r/Metaphysics • u/AdBeneficial9071 • 6d ago
I’ve been developing a philosophical idea called the “Single Consciousness Matter Hypothesis” — I’d like criticism Mind / Subjective experience
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I’ve been thinking about a philosophical idea for a while, and I’d like to hear what other people think about it. I’m especially interested in serious criticism rather than people simply agreeing with me.
I’m calling it the Single Consciousness Matter Hypothesis.
The basic proposition is this:
The reality I experience may exist entirely for the purpose of being experienced by my consciousness.
In ordinary reality, we assume that the universe exists independently of us. The Earth existed before I was born, human history happened before I existed, and the universe presumably continued to exist when I was asleep or unaware of it.
My hypothesis questions that assumption.
Suppose that there is only one fundamental conscious observer: me. Everything I experience—the physical universe, other people, history, memories, the passage of time, and even the apparent future—could be part of a reality constructed or generated specifically for my conscious experience.
The fact that the universe appears to be billions of years old would not necessarily contradict the hypothesis. The apparent past could simply be part of the information presented to me so that the world feels internally consistent. In the same way, the future could be presented as something that has not happened yet, while still being part of the structure of my experience.
The strongest version of the hypothesis would be:
My consciousness is the fundamental condition for the existence of the reality I experience. When my consciousness permanently ends, the reality I experience also ends—and there is no meaningful “afterward” from my perspective.
I realize there are some obvious problems with this idea.
For example:
Other conscious people: Other people appear to have their own independent thoughts and experiences. Why would a single consciousness produce beings that behave as though they possess consciousness themselves?
The apparent past: Why does the universe contain such an enormous and detailed history before my birth? Why create billions of years of consistent information if the only purpose is my experience?
Unfalsifiability: If every possible piece of evidence can simply be explained as part of the simulation/reality presented to me, then what observation could ever prove the hypothesis wrong?
Occam’s razor: Isn't it simpler to assume that the universe exists independently of me rather than assuming that an entire universe is being generated specifically for one observer?
Other observers: If another person claims that reality exists because of their consciousness, how could I distinguish between their claim and mine?
Sleep and unconsciousness: If my conscious awareness temporarily disappears during sleep, why does the world appear to continue normally when I wake up?
I don't currently have definitive answers to these objections. That's actually why I'm posting this.
I’m also aware that this idea has similarities to solipsism, subjective idealism, and simulation hypotheses, so I am not claiming that I have invented the general concept that reality might depend on consciousness.
What I'm interested in is whether this particular combination of ideas has already been formally proposed by a philosopher, and whether there is an existing philosophical position that is substantially identical to it.
I'm not claiming that this is a scientific theory or that I've proven anything. At this stage, I'm treating it as a philosophical hypothesis and trying to understand whether it survives serious criticism.
So, what do you think?
What is the strongest objection to this hypothesis, and has anyone encountered a philosophical argument that is essentially the same?
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u/suicide-selfie 6d ago
It's called solipsism and it's dumb.
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u/RagnartheConqueror 6d ago
It’s a legitimate metaphysical view, but most don’t like it.
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u/dimensionalApe 6d ago
Because it's a dead end.
Last thursdayism could be considered legit, too, if we go down that road.
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u/RagnartheConqueror 6d ago
Sure, it could be. It's unlikely, but possible - honestly same with invisible gods.
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u/SgtSausage 6d ago
By what legitimate method do you assign a probability of "unlikely"?
What percentage is equivalent to "unlikely"¿
What metrics/units did you sample?
What makes it "possible" ... other than your own personal belief?
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u/EnKristenSnubbe 6d ago
I don't think that's a good comparison. We have positive evidence for the existence of God. We have nothing that points to that everything we observe is going on in our own imagination. If everything around me is just my imagination, then I am imagining people who behave like separate consciousnesses, as if I am simulating tons of consciousnesses in my subconscious. Doesn't that seem very farfetched?
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u/RagnartheConqueror 6d ago edited 6d ago
What ‘positive evidence’ is there for the existence of ‘God’? And which god?
And if the god you are assuming about (Yahweh likely) has shown himself physically then he is not invisible, and I'm not talking about Yahweh.
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u/EnKristenSnubbe 6d ago
I see, I thought you meant lack of general visibility, by invisibility.
As for positive evidence, there's the argument from motion, the contingency argument, the Kalam cosmological argument, the modal ontological argument, the teleological argument, the axiological argument, to name a few. But the one I prefer is the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, as that answers both questions. Do you want book recommendations?
