Is this real?
Lately it feels like life has been a dream. Like none of this has really been happening. Everything has been so…. good lately. Maybe I’m just not used to having things so positive in my life. Maybe growing apart from her really has lifted a huge weight off of my shoulders. Maybe with that weight gone, I can just breathe easier now.
That got me thinking.
I know I’m real, but how do I know anyone else is? You know that you’re real, but how do you know that I’m real? I can post up pictures of myself, but what does that prove? How do we know everything is real? How do we know that our reflection in a mirror isn’t just an image projected into our minds? How do we know our body isn’t lying limp on a table or floating in a tube somewhere while actions, thoughts, feelings… Our senses, aren’t just sent directly into our heads somehow?
How do we know everything is real? There’s no physical proof that everything exists. There’s no physical proof that we aren’t just a science experiment, and everything we know is just a form of virtual reality beamed directly into our minds. I’m not calling out a conspiracy or anything- but how do we know?
Brian, you’ve hit on one of the oldest questions in philosophy. It’s the philosophical idea called “Solipsism”, which basically means “My mind is the only thing that I know exists”. While it’s an extremely improbably condition, it’s very difficult, if not impossible, to rule out.
Check out the great wiki page on Solipsism for more info.
Jesse (sprocket87)