Does the external world exist?

[alexsok]

If you are correct, they you did a shit poor job of creating your fantasy world.

I wouldn't argue with that m8

I have no idea how my mind could have created all of this, but then again, is it really necessary? Is Solipsism really an attempt to tackle the question of existence of the universe vs the individual and who created who and does it really qualify as a TOE (Theory of Everything)?

Don't know. What I do know is that I will always remain bound to my mind and my body and can't step beyond that , and after death won't even have the benefit of having those... I view the universe through my lenses, however accurate they are to other similar minds embedded inside the same universe that you say is outside of us all (in essence).

Think about it. The universe may indeed be oblivious to our extinction, just like it didn't care about the Dinosaurs back at the time, but it nevertheless leaves open-ended the question I have been mystified about for a long time now - how is it that, i'm concurrently everything in the universe (since I can only BE myself and noone\nothing else and the entire universe exists in my mind) and nothing (since I form a miserable point on a miserable point in a tiny little galaxy)...

This representation, however accurate it is of the universe, is too much to handle if you ask me.

What's really insane is to believe that your mind created a universe for you where you aren't the king, number one movie star, richest dude in the world, sex machine, epitome of health, etc

Well, I never said that I knew how my mind created the universe, or even if it is reasonable to ask why it was created in such a way as for me to be the entire universe and yet be nothing on the scales of the cosmos, the earth,etc, not be a super-rich, always successful movie star/billionaire/ladies man/whatever.

I don't know why i'm not everything you just mentioned, but I do know that I can't step outside of myself and become someone else, nor can I ruminate existence and the universe without me.

If we're indeed only full individual represenations of the universe that amount to nothing at the end (since the universe existed and will always exist forever without us, as opposed to our tiny little time-windows), then deeming that "cruel" wouldn't cut to the core - it's damn disastrous, the biggest misfortune to ever befall any reasonable/unreasonable thought and no amount of religious/gnostic/atheistic/whatever healing could ever rectify this - believe me I know....

Either way, both positions are a mystery I'm unable to decipher or fathom in any way or form and no amount of mystical or other teachings which I went thorugh during my lifetime MAKE SENSE to me - do you know how it feels like? It's like people, instead of looking at a bare-naked truth lying in front of their eyes, truth as enigmatic and unexplainable as reality, are coming up with euphemisms or other alleviative measures to stave off these uncomfortable existential questions.

Last one i've seen was that we will find out everything after we die. Can you believe it? It makes even less sense than the rest of this horsecrap.

I can officially say that I'm not an atheist/theist/agnostic/buddhist/hinduist or a proponent of any other teaching or philosophy - nothing makes sense to me anymore and it has been like that for a while, and no one seems to understand that. It's either i'm a unique Solipsist or there is something terribly wrong with everyone but me.

 

[alexsok]

It's written pretty nicely here:
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/8171/solipsism.htm

Now, some of you will say (to coin it colloquially) "hey, if this is *my* universe, how come it sucks so bad?"; the answer to that is simple. Just because it only exists in your imagination doesn't mean that this projection of your mind has to be a pleasant one and/or could be intentionally completely controlled/molded/modified by you, just like you are unable to intentionally/consciously control/change/influence your dreams. You might have a good, pleasant dream or you might dream a nightmare, either way, it is uncontrollable yet it is still _your_ dream, noone else has it.

 

[digitalwanderer]

From a practical point of view and from your perspective, does it matter if the external world exists or not?

 

[3dilettante]

It's written pretty nicely here:
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/8171/solipsism.htm

If control is not present, then the lack of a meaningful distinction between "universe not in my head" and "universe in my head but I have no link or control over it" leads easily to the entire situation devolving back into a separate universe/separate state.

If coupled with the still unresolved issue where the mind of the dreamer need not be subject to the laws of the dream (including the one that things must degrade and die) then the fact that the self has no control or knowledge of elements in the universe not within the concept of oneself creates a distinction between the two.