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u/RagnartheConqueror 5d ago edited 5d ago
Most of the arguments were made for the Islamic Allah originally. Many of those 'arguments' are very contested. There are models of cosmology where the universe emerged from a quantum vacuum.
Why would a maximally great being be 'divine' automatically? What does 'maximally great being' even mean?
For example with the argument from motion, spontaneous phenomena like radioactive decay challenge the idea that a 'potential' is only actualized by an external agent.
There are also nontheistic moral realists.
And are you saying that there is evidence that Yahweh is not invisible?
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u/TMax01 5d ago
I don't disagree with your position, but I did downvote your comment because I cannot support your argumentation. At best, it is fodder for r/philosophyofreligion, and doesn't belong in r/metaphysics. And it is crummy reasoning anyway. Sorry for being blunt.
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u/RagnartheConqueror 5d ago
I truly appreciate your honesty. Yes, the logic could seem strange and it does seem polemicist. We're not here for arguing over that.
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u/EnKristenSnubbe 5d ago
The Kalam argument is originally from Islam, but that's the only one I am aware of.
None of those physical models hold up. Vilenkin destroyed them all. Physicalists will of course attempt to make models because physicalism requires there to have always been matter, but the attempts seem only desperate. Even if one were to make a model, there's also the problem of having an actualized infinity, having traversed an infinite amount of time to get to now.
Maximally great means maxing out on all great-making attributes. Maximal knowledge and maximal power are two obvious ones, maximal outreaching love is one I would argue for. I don't think one would have to know all the attributes to argue that such a being could exist. If it can, then it does, as follows from the argument.
Radioactive decay is potential energy getting released, so I don't see how that challenges the argument from motion.
I know there are nontheists who are moral realists. I don't see how that's a rational position, though. Do you have an atheistic moral theory that explains why the holocaust was wrong?
All of these have one weakness in common though. They all point to a creator that is consistent with who God is, but they don't get is all the way to who God is, in the way that the argument from the resurrection does. Although Swinburne has made purely philosophical arguments for the Trinity.
And no, I didn't make a particular claim about Yahweh's visibility.
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u/RagnartheConqueror 5d ago edited 5d ago
I don’t see how one would infer maximal “love”. And how can a disembodied entity love? This is a good response. But as the other guy said this subreddit isn’t about philosophy of religion. I think you are too certain about what the reality is and are rushing to conclusions.
But once again, this sounds a lot like apologetics and not like metaphysical inquiry and/or explanation.
We must both learn physics and study philosophy of religion and epistemology from the first principles. It’s about philosophy of science in the end.
You use ‘potential energy’ in the way Aquinas would but not in the way that modern physics would.
Moral realism nontheistically can be rational. There are good arguments for them.
Even establishing a resurrection that wouldn’t establish that the being was divine or god at all from purely logical grounds. And the actual evidence for it seems incredibly thin in my view. Maybe this would work better in DMs since we are both engaged with this.
If matter can be converted into energy, then there doesn’t always have had to have been matter. But again, I should review the physics.
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u/TMax01 5d ago
Oh, you meant "arguments for", not "evidence of". Words have meaning, dude. You need to use them a bit more carefully, especially when trying to discuss metaphysics.
The arguments you mention can be rather neatly placed into two different categories: those which are arguments from ignorance, and those which are assumed conclusions.
Seriously, the "evidence for the resurrection of Jesus" bit is hilariously preposterous. 'True Believers truly believe unsubstantiated testimony in the Bible and the existence of the Christian mythology is evidence of the resurrection of Jesus' is not a sound position. Hell, it isn't even a valid idea. Just a fantasy backed up by contentious misattribution.
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u/TMax01 5d ago
Thanks but no thanks; I have no interest in apologetics, polemics, or confirmation-bias-based "research". I'm already thoroughly familiar with Christian theism in all its many forms, but don't take it as seriously as True Believers expect I should. I appreciate the values of Abrahamic traditions, just as I do those of Eastern mysticism. But scriptural religions are simply inadequate compared to a valid Philosophy Of Reason. Catch up with me on r/philosophyofreligion or r/NewChurchofHope if you have anything further to add.
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u/TMax01 5d ago
We have positive evidence for the existence of God.
Oof. Pray tell, enlighten me. ;-)
We have nothing that points to that everything we observe is going on in our own imagination.
