What If I"m the Only Person in Existence

What if my mind is the only thing that really exists and everything else was a figment of my delusional mind?

Have you ever watched Inception? People in the "real world" (or reality, some may call), are people doing different things based on their personalities, according to "common sense."

However, there is a chance that everyone in this world is simply a reflection of your mind (or anyone's mind for that matter) and that everyone has a predetermined personality as though the world was created as a video game and everyone was randomized on the day that you were randomized. When you were born, so was everyone else, and everyone else will play your game as though they've been playing before you. Even if you were to change personalities, that was predetermined by your first personality.

Another way to look at is it that none of us really exist and that we're just a fantasy being thought out by someone. He may have stopped thinking about us, but we're still living on in this fantasy. No one can ever take the idea away and that is why we may live in this idea and, secretly, there are clones of us in other ideas, also known as alternate dimensions.

Hmmm, if your the only person that has a mind and we're all just figments of your delusions, then does anything else exist but you? Like, to know you exist you probably need to know that something else exists too, so maybe no one could ever exist all alone, there'd have to be at least one other thing to measure their state of existing by?

It wouldn't matter because we all still think that what we see and experience around us is real and act accordingly. In other words, nothing would change because we don't know that we're a figment of your imagination.

You'll notice that a majority of philosophy, particularly that concerning the metaphysics department, tends to not affect the order of the world, except through faith. (And that in itself can alter your environment. Whether or not it actually alters it or pastes an alteration over reality, in regards to this question, can't be known. At least for now.)

@Komal - That is the kind of condition that is almost impossible, if not, to gauge. I suppose if your mind actually existed in nihility, the mind would cope by creating this world. But then again, if nihility exists, I don't think the conception that we have of the mind is nearly as correct as we think it is. I mean, for something to exist where nothing exists-think about it

@quwoosh: but he told us we are though
@admin: what's nihility?

Its a defined concept of nothingness or nonexistence like that found in religion or philosophy talking about that matter. Its hard to describe but nihility is like eternal and all-encompassing nothingness. You should look it up.

using something to describe nothing seems pretty pointless I think if you're talking about something, then it has to exist somewhere or else you wouldn't be able to talk about it.

what about room?
room - space that can be occupied

but we know that there's space because there are walls to a room and and a bottom to the room, to know room we must identify something that contradicts room, like rocks and trees and people

To Komal: Yeah, I totally see where you're going with this and I agree. I mean, a room has walls and a bottom and nothing in between. However, if you were to take all of the "nothing" out by putting "something," let's say instant cement for visual purposes, then the room would not be a room anymore but merely a large block of "something."

This is very confusing though, because we're debating whether or not nothing exists, and it exists because we're arguing about it from the way I see it.

@magickirby: awwww snap, you're right! It's really hard to talk about something that doesn't exist, so there must be something that exists (since we can talk about it) called Nothing. Now, how are we supposed to identify it?

To Komal: Depends how you want to identify it. There's the scientific way of identifying the gases in the air, but that is theoretically "something." We can't prove there's "nothing" if there's "something" we can't see.

Well, then for practical terms, I think Nothing would be a place where there wasn't anything easy to perceive by the senses.

What would the perception of like Helen Keller be like in terms of everything being a "delusion." She couldn't see or hear the delusions of reality. She could feel things physically though.....setting that aside though, don't you think her thoughts on this topic be similar to the theory of Shodinger's Cat? Pretty much everyone DOES exists and DOES NOT exist in reality. If you don't know what Shodinger's Cat is look it up It is very interesting!

@ragdoll i'm somewhat familiar with the shroedinger's cat analogy, the whole 'if you put a cat in a box and close the lid you don't know whether the cat is alive or dead until you open the box so until you open it the cat's both alive and dead'

That idea really helps fortify the whole "whether we exist or not we all think we do so let's roll with it" idea.

I'd like to pose the question: Does Peter Pan exist? If so, where? Is he real?

If my mind was the only thing to exist, then i would be disappointed because of all the limits my mind has.