If:
1) the dreaming mind in this case is not subject to the requirements of the universe for entropy and mortality, and thus, it can continue with or without the universe as something apart
2) there is no control or connection between one's perceived individual existence and the universe
3) the self is mortal--something presupposed by the contention that one's death ends the universe

Then the self is merely a figment within the overarching mind or god-head as it were.

Because the dreaming first-cause has set it so the individual personality is something apart from the figments that compose the universe, but still subject to its rules of death, it is not the dreamer, at least not more than a fleck of silica is the mountain of which it is a part.

Therefore, the individual may die, but the overarching dream or dreamer continues. There is no reason why the dreamer need end the rest of the dream because of a simple passing figment.

The dreaming object or being is thus separate, the specious connection between you and your dreamed world need not exist, and the universe--representation or not--can go on without you.

Because the higher dreamer has set the reality and you've given it such a creator's status by ignoring a genesis, its authority is absolute and the representation is as much reality as anything can be.

Therefore:
the universe is real
it can do without you

 

[alexsok]

All of what you said is correct assuming that there is an overarching dreamer (which I would equate with God or simply a higher-state universe-unfurling entity), but it is highly dubious and specious.

 

[ninelven]

I already told you...

Uh no you didn't....
/roflmao

Edit: oh, so I don't come across as a complete asshole... maybe instead of asking yourself what exists, you should first consider if whether or not something exists really matters. much more productive...

 

[3dilettante]

All of what you said is correct assuming that there is an overarching dreamer (which I would equate with God or simply a higher-state universe-unfurling entity), but it is highly dubious and specious.

Unless you can resolve these issues satisfactorily, the possiblity exists, and begs far fewer questions than your current formulation:

1) the disconnect between the perceived self and the dream, how our dream universe sucks because there is no control

2) why it is that the dreamer must be subject to the same laws of entropy and death that things within the dream are subject to

3) the perceived self is mortal, even if the dreamer is not: why should it stop dreaming when you die?

to boot, you've also given up explaining genesis of the dreamer, it is something you've said inexplicably came into being, it needs no outside justification, and nothing external seems to affect it

 

[alexsok]

I really like the view expressed here:
http://users.nni.com/keiser/42d.html

Conclusions


Every one of us exist in our own universe. All the things I believe are only the universe I perceive. This is my personal universe which I offer to combine with all the other perceptions. It is only one of the possible universes that exist. What you perceive as Truth and Reality can be, and probably is, different than what I perceive. That is your personal universe you offer to combine with all the others. It is also one of the possible universes that exist.
Every mind has their own perception of what is truth and what is reality, and everyone of them exist as a possible Universe.
There are religious minds that believe the Universe was created by a god or gods. What they perceive is also a possible Universe that exists.
There are Scientific minds who believe there is nothing more to our Universe than the matter and energy we see all around us. That is their perception of truth and reality. That is their personal universe they offer to combine with all the rest, and is also one possible Universe that exists.



The Many Worlds theory contends there exists an alternate Universe for every choice anyone makes. In that alternate Universe you exist just as you are in this Universe, except sometime during your life you made a different choice and took a different road. Maybe you made many different choices and traveled many different roads, but they all exist in parallel to each other and you exist in everyone of them, just slightly different in each.
In the philosophy of Solipsism there is only one Universe, and it only exists in your mind. Your existence is the only thing you can be certain of. Everything else is only supposition and an illusion created by your own mind. You exist, but nothing else, and no one else really does. Thus you are the god of your universe and all you perceive is simply your own mind playing tricks on itself.


Quantum Physics, Superstring and M-Theory have a multi-dimensional quintessence of unseen energy warping our Universe into existence and manipulating the sub-atomic particles to create what we see as Reality.


With many of our worlds religious philosophies a God or Gods created everything, and granted humans a Free Will to chose for themselves.
So who is right? Which truth is The Truth?

They all are.