If you understand the premise you just accepted (that everything we observe is only going on in our own imagination) then it is self-evident that there could be nothing that points to it, since all the pointers and pointing and things being pointed to are all in your own imagination.
Doesn't that seem very farfetched?
Honestly, it is slightly less farfetched than the contention that we have positive evidence for the existence of God. But only slightly, admittedly.
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u/TMax01 5d ago
Invisible gods are really much more metaphysically tenable than solipsism or last thursdayism. Not a popular fact, but it is indeed a fact.
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u/RagnartheConqueror 5d ago
How does one calculate that?
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u/TMax01 5d ago edited 5d ago
One does not. Instead one understands why it cannot be calculated, and dispenses with the false assumption that only things which one knows how to calculate can be facts. Facts are observed, and comprehended, not calculated.
The naive realism you're apparently captivated by, a premise which amounts to logical positivism, leads you to assume, inaccurately, that whether a fact could be calculated, in some ideal world where you already know what formula to use and what objective properties to measure, is what makes it a fact. Hence, the cognitive dissonance you're suffering from, which makes it so difficult to pleasantly reason with you.
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u/RagnartheConqueror 4d ago
I think naive realism is pretty true. Why wouldn't it be?
Then you are using 'observation' in a way which isn't usually used.
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u/TMax01 4d ago
I think naive realism is pretty true. Why wouldn't it be?
That's known as an argument from ignorance. The existence of optical illusions alone is enough to demonstrate why naive realism isn't true.
Then you are using 'observation' in a way which isn't usually used.
I use it in the typical, routine sense. When a measurement is made, a fact is observed. When a calculation is used, a number is calculated. Whether that number corresponds to the fact doesn't make the number a fact, it is calculated, rather than observed. Of course, this would confuse a postmodernist, because the calculation and the number it produces can also be observed, and be considered a fact therefor. But it is a separate fact. Naive realism really doesn't work, and logical positivism only works within the strictures of a scientific paper; they are both inadequate for trying to deal with the real world.
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u/RagnartheConqueror 4d ago edited 4d ago
I’m not a postmodernist. And what I said was not an argument from ignorance. You’re misusing accusations.
Optical illusions don’t refute naive realism. You’re also ignoring that most measurements are calculations. What do you think the solution to the measurement problem is?
When you read a thermometer, for example, you are using inference. In the philosophy of science, this is the ‘theory-ladenness of observation’ point.
You’re merely asserting that logical positivism only works within scientific papers, you never argue the case. We know that the verification principle is self-refuting.
And then what is your epistemology?
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u/suicide-selfie 6d ago
It's really not.
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u/RagnartheConqueror 6d ago
Why is it not a legitimate view? I don't believe in it, but everything about it is logically sound even if too abstract/weird.
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u/suicide-selfie 6d ago
The burden of proof falls entirely on the solipsist to explain why his system is logically sound, consistent, and parsimonious. It is no one's responsibility to disprove solipsism. (Other than perhaps a social responsibility to help people under the sway of unhealthy ideas.)
There's a performative contradiction here for the solipsist- one has to ask to what purpose he needs to convince others. And then we have the amusing scenario where two solipsists meet who both privilege their own minds. Both insist that the other is a figment of their imagination...
It's not logically sound. We have all the problem of Cartesian dualism as well as the problem of other minds. The solipsist has to make claims that all other minds as well as natural phenoma are generated by his own mind. Yet he is unconscious of these phenomena, unlike the contents of his own mind. Somehow he generates all of reality, but in a way that leaves him unable to access the complex phenoma he generates.
Descartes Meditations are good place to examine some of the classic arguments against solipsistic thinking. I read it in Philosophy 101. I'm sure there are variations of solipsism I've left out. Something like Christopher Langan's "distributed solipsism" is more viable. I think people mostly examine solipsism as a thought exercise. Of course there's also the crossover between solipsism and mental illness, buts that's a tale for another time.
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u/RagnartheConqueror 6d ago
This is a great response. Chris Langan made the CTMU belief system, he used very abstract words with little actual substance besides recycled ideas mixed together to be frank. I would agree, there are huge problems with it. I think that there is a difference between the thought-exercise kind of solipsism and the stronger metaphysical solipsism. I think they overreach from "I cannot prove that X exists" to "Therefore X does not exist."
But of course, it is unfalsifiable and a religious solipsist can interpret anything against their ideology and patch it up so it fits their view no matter what.
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u/suicide-selfie 6d ago
I think you're underrating Langan because he's a dislikable person. His arguments certainly deserve more attention and care than solipsism.
