Solipsism - Does anyone else exist?

Solipsism. What is solipsism? It is basically the idea that in this world, only you exist. Only your mind exists and everything around you is an illusion. That might sound absurd at first but when it's elaborated, weirdly enough, it makes some sense.

Ancient Taoist philosopher Zhuangzi can be credited for starting the idea of solipsism.

Zhuangzi once dreamt that he was a butterfly. He was free, flying from flower to flower, doing the things a butterfly does. He had forgotten that he was Zhuangzi. But then he woke up, and he realised that he was dreaming that he was a butterfly. Then he questioned what if his premise was true. Woken up as Zhuangzi, he was wondering if he was really a butterfly dreaming about being Zhuangzi.

In this world, we can only be sure of our existence. Our minds. We can never be sure of other people's existence. But how does that make sense? They're right in front of us. Existing. But can we be aware of their conscience? No. We cannot. We can only see the world through our eyes and only ours. We can only have one perspective, ours. We can feel the air, taste the food we eat, but all of those senses are limited to ourselves. What about others? What's to say that they're not an illusion created by our mind only when we are around. For whatever reason. There's little or no logical evidence to believe this but when someone point blank asks you if you can see the world through someone else's eyes, it gets a bit difficult to argue with that.

Imagine a bookshelf. There's all kinds of books there and you're familiar with all of them because you kept them there. Now imagine you are looking at that bookshelf. Now you walk away, say, to the grocery store. Now what's to say that those books are still going to be there in the same order or even the same form. What's to say that those books even exist? They might only exist in your presence, because only then can you be aware of their existence in that form. Sure, you can have a friend watch them or even install a camera to monitor them, but that is still supervising. Which brings us to square one: we cannot be sure of anything that we are not supervising. Unsupervised, anything does or does not exist, and we can never be sure if it does. This is called Subjective Idealism and was invented by Robert Berkeley. It says that we cannot experience anything outside of our perception. The example of the bookshelf proves this. Berkeley summed this philosophy into three Latin words, “Esse est percipi”, which translates to “to be is to be perceived.”

Imagine the movie The Matrix. In that movie, neo is chosen and then he becomes enlightened and learns that all of the world around him is nothing but lines of code. Nothing is real, everything is 'the matrix' and hence the only thing he can be sure of existing is himself. Such is the idea of solipsism. There are multiple possibilities, theoretically, of course, that would support the idea of a sole existence. For example, I'm writing this blog right now. But who am I writing it for, if nothing exists besides me? If everything around me is created by my mind, from the stone ages to the world wars to the great depression. All of this information is being created by my mind. We know the human brain is the most complex thing in the universe, but for it to be this capable? One can only imagine. I could be dreaming right now. And when I wake up I would've forgotten everything. Just like a normal dream. Maybe that's what deja vu is. You think something has already happened before. What if it really did, just in ways that you don't understand? Another possibility could be that i am in a simulation. Some advanced species have selected me for some reason and only me. Put me in a huge dome and, for some reason, is putting me up to this test to live among humans that are similar to me. Think about it. Isn't it crazy how almost every human has something in common to us? If I'm the only mind that exists, aren't they all just a small fragment of my mind? Of my qualities. Its food for thought.

Rene Descartes wasn't exactly a big supporter of solipsism, but he did have to say this. “I think, therefore I am,” which does relate to the idea, though remotely, it does.

Solipsism can just be a shower thought or it can be something that you spend your life believing, it has the power to consume your mind, but then again, if it really is true, why would your mind be exposing itself like that?

If the idea of solipsism is true, if only you exist in this world, then you created this site, you wrote this blog, and now you're reading it too. It's all you. Nothing else exists.