All philosophies have their attractions, but of all of them Solipsism is the hardest to resist, and the most difficult to dispute. After all it is the essence of "I Think; therefore I am," and anything after that is almost impossible to differentiate from pure illusion.


I have no doubt we do have a free will and can choose for ourselves what it is we wish to be the truth. If you believe in a Heaven and a Hell, than the heaven and hell you believe in will be your final destination. If you do not believe, than your final destination will be one of your own choosing. Your final outcome will be exactly what you believe it will be.




As with the Many Worlds theory there are an untold number of other universes, and as with Solipsism, every mind is a universe complete in itself. Whatever that mind believes to be the truth, is the truth for that universe. That is the Free Will of religious doctrine, to choose the truth you believe, to be the truth for your universe.
Contrary to Solipsism which admits the existence of only one mind. Poly-Solipsism admits the existence of untold numbers of other minds all entangled together to create what we perceive to be Reality. It is this entanglement of minds that keeps the illusion persistent.


With our ever increasing thirst for knowledge of the system we exist in, science has pushed the limits in examining the physical Universe. We just plain ran out of the physical and have ventured down the rabbit hole into the metaphysical. Quantum physics is the study of the metaphysical. With Quantum Physics we venture into what lies behind the curtain of our reality. We enter into a world of quantum existence in 11 dimensions where unseen forces shape our Universe and our Reality. Everything that exists in our Universe is entangled with, and radiates from, the Quantum UNIverse.
If everything in our Universe is entangled with and radiates from the Quantum Universe, it stands to reason our brain must also be entangled with and emanate from the Quantum Universe. Quantum links in the brain would mean our Id does not exist solely in a physical brain. Consciousness and self-awareness may exist in the quantum part of our Universe. With Quantum Theory science may now be discovering the domain of the spirit and soul.
It could be our interesting inclination to view ourselves as observers rather than participants in the Universe that surprises us so when we find we are not only connected to, but are fundamentally part of everything.
I do find it of interest, and consider it illuminating, how we view ourselves in relation to the rest of the Universe. We do consider ourselves as observers in the Universe rather than participating in the Universe. We are here. The Universe is...out there!
Poly-Solipsism tells us why we view ourselves as separate from the rest of the Universe. We do so because we are separate. Each of our mind/universes exist independent of each other, and when we view our shared Universe, we do so through the hazy lens of our own self generated universe.

 

[mondoterrifico]

Or is it only a representation? I can't shake the feeling that there can be absolutely nothing said against idealistic solipsism.. it seems that it is here to stay with us until the last observable entity (read: human) is swiped off the face of the planet.

For me it just isn't something worth spending time on. It is a hypothesis that is unscientific, and untestable.

 

[3dilettante]

The given passage would be more self-consistent if it gave up trying to fold the assumption there are others besides the self interacting.

If this reality is the reality seen because it is agreed to be so by the minds that observe it, does not explain the mechanism by which they can come to agreement.

Three minds are interacting, one believes a mountain exists, the other two do not. One believes water is wet, the other believe it is like sand.

Yet their perceptions do not agree. Why?
Is it a vote? What if the other two minds convince the other that the mountain does not exist?
Why is it that despite the effort, we haven't been able to convince one another that a mountain we saw earlier isn't there?

Is there another mind, one not in the negotiation that takes precedence?

Another problem:
Your interpretation earlier removed personal agency from deciding the nature of our world. We don't dream of a world where we are kings because we cannot choose it. If so, we cannot choose to agree or disagree.

The mechanism or happenstance that leads to our rough agreement would be its own reality, of which our perceptions are a suboordinate part.

Another offshoot of the many-worlds interpretation is that for every possibility, there is a mind associated with it that dreamt it up. However, this leads to a kind of continuum of minds, which forms a framework exterior to each individual's experience.

This framework can be eliminated if you remove the supposition that there are other minds, but does not then solve the issue where all these minds are somehow mortal if the reality that demands they die is merely their creation.