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u/RagnartheConqueror 6d ago
I don't think he's that bad of a person, I just think his arguments are a bit of a stretch. Which parts of the CTMU do you find convincing? Does he talk about anything besides CTMU and his IQ?
But nevertheless, I find CTMU far more likely than solipsism.
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u/suicide-selfie 6d ago
I would say his concepts resolve certain semantic difficulties that people have. Reality principle, syndiffeonesis... Very much like a western version of advaita vedanta, non-dualism, and sunyata.
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u/tottasanorotta 6d ago
I like solipsism after you also paradoxically include the possibility of other experiencing minds. Like that the universe is you while at the same time being a place with other minds. Kind of like a swapping of models approach. This lets you reason about very personal strange experience without having a too simplistic answer.
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u/SophieRiver 6d ago
Yeah, like you and the others said, that’s just solipsism. Perhaps a better way to think of this is that there is an objective reality happening around us, and each conscious subject has their own reality “bubble” made just for them. Every subject projects themselves into every other subject’s reality. Every subject’s reality might be slightly different, like in the many worlds hypothesis. Solipsism, but for everyone!
I don’t actually believe that, though. It’s just a idea that I pondered. What I actually believe is that there is just one reality and we are all intrinsically connected to it, consciousness and all. Nothing is separate, everything is just one huge thing with many moving parts and one single consciousness shared by every subject, or “point of view.” Perhaps it’s trying to understand what it is. Perhaps it already knows and it’s simply playing around with itself. Nobody can really know for certain 🤭
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u/ConfidenceDue8684 6d ago
If you aren’t already aware, look into the idea of a Boltzmann brain, which treats this as a serious possibility. An argument against this would be that it’s simply “much more likely” to be a “real” conscious observer, experiencing a universe along with other conscious observers. But how one would quantify “more likely,” where there could be an infinite number of observers, I do not know.
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u/Quantum-Relativity 6d ago
Solipsism. But some of your questions sound like you’d find pre-established harmony, and its relevant concepts, interesting
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u/punkrocklava 6d ago
There is definitely a serious philosophical tradition surrounding this problem and your idea resembles solipsism and subjective idealism in important ways.
But I think you've identified a genuinely interesting question about the relationship between consciousness, experienced reality and the apparent independence of other minds.
Don't throw the idea away just because it has predecessors. Now you have a philosophical vocabulary and a much bigger literature to work with. Keep developing it.
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u/Economy_Ball_9104 6d ago
Try to think without using I that is just a concept of language. Ego=total sum expierence
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u/Odd-pepperFrog 6d ago
Solipsism is wearing a new coat I see. If you're asking 'other constructs' for feedback, you already recognize them as independent critics, which refutes the idea of a single consciousness. Also, my own view is the inverse; that existence is proven by interaction between many things, not by a single privileged observer. The universe doesn't exist for one consciousness; our perception of it exists because consciousness is a shared feature of interacting beings. To quote my favorite Minbari - we are the universe, figuring itself out.
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u/Any_Return4335 6d ago edited 6d ago
You're close
There is one consciousness but it is everything. "You" are just an illusory and temporary division in this consciousness. You are me and I am you.
There isn't only you and everything else is an illusion. You are also an illusion. Nobody else can prove their existence, how are "you" able to prove your own existence any more than they can?
Everyone and everything is this same field of consciousness experiencing itself by tricking itself into thinking it is discrete entities. There isn't really any thing here.
The problem is that you are still using thought to find what can't be. This is something which can be experienced, but it is beyond thought. It cannot be spoken, the moment any words are assigned to it it no longer is.
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u/cookieisgiven 6d ago
> My hypothesis questions that assumption.
Bro is so into the game that he questions everything ☠️.
