A Deep Idea About Reality that Can Make You Incredibly Open-Minded
It’s also ultra-liberating
Back in my philosophical rabbit-hole diving days, I had the (mis)fortune of stumbling across Solipsism.
At its core is the idea that you can’t be sure if reality exists—it could be an illusion conjured by your mind.
When you’re dreaming, it seems 100% real. Only when you wake up do you stub it away with, “Bah! That was just a dream” and go out to conquer your “real” day.
But how do you know it’s real? Couldn’t reality be us all sleeping in some unknown dimension and “dreaming” our entire lives?
Even worse, how do you know anyone apart from you exists? Or if even you exist?
Reality could be a lone brain floating in an ocean of nothingness, “dreaming” it all.
Thankfully, Descartes’s “I think therefore I am” gives us certainty of the latter. But your mother, dog, wife, and pesky neighbor?
They might not exist after all — even me and this article you’re reading could be a projection of your dreaming “real” mind.
