The only thing that exists is I.

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

“To know yourself is to know your role in someone elses dream.”

Reverse perspective: Every individual plays a role in your dream.
[size=75]By dream I mean your subjective reality.[/size]

Every person or thing represents something to you. Everyone is different so this same thing may represent something different, but the point is that everything is represented by an opinion, an idea, or an emotion. When you look at the religious priest walking down the street you may feel disgusted (Dr. Satanical) or you may think pure truth (Pinnacle of Reason). The fact of the matter is, no matter who you are or where you come from, you feel a certain way about everything.

Now couldn’t you say that every individual represents a part of you? That there is no difference between you and that priest because that priest represents a part of you. When you walk up to that priest to communicate with him, you are walking up to a part of yourself and communicating with it. He plays a role in your dream. He plays a role in your psyche. Do not picture a human man walking down that street, but picture his essence; picture religion. One who can walk up to any individual with an open mind, charm, and elegance is someone who can approach every part of themselves with an open mind, charm, and elegance. When listening to this priest talk, listen to yourself talking, explaining that part of you. Listen closely or you might miss out on a part of who you are. From everybody’s perspective we are One.

“To know yourself is to know your role in someone elses dream.”

When somebody walks up to you to communicate with you, they are communicating with a part of themselves, so be kind to them and explain to them as clearly as possible what you represent to them. They are learning from you more about themselves. You are trading with them information about eachother whether you notice it or not. You are learning from them more about you and they are learning from you more about them. The only reason why you waste your time on this forum is to learn more about yourself by other parts of you giving you feedback. The only reason why I posted this message was to get feedback from other parts of myself (you guys). You represent something to me and I want to see what that something you represent has to show me.

In the end, I learn more about myself which we have discovered is everyone. I am everyone. So what is I? It is everyone. Is there an outside of the ‘I’? Who knows? What part of me out there can answer this question? No part of me can. I cannot walk up to any representation of a part of me and learn about the outside of I. I cannot learn about anything other than I. It is impossible. The only thing that exists is I. You guys out there don’t exist. You are only a mere representation of a part of myself.

Now if you flip it back to common knowledge, where as I = everyone, then consequently everyone thereby exists. And then flip it back again, where as everyone = I, then consequently only I exist. It depends on the way you look at it. But, the major point here is I does equal everyone and everyone does equal I. I hope this is clear.

2

I was just wondering how and when it’s useful to think that you are me or that I am you. What purpose does it serve? and if it has no purpose does that make it false, or just nonsensical.

3

It basically means that you are God, praxis, you just don’t know it yet. Is this purpose enough? You didn’t understand my message so why would you understand its purpose? I am not simply reiterating that we are all One. I am saying that you are the only thing that exists and we are all just representations of things in your mind. Just like things in your psyche (thoughts, ideas, and emotions), you can control us and bend us at will. We are actors in your play and you are the director. I hope you use us to tell a good story.

4

No, you’ve got it backwards, everything is just representations in your mind and we are all actors in your play. I suggest you entitle your play You, me, and God makes three, tehe.

5

smiles

6

I am not Godly.
I am not Godly.
I am not Godly.
I am not Godly.
I am not Godly.

7

I agree with what you say, so I dont really know how to put this…
what you are saying is very similar to the philosophy of ‘everything is in your mind’. Everything we experience is in our mind and exists, everything we dont, doesnt exist in our mind and therefore is unknown to us: it doesnt exist.

8

Very true, but I don’t think you know what you mean when you say ‘everything is in your mind’. Everything is in your mind. Your mind controls you until you control your mind. So everything controls you until you control everything …

9

It might be better to say that something of the mind remains eternal at all times, rather than trying to personalize mind to a temporary experience of a “self,” or in Spinoza’s terms, a series of attributes. So the next question is: with everyone dead…is there still “mind” happening. Well, yes, if mind is nothing more than a set of effects of a single substance. Does there need to be “experience” for there to be “mind,” I don’t think so, because experience is nothing more than a recollection of particular perspectives which are not limited to, by the nature of their attributes, the particular experiences of them. Yes, the “tree” is there when nobody is looking…but at the same time, its not a “tree” in the sense that it is what the intellect allows us to concieve it to be. It is far more. It has to follow that when we say that “lack of experience” denotes “no mind,” we have to assume that what can be experienced is the only set of attributes, that is, only the tree is what is the experience when we reflect on what we call the “tree” and that because of that it is therefore a proof, and that it must occur to give rise to “mind,”… that without those specific events, “mind” does not happen.