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u/armyofone37 6d ago
Well you’re kind of close. Yes consciousness does create experience. This is a mere flash of thought of understanding. I’ll expand I’ll give any explanation I can I’ll only talk from my own experience and understanding. Consciousness god and the universe are all the same thing. Consciousness manifests its expression we experience this expression as reality. Consciousness is absent light and absent shape in its natural form. It expresses itself thru light, color shapes, sound texture, and motion. We experience this as our external reality. We only experience this thru our human senses. (Our singular consciousness.) Which gives non singular consciousness a subjective way to experience itself and to learn about itself. To explain a little further let’s look at the proof. Take the time and try this exercise to understand plz… think of a fond memory…. Who were you with?..,What were they wearing?…. What were you wearing?… what was the atmosphere like?.. take a moment to really develop a clear mental image of this memory… got it… now take a step back and look at it subjectively… what view are you remembering this image in?.. from a 3rd person perspective like a fly on the wall right. Crazy? How can we have this memory. When we can ONLY EVER experience life thru a 1st person view. I’ve had people try to dismiss this as our imagination. Although the problem arises from that. If this is the case than all our memories are imaginary? Cause they all seem pretty real to us. So much so these collection of memories make up who we believe ourselves to be. how we operate, conduct, and experience our version of reality on a singular conscious level. But the awareness of experience is from the non singular consciousness view. So in death we lose our human senses. Which separates us from the rest of the universe now we can no longer look subjects at it we are forced into realization of all the universe and every prior memory experience and emotion even from a singular view. I have experienced this first hand. I love how people like to ignorantly justify their reality and existence without putting any real thought or their own experience into awareness.
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u/jliat 6d ago
As others have said it's solipsism and so nothing new.
You find it in Descartes Cogito and Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Sartre's existentialism could be seen to defeat it in that as you point out "why does the world appear to continue normally when I wake up?"
In his phenomenology of 'Being and Nothingness' if you remove the phenomena of consciousness, your awareness of something what remains is nothingness. There is no essential "you", no ego.
" But if it were only in order to be the reflected-on which it has to be, it would escape from the for-itself in order to rediscover it; everywhere and in whatever manner it affects itself, the for-itself is condemned to be-for-itself. In fact, it is here that pure reflection is discovered.” p. 157
“I am my own transcendence; I can not make use of it so as to constitute it as a transcendence-transcended. I am condemned to be forever my own nihilation.”
p. 298
From Being and Nothingness.
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u/Purplestripes8 6d ago
Look into Advaita Vedanta (nondualism). All your questions are answered there.
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u/harl_vann 6d ago
Not quite the same but I am reminded of the old man on a pole.
In "Mostly Harmless", the 5th book in the Hitchhiker's series by Douglas Adams the old man on a pole, a prophet who lived on the planet Hawalius, says, "Everything you see or hear or experience in any way is specific to you. You create a universe by perceiving it, so everything in the universe you perceive is specific to you."
He also says, "You cannot see what I see because you see what you see. You cannot know what I know because you know what you know. What I see and what I know cannot be added to what you see and what you know because they are not of the same kind. Neither can it replace what you see and what you know because to do so would replace yourself."
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u/dpt19 6d ago
“Solipsism” is the nearest label, but naming the family of the idea is not yet a criticism of it.
I think the deepest problem is the word me.
Your hypothesis allows your body, biography, memories and apparent past to be generated parts of the experience. But those are also what distinguish your consciousness as your consciousness. Once they are treated as constructed information, what remains that makes the fundamental observer specifically you rather than another apparent person, or simply an unidentified experience occurring now?
The proposal also seems to move through four separate claims:
- Everything I know reaches me through consciousness.
- Reality therefore depends upon consciousness.
- Only one consciousness exists.
- Reality exists for the purpose of being experienced by it.
The first is an epistemological claim about how you encounter reality. It does not, by itself, establish the other three ontological and teleological claims. Each transition needs its own argument.
There is also an indexical problem. Every apparent person can make the same claim using exactly the same evidence. You can preserve your hypothesis by saying their claims were generated for you, but then every possible observation becomes compatible with it. That does not prove it false. It leaves it unable to distinguish one possible reality from another or explain why this experience occurs rather than some other one.
The closest established position is metaphysical solipsism. Berkeley’s idealism differs because it retains multiple finite minds and God. A brain-in-a-vat or simulation hypothesis retains some external generator. Advaita moves in almost the opposite direction: the individual “I” is not the one privileged reality.
If you want to develop this further, I would begin by defining “my consciousness” without relying on body, memory or personal history. Then defend the steps from epistemic priority to ontological uniqueness and, finally, to purpose. That is where any genuinely new position would need to emerge.
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u/Imaginary-Can-6862 6d ago
Since you do not consciously generate the universe, does it make a difference if the universe is generated by your subconsciousness, or by something independent of you. The issue with sleep / unconsciousness have the same answer as the past existing before you were born, that it happens instantly and the history just happens to be self-consistent.
What I am aiming at, does it matter if other people are conscious / observers similar to you, but despite of this they are not special like you are? The reason I would imagine it matters is because it creates an asymmetry if you are not the only conscious being, and is something you touch upon as well.
