality of the experience is the same - it is their experiential perspective that differs. The more of these different perspectives you can weave together in your mind, the deeper your understanding of reality. Because reality is more than a 3D object in space, and more than an event or instance of that object in time. Reality also includes how the world is experienced through so many eyes and thoughts. The resulting reality from combining multiple perspectives, just like the object in the 2D images, is more accurate than a single perspective.

So be aware, connect and collaborate where you can, and strive for a more accurate reality. That’s the point of being alive - in my perspective, anyway.

I've had this same feeling and have tried to understand it. When I was younger and first had the feeling of me being me and not being everyone all at once, I had the image of a 'brain' floating in space pop into my head I guess as a way for my head to imagine what I was thinking about. Anytime I'm pondering something I always think about the 'lonely brain'. I took it as that was my realization that I wouldn't think like everyone else and that I would look at things differently always. Its almost like the realization that you've been given a chance at a unique perception oppose to that of the hivemind.

I find it really reassuring to weaken identity mismatches to sortal equivalences. Sortals take stuff and group them, everything in the group counts as the referring word. So "red" is a sortal, it admits of loads of nuances 'under the hood' of red, but it's still 'red'.

So what if a grain of sand may be the difference between a mound and a pile, they still count as mounds or piles.

Invert the spectrum, map red to blue, what counts as red in public for me counts as red in public for you.

I find it really reassuring to weaken identity mismatches to sortal equivalences — fdrake

I'll make "sortal" the word of the day.

If I'm real and everyone else is real and have a sense of "me", is the sense of "me" just an illusion then? And if I'm an illuson my brain creates, do I really exist? — raindrop

This is at the heart of many eastern philosophies. Everything we experience as a separate entity or phenomenon is an illusion which, as you say, is created by the brain, or rather the mind. The "self" is an illusion, maybe the biggest one. In a sense, it leads to all the rest. The "real" reality is an undivided whole, e.g. the Tao in Taoism. Of course, reality is as big an illusion as all the rest. I don't see this as a mystical idea.

As for "being" - in Taoism, things do not come into being until we separate them from the undivided whole. As the Tao Te Ching says:

Return is the movement of the Tao. Yielding is the way of the Tao. All things are born of being. Being is born of non-being.

You can find the Tao Te Ching for free. Here's a link -

https://terebess.hu/english/tao/mitchell.html

You can read the whole thing in an hour.

If I'm real and everyone else is real and have a sense of "me", is the sense of "me" just an illusion then? — raindrop

Per Schopenhauer all the me's are the same thing. There are many conceptions of consciousness but no widely accepted scientific theory.

So we're free to ponder Schopenhauer's perspective and others while dreaming of what amazing and bizarre theory science will eventually create. That consciousness is an illusion seems problematic. To whom is it an illusion?

How am I supposed to deal with the fact that I'll just expirence life through my eyes and thoughts when there are so many verions of reality out there? — raindrop

Here's the trick - like people. Be interested in them. Try to see them as they are. Try to empathize - we are empathic animals. There is only one world, we all just have different illusions, but they overlap.

You’re an original, a one-of-a-kind, an object the world has never seen before your creation and will never see after you disappear. To see what you are you need only to look in the mirror.

I think it all really comes down to me not being able to understand what the point of being alive is. I don't want to die, but I can't seem to understand why I am here (on a deeper level than just being born). Because the world would have been here even if I wasn't born. I just think existence is so weird, both for me and everybody else. — raindrop

It seems your concern boils down to the realization that if each person has their own reality then there is no absolute reality you and everyone else are seeing, no absolute standard outside of yourself that is there to tell you what the point of your life is. Because indeed the point of your life doesn't come from some absolute reality out there, it comes from yourself.

Deep down, what is it that you want? Finding the point to your life is not what you want deep down, because it is precisely once you reconnect to what you want deep down that you will have found the point. There is no purpose without a desire that creates the purpose. Life is not inherently pointless, it is pointless in the absence of desire. Those who despair at the meaninglessness of life are really despairing at having lost touch with their profound desires. So what do you want deep down?