What do you think of pantheism? Funk or bunk?

10

I agree with pantheism, although, it doesn’t quite cut it for me. It is more like the tip of the iceberg. Of course everything is one and blah blah … but to transcend this ‘One’ and speak of it in third person … how is that possible, if you are, in fact, part of this one? What does this suggest? An ‘out of body’ point of view, something not human? Doesn’t this prove a ‘soul’?

11

Murdoc:
I have four questions for you that will help me understand what you’re claiming.

  1. Perhaps you woulnd’t mind expanding for me your definition of god. I’m not sure how your notion that all of us don’t exist beyond being facets of you - and how you don’t exist beyond being a facet of me has anything to do with god.

  2. If I murdered you - did you actually commit suicide?

  3. Am I a representation of everyone’s self, or just of yours?

  4. “Everything controls you until you control everything” “you can control us and bend us at will” How can I at once control everything, and be controlled along with everything else - isn’t this town only big enough for one all-seeing, all-powerful entity? This reminds me of someone’s claim that either god must not be omnopotent or must be evil. I’ll have to look that up.

I’m interested to see your answers to my questions though.

-g

12

These are very good questions.

God is everything. If I is everything than, consequently, I is God.

No, what you represent to me killed me. For example: My lover kills me. I chose a path where there was something so wrong with my love that it got the better of me. I was unable to defeat it.

Everyone’s. But you represent something different to me than to somebody else. For example, the difference between me and somebody reading this discussion. You represent something different to me than the person reading this discussion.

You do not exist to me so you are not taking up any room in my town. Just like I don’t take up any in yours. We are walking towns. Each our own and together the towns form a state which with other states form a country and so on …

13

Now, forgive me if this is presumptuous, but I think your view relies heavily on solipsism and I have never found that doctrine very appealing. Of course there’s a quasi-Spinozian sense of unity at work here also, and a kind of pantheism (we have to be careful not to lump Spinoza together with the pantheists), but it’s the solipsism that has grabbed my attention. All in all, I can’t disprove solipsism - it’s a sibling of scepticism and wont be obliterated. I can never reach beyond my own experience and prove that other people are not only what I experience of them from my point of view. So, your position has intuitive appeal. But, because I can’t reach beyond my own experience, who’s to say that others aren’t ‘out there’, quite separate from me and my experiences? In the end, since I can neither prove nor disprove the separate and individual existence of others, I am left with a choice and, acknowledging the fact that I cannot continue any meaningful discourse having accepted solipsism as a premise, I must choose to be against it. Gemty’s questions, especially number three, touch on why I don’t think we can have meaningful discourse with solipsism (your answers to these questions, by the way, seemed spoken in a non-methodical tone - like someone commited to a view who is rapturous, rather than reasonable, in its defence). So, although it would be nice to say you’re solipsist and so am I, I’ll take the Wittgensteinian therapy and avoid taking that route. There are other, more productive alternatives.

Of course, Spinoza thought that God was the solipsist and that we were all complex interacting aspects of Him. This view has a bit more about it than usual solipsism and I think it might be closer to what you’re saying. However - I have previously found that I cannot rest with Spinoza’s picture of the cosmos and since I haven’t either the time nor inclination to repeat why I found that to be so, I must just end by saying that as much as I find your world view comforting, I just can’t accept it. Nice talking to YOU though.

14

Good point. I mentioned in the original post that it just depends on the way you look at it.

The ‘everyone exists’ side appeals to you more, which is fine, but you must accept that there is also another correct side to it and that is that only you exist. Niether views are wrong which is why you cannot prove or disprove against either one.

15

Thank you for the answers, I am beginning to understand. If you’ll indulge me in a few more questions though:

  1. Can I be concious of what I represent to other people?
  2. By extension, can I control what I represent to others?
  3. Is what I represent to others in any way connected to what others represent to me?
  4. What do I represent to you?

thanks in advance,
gemty

16

“To know yourself is to know your role in someone else’s dream.”

You basically just asked, “Can I be concious of and control myself?”

Yes of course you can be concious of and control what you represent to other people, but this means you must first be concious of and control yourself. If yourself is everything, then the more you are concious of everything the more you are concious of yourself. See how that works?

Yes, of course, if you weren’t connected then what I just said wouldn’t make any sense. You learn from them as they learn from you. That is the connection.

I am not sure, yet. You did bring up some interesting questions that made me shine new light on certain areas in my conciousness, but I can’t place those areas, yet. I would have better luck if I spent some time with you in real life.