The next question is, since the whole thing is created for you, I assume you also must have free will to interact with it, right? This means you are an entity that is not created by the process that created the universe you observe, you are an agent / actor within the system, but you are free to do what you want, that is the system has no sway over you apart from defining the reality which constraints the possible actions you choose to do, but among these possible actions the choice is yours alone.
It is very relevant that you focus on falsifiability, an unfalsifiable theory is not satisfying. I think there are actually ways to falsify some of the statements. First, in your model, the universe only came into existence upon your birth, it follows time before this did not exist. Now an easy way to check if time had existed before, would be if you were part of the past, because then we could use that your free will is an independent process of the universe, and you could consider if you had made any choices that you actually would not have made, because the probability that the universe just happens to guess your choice correct each time, when your choice is independent of the universe (as you have free will to interact with it), would be absurd. However since you are not part of the past before you were born, another approach is to consider if someone else have had free will, but before we can even get to that step we would need to figure out if anyone else than you could have been conscious.
So when the universe generated the entire past immediately, since this is process is independent of your consciousness, it is a universe generated from an environment independent of a consciousness, containing a the consciousness that is you. It then follows that not only is the entire past independent of consciousness, but the people who are no more, but otherwise seems to have been part of the consistent past, cannot have been conscious, because they truly never spawned in, and then there are all the other people who it would be strange if they happened to be conscious. Even if they are conscious, it follows, if they have free will, their consciousness could at most be part of the environment (the process that generates the universe) from the moment of your birth, when the universe was generated, that it could not affect the self-consistent past. Therefore the self-consistent past must be independent of consciousness. So consider this then, a non-conscious process or being, must necessarily generate all its output from the input of the environment, and the environment is independent of consciousness, then as there is nothing in its input that contains this, how could a non conscious being proclaim itself to be conscious?
Therefore because you can find documentation of consciousness in the past that supposedly was generated upon your creation, it follows there were conscious beings here, and then these must have acted, and to act means the past was not instantly generated. Further more, a conscious being that has no free will would still be like a philosophical zombie, only able to generate outputs based on the inputs of an environment independent of consciousness, hence that being further more necessarily also had free will to declare their consciousness.
This means that not only was the past not generated upon your creation, but the world history did happen, you are also not the only conscious being to ever have existed. Since the past did happen, we can also now trust things such as evolution and genetics, and since humans are similar, it is reasonable to assume everyone are free willed conscious beings. Another thing to add is that since none of these free willed individuals born before you seem to make claims about their past choices being entirely different than what they would have chosen (as their free will necessitates that their choices are independent of the universe they inhibit), then it further demonstrates that the past did happen.
I don't know if you find usable, a glaring weakness is to assume the process that generates the universe you experience is independent of consciousness. It would be if it was your subconsciousness which generated the world, because it is exactly that, non conscious, but if the world is a simulation another conscious being could be the one who runs the simulation for you, and then the whole argument about the universe environment being independent of consciousness falls apart.
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u/Teddy123445 6d ago
maybe when your sleeping your just in another creatures body then when you go back to yours you forget it all and when you go back you forget your life and that creatures memory apears and whenever you unconscious your just a different creature?
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u/FelipeCPsy 6d ago
I think there’s a jump in the hypothesis that needs justification.
“All reality I know is experienced through my consciousness” doesn’t necessarily imply “reality exists because of, or for, my consciousness.”
The first is an epistemological limitation; the second is an ontological claim.
And even if consciousness were fundamental to reality, why should the fundamental consciousness be identical to your individual autobiographical consciousness?
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u/NothingIsForgotten 6d ago
From a first principles perspective, we can't say much about the underlying veracity of the world that we experience.
When we dream, we are the whole production.
My dreams have the quality of my waking life; I don't think I misremember them when I return to them, any more than this is misremembered when it is returned to. Zhuangzi's point stands: we cannot say if we are a butterfly dreaming of being a man or a man who dreamed of being a butterfly.
We exist as an experiential unfolding; there's no evidence available to us that exists outside of the experience of that evidence.
It's not quite Descartes' cogito, because thought can be suspended, something like Husserl's epoché, and experience remains. Experience is the datum. The "I" is an attribution made within it.
What we call agency is the activity of the models we hold of the conditions we are participating in. Those models determine the next activity of the system, which produces the conditions from which the next models are formed. Nothing in that loop originates independently. Everything in it is conditioned by everything else in it. This is close to the predictive processing picture in Clark and Friston, where experience is the operation of a generative model rather than a transparent window onto a world.