For one, the world wouldn't have been the same without you being here, your existence influences the existence of other people, so you aren't insignificant and you aren't worthless. Once you realize that you have the power to influence the life of other people, what do you want to do with that power?

If I'm real and everyone else is real and have a sense of "me", is the sense of "me" just an illusion then? — raindrop

The self is either an illusion or not.

If it's not an illusion then the self is real.

If it's an illusion then what is it that's being subject to illusion?

Perhaps you mean something else by "illusion".

How am I supposed to deal with the fact that I'll just expirence life through my eyes and thoughts when there are so many verions of reality out there? — raindrop

This is a deciding factor in selfhood. Uniqueness of experience etched into memory provides a continuity in our minds that we and others perceive as "me/you".

An important prerequisite is awareness of self. We must be able to look into a mirror and realize that the image in the mirror is us.

From one point of view, I am an alien who fell to earth who spends most of her time nattering to myself about how crappy this planet is.
From another point of view I am the sharpened tool of generations making tools. I am very effective and it would be unwise to fool with me.
So, both are true.

I am you and you are me
How can it be? We are three

A country has a head
which by it, it is led

yet when we number
by 1 the count higher

surely this is an allusion
that the self is an illusion

This is a subject on which I truly obsess. You are not alone, everyday I agonize over how I am perceived by other people. I consider how I speak, look, act...everything. I know this sounds more narcissistic than anything, but it is more a curiosity that frequently turns to anxiety.
I begin to question the relevance of things I cannot control. Like you say

7,7 billion ways of seeing and experiencing the world

include 7.7 billion ways of perceiving a version 'me'.
I can often 'over-read' into what people say or what I think they're thinking.
I have however recently taken up a meditation practice, and turning it into a 'thought game';
I challenge my imagination to either visualize how somebody I can physically see is experiencing life and thoughts,
how a person (real or fictitious) does/did the same,
and finally sometimes I pick a memory as it passes through my natural train of thought, focus on every individual detail I can remember and create a 'vision' of it in my minds eye that I can enter in a kind of 'POV' capacity.
It reminds me that, if nothing else, I have created a small reality as I go. Memory and imagination serve to this purpose.
I read a fantastic quote recently that really struck me;

The universe is an open end sandbox RPG. There's no end goal. You can only get achievements. Some of them include making people happy

I am starting to believe there is no point to life, the universe, reality or existence outside of the sheer randomness and 'accidental-ness' of it all.
And whilst this sounds hopeless and depressing, I recognize and reflect on the idea that we can give our own lives meaning, and other people can give our lives meaning too.

Sure when we die it will be over, and, in the grand scheme of things, meaningless. But it was a fun play in the sandbox.

Nothing is real. You are not you. The "you" you are seeking is inaccessible.

We are all of part of the greater chaos which we are destined to be part of.

Think of this like, we are part of the screen which makes an image. We are just a pixel on that screen. We have no idea about what we are and what we can complete by existing.

We can only see other pixels around us. Like green or red color.

Only the "one" who created "us" will know the true meaning for our existence.

If I'm real and everyone else is real and have a sense of "me", is the sense of "me" just an illusion then? — raindrop

And if I'm an illuson my brain creates, do I really exist? — raindrop

Your sense of you is created by your brain. That in no way implies that it's an "illusion."

It's just so weird to think deeply about how there can be other consciousnesses than mine which have a totally different expirence of reality. I just can't wrap my mind around how there can be 7,7 billion ways of seeing and expirencing the world. — raindrop

It's harder for me to grasp why that would be weird to you.

Think about it this way. When you're in your bedroom, your kitchen, a local restaurant, your favorite park, etc. those are all different experiences of reality, right? Does that seem weird to you? Even if you just stand in one corner of a room versus another, that's going to be different experiences. Well, for one, no two people are going to be exactly in the same place at the same time. So necessarily they're going to have different experiences.

I think it all really comes down to me not being able to understand what the point of being alive is. — raindrop

Points in that sense are things that we devise. The world doesn't have them outside of us thinking about things that way.

I don't want to die, but I can't seem to understand why I am here (on a deeper level than just being born). — raindrop

There is no "deeper level" there.