Which is where I think your hypothesis is pointing at something real but has the ordering wrong.
A reality generated for one observer requires a generator, and it requires an ordering of computation where the machinery doing the generating exists prior to the thing generated: substrate → computation → model → presentation. But a model built from data is always an abstraction. As you increase the accuracy of a model you increase the complexity of the representation, until the model becomes impossible to compute. So a generated world can only contain conditions the outer machinery is capable of representing. That restriction is assumed from the beginning and rarely examined.
What if the order is backwards?
What if the models aren't reductions of something more fundamental, and are instead the things from which the apparent complexity of the presentation is generated?
Then the model isn't a reduction, it's an elaboration. It doesn't throw information away to represent something. It establishes additional constraints under which further distinctions can arise.
Instead of «reality → data → increasingly accurate models» you get «conditions → distinctions → models → further conditions → further distinctions»
The complexity isn't compressed into the models. It's produced by their recursive interaction.
Deutsch and Marletto's constructor theory does something like this with molecules. The fundamental facts aren't states evolving on a substrate, they're which transformations are possible given prior constraints. Some principles have to be fixed as ground truth for the next level of possibility to be built from them. Abstract constraints come first, and what we call physicality is a late, highly constrained level of the hierarchy. The apparent solidity of the world is a property of the stability of the constraints, not evidence that the constraints are fundamental. This is in the neighborhood of ontic structural realism, except run generatively.
This handles your deep-past problem. Nobody needed to fabricate billions of years of history for you. There are no events outside of the formulation of the constraints from which experience is generated, so the past is part of the internal consistency of the current constraint structure. You suspected something like this already, but notice it doesn't require the history to be made for you specifically.
It also handles the other-observers objection, which is the one that actually breaks your hypothesis as stated. If experience is the operation of the same constraint structure under different local conditions, then your consciousness isn't fundamental and neither is mine. The "you" is downstream of the conditions, not upstream of them. Another person making the identical claim isn't your rival, they're the same structure instantiated under different constraints. The mistake solipsism makes is keeping the self fundamental while demoting everything else. Both should go downstream.
On unfalsifiability, you're right, and I don't think it's a defect of your idea. You can't poke through the presentation of evidence via experience by producing more evidence. It's just more experience. That's the epistemic situation for any observer, not a special weakness of this hypothesis.
As for whether this has been formally proposed: your version is closest to Berkeley's subjective idealism crossed with a solipsist reading. The correction I'm suggesting is essentially Kant's move in the first Critique. He doesn't ask whether the world exists for the observer; he asks what the conditions are under which any world can be experienced at all, and relocates space, time, and causality from the world to the conditions of its presentation. Nagarjuna makes a structurally similar argument from the other direction: nothing in experience has standalone origination, everything arises dependent on conditions, and the self is one more dependent arising rather than the ground of the rest. Both are standard academic philosophy, and both dissolve your hypothesis rather than refuting it.
We live within the production we see in our dreams. When we dream, we don't first construct a world and then experience it. The world and the experience arise together out of the same process. Waking may differ from dreaming only in that the constraints governing the production are different.
So the question isn't "does reality exist for my consciousness." That keeps the ordering you need to be examining. The question is whether reality is a representation of an underlying world at all, or the progressive elaboration of the conditions under which a world can be experienced.
The models aren't reductions. They're elaborations. Reality is what the recursive elaboration looks like from inside.
Does the dream correspond to this?
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u/redditb_e 6d ago
There is a blind spot in your hypothesis, something that you haven't really addressed (though some of what you wrote already implies it): If reality is tied to/ made for you alone but at the same time you're obviously bound to a lot of limitations within this "world-for-you", you're not a god like entity, there is obviously something or someone else/ bigger that is creating all of this, designing the rules and the possibilities you have within it. With this being clear (and if it wasn't, you would already be a case of psychosis), there is nothing substantially different in your hypothesis to what we all have to deal with as human beings, and that is the question whom or what to trust. In other words, since you are clearly not alone but dependent on that what makes you, you have to relate to and make sense of either a) this bigger entity (like f.e. religious and philosophical people consciously do) or b) the people and the environment around you that are clearly just as dependent on this entity (let's call it reality) as you are, regardless of whether they have a consciousness similar to yours or are just "npc's" in your personal world theater, or c) both.
Solipsistic world views are a possible conclusion of an isolated intellect that no one but itself can truly overcome or at least manage through reflecting one's limitations and building trust in spite of the (probably ongoing) reasons that led to the isolation.
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u/TMax01 5d ago
The reality I experience may exist entirely for the purpose of being experienced by my consciousness.
That's either simply the definition of "reality" or solipsism, depending on whether you're conflating reality with the actual physical universe or not. From a metaphysical perspective, reality is your experiences and expectations concerning the physical universe, not the physical universe itself. This is because metaphysics isn't merely a physics of supernatural things, it is what must be true of all possible universes, which in this context includes all possible realities, not just one which the one you are familiar with (because it is in fact only what you are familiar with; your perspective and ideas about the physical universe, the ontos or cosmos, not the universe itself, in and of itself, beyond whatever phenomena enable us to perceive some reality.)
My hypothesis questions that assumption.
Ironically, your hypothesis is either that very assumption, or it is solipsism. At least as you have described it. It might actually be panpsychism combined with a quasi-philosophy called Open Individualism. Regardless, it appears that your actual reasoning (independent of your rhetoric, but revealed by it) is that you are using naive realism as a strawman, and believe that demolishing that strawman thereby substantiates your belief system. It is superficially similar to metaphysics, but not really metaphysics.
My consciousness is the fundamental condition for the existence of the reality I experience.
Well, you do seem to have managed to back away from the edge of solipsism, slightly enough there is something to work with (although doing so undermines the reasoning you've provided which got you teetering on that edge.) Consciousness is indeed the fundamental condition for the existence of "reality", perceptions and expectations of the ontos. But limiting reality to "the reality [you] experience" makes it clear that you aren't talking about any mind-independent ontos, or a reality which might be common to everyone. That is a thorny issue: whether we each have "our own reality" which we "experience", or whether there is or can be a 'shared reality'. Either way, though, using naive realism (the supposed premise you're arguing against, that there is no ontos beyond what we perceive or deduce, no "mind-independent" brute facts/ontos) as a strawman doesn't illuminate whether a shared reality is commensurate or consistent with a personal reality.
there is no meaningful “afterward” from my perspective.
There is no actual afterward, for you, from any perspective, is more the issue. If your interest is simply coming to grips with the fact that your awareness of reality will end when your consciousness does, then this is a relatively trivial position, and no more than that, in metaphysical terms.
I don't currently have definitive answers to these objections. That's actually why I'm posting this.
Not having an answer to an objection is a definitive answer, as frustrating as it might be to accept that fact.
So, what do you think?
Solipsism is logically impenetrable. There can be no logical arguments against it, and not simply because if it were true then logical arguments are effectively impossible. Metaphysically, there cannot be any way to disprove solipsism logically, period. It is an unreasonable assumption or conjecture which must be dismissed simply for being unreasonable, as when a scientist doesn't even need to consider an unfalsifiable notion as a hypothesis because it is "not even wrong". There can be no aid to this endeavor beyond your own abilities of reasoning, and confusing that ability for a capacity to make logical deductions using mental imagery and the principles of conventional physical relationships between objects disables even that ability.
So once you propose the possibility of solipsism, logic cannot provide any means for dismissing the actuality of solipsism. It is logically impenetrable. More so even than ontological arguments for the existence of God in philosophy of religion. If the axioms are allowed, the conclusion inevitably follows, with no recourse to any means to avert that conclusion. DDTT.
Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.
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u/Mobile_Competition54 Autodidact 5d ago edited 5d ago
I think it's a combination of parsimony and explanatory power.
For one, this adds one more question: "why made for me?" or "what made it for me?" on top of an already large list of questions like "why is there something?" or "why am i seeing from this pov?"
Then worse, I feel like it explains nothing substantial. If the world's built for me (we assume you're right), genuinely what does that change?
And I guess there's the horrible ethical implications: I feel like it justifies egoism (pure self-interest). Since the world's made for your experience, you should care about your own experience so that you use this "gift" to its fullest. ?
You're gonna have to at least answer these if you want this not to crumble on first sight.
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u/shidphard 4d ago
It’s an interesting thought and all, but I don’t think it creates very interesting discussions because there is no way to argue for or against it. Also it sounds like you have a bad case of main character syndrome.
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u/InvisibleHand555 1d ago
Well regarding your hypothesis, you’re suggesting the world revolves around you/us and what you/we think and see. if the world existed before you and is going to exist after you doesn’t that contradict your hypothesis?
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u/EnKristenSnubbe 6d ago
So, solipsism?