Nothing is real. You are not you. — Excessive

That last animated GIF just about sums up my feelings about your annoying tendency to post animated GIFs, especially mockingly-toned ones like the last two. That sort of junior-high behavior is unbecoming of a philosophy forum. Further, it is distracting to see all that motion on a page I am trying to read. Posts like those are just forum-pollution.

You, the very experiencer, the subject, that which I refer to as your consciousness, cannot possibly be an illusion. You can doubt the content of your experience, but you cannot doubt the existence of the experiencer that is the condition for the possibility of experiential content. Consider a stage magician who creates illusions. He can fool an audience into thinking they see something happen that doesn't really happen. But he can't fool an empty theater into believing it has an audience. He can't fool a nonexistent audience into thinking it exists and is watching the show. Make sense?

Your brain cannot conjure an illusory experiencer.

That which experiences, whatever it is, must be real. You are real. What you really are though is another question.

Is this okay:

It is amusing but extremely distracting and annoying. It is impossible for me to read and take seriously anything nearby without actually covering it up with my hand. I am having a hard time even thinking clearly and writing this post with those jumping heads just above. It is like if you are trying to read a book and I keep talking to you and waving my hands and making faces near your book. Extremely rude and childish. The posting of this kind of thing can kill a thread. It probably has already in this case.

My request: if you aren't actually posting something that contributes substantially to the discussion, please restrain the impulse to post. And if the content of a thread doesn't interest you, or you think it weird, just don't post. Move on to something that interests you, where you actually have something interesting to say.

That which experiences, whatever it is, must be real. You are real. What you really are though is another question.

That’s the simplest question. Try pointing to yourself or look in the mirror and you’ll have your answer.

Try pointing to yourself or look in the mirror and you’ll have your answer. — NOS4A2

I am a face?


To say "point at yourself" assumes that you already know what you are. Maybe what I am can't be pointed at.

There are imaginable situations where what you suggest would mislead you. Suppose, for example, you are in virtual reality and don't know it. Or suppose we have your brain in a vat and we have lots of connections to your sensory input nerves and to your motor output nerves. Then suppose we make a high bandwidth wireless connection to a robot miles away, one with a pair of cameras that you can see with, legs you can walk with, and so on. Now, look in the mirror. Is that you? Point at the robot's head. Is that you?

I'm not suggesting that you really are in virtual reality. I am not suggesting that you really are a brain in a vat. I don't even have in mind that you are a soul interfaced with a body (a live possibility), as you might suspect, as I reject that idea for reasons I won't get into at the moment. What I am doing is pointing out a situation where your method would mislead you. It is far from infallible.

Yes, your face is a part of you. You can point to any part of your body and would be pointing at yourself. If you don’t believe it, ask anyone to point at you. Their answers should confirm your findings.

No need to suppose any of those fantasies. They are worthless because they presuppose a missing body in order to argue against the body.

You have dreams, right? And while you are dreaming, you believe that what is happening is real, no? Suppose you were to look in a mirror in your dream, or point at "yourself". Have you penetrated to the essential "you"? Now suppose that you ask some dream character to point at you and they point at your dream body. Does that confirm beyond any doubt that you indeed are that dream body?

If you are playing World of Warcraft and you ask another player to point you out and they point at your avatar, have they confirmed that you are that avatar?

You have dreams, right? And while you are dreaming, you believe that what is happening is real, no? Suppose you were to look in a mirror in your dream, or point at "yourself". Have you penetrated to the essential "you"? Now suppose that you ask some dream character to point at you and they point at your dream body. Does that confirm beyond any doubt that you indeed are that dream body?

If you are playing World of Warcraft and you ask another player to point you out and they point at your avatar, have they confirmed that you are that avatar?

If you weren’t a human body you wouldn’t be dreaming or playing world of Warcraft. The ability to do any of those things require a body, and is therefor a prerequisite to any of those activities.

If you weren’t a human body you wouldn’t be dreaming or playing world of Warcraft. The ability to do any of those things require a body, and is therefor a prerequisite to any of those activities. — NOS4A2

When you say that I must "be a body" in order to do those things, what do you mean by "body"? Must I have arms and legs? What about eyes and ears? Or does a brain suffice?