If this cannot be assumed, then the delineation between our desiring, material, and finite conception of our self and the universe at large must be separate, if only by our own will.
We would have willed the truth that our reality is not ours.
If we are mortal, then we will find the contradiction where the perceived self passes away, but the dreamer remains, possibly completely oblivious to the fact.

Solopsism in this case is not a philosophy that elevates the human perception to reality, but one that falsely reduces reality to something it does not need to be.

It is not the most difficult to disprove or argue against. The very act of questioning is evidence against it. The addition of more questioners merely makes it less valid.

A request:
Would you synthesize your own interpretation so I know what it is I'm supposed to be discussing?
It's not worthwhile to talk if all you need to do is run a google search to put up something that needn't be consistent with the statements you put up earlier.

I'd like to see what you think of the text you post, not the fact that you and I both agree that the copy and paste function exists.

 

[alexsok]

Fair enough m8.
The thing is that I no longer know what to think (I stopped believing a long time ago) since everything I think or hear seems to be consistent/inconsistent at the same time. What is always hovering on the horizon is what Wittgestein once said "Whereof we cannot speak thereof we must be silent"... he liked to call the metaphysical field a "language game" whereby we take stuff of ordinary experience (which we refer to using linguistic means) and start expanding it to territories it was never meant to explore and Schopenhauer & Kant who both claimed that the "thing-in-itself" (noumena) could never be known.. and Schopenhauer went on to add to that that it might not be capable of being known by any way whatsoever (human or not).

I have a metaphysical discomfort. On the one hand, I do acknowledge that other people exist and to that end, I'm a Realist. On the other hand, I can never step away from my mind & body and really check if anything exists other than me (other people, animals, trees, reality, etc) and to that end, I'm a Solipsist... but then other people come to me and ask "if it's your universe only, then you did a piss poor job whilst creating it" and I couldn't agree more, and revert back to the Dualistic notion that we each have no more individual control over ourselves other than our bodies and perhaps some psychological positive/negative thinking whilst messing with our minds.

On the one hand, Solipsism is the whole of reality (without there is no nothing), but on second thinking, it rests on a false premise, namely that 'certainty' is the sufficient condition for knowledge. Empiricists, pragmatists & other fallibilists have, to my mind, persuasively shown that it is not. An invalid inference is, nevertheless, drawn from certitude about the contents of self-consciousness to that self being the entirety of reality. Under careful scrutiny (e.g. phenomenological), however, removal of the contents of self-consciousness (i.e. memories & perceptions) shows 'the autobiographical self' to be an illusion. Thinkers as far ranging as Buddha Aristotle Shankara Spinoza Hume Wittgenstein Merleau-Ponty & Daniel Dennett, for instance, have explored and clarified this insight. Furthermore, even if solipsism were true it would be trivially so because it would amount to a distinction without a difference: the 'self' might be the whole of reality but self-consciousness would only be flotsam in an endless, unfathomable sea of sub- or un-consciousness (i.e. the world): intentionality would be infinitesmal, volition even less: no different than being a "being-in-the-world".

If a dreamer dreamt me up, then I'm distressed that I don't know about it or might never know because either:
a) he doesn't exist
b) chose not to reveal himself
c) i will die without finding that out because he happened to choose for everyone to go down that path.
And that doesn't even include the question of why was the dreamer dreaming in the first place.

and if there is no dreamer then:
a) where did all that universe come from
b) why am a single emerging property that evolved in a complex biological process and not some other entity?
c) why i should struggle to survive in life to it's logical end to go nowhere?
d) why should I consider any metaphysical or any other theory conceived by other minds when all of them amount to nothing (i'm still going to die).
e) why are there an infinite points of contention over everything?

I have lots of other questions... I was, as Emile Cioran remarked in one of his Philosophical essays, "born in consternation" and not a day goes by without me asking the question "WHY" and without castigating myself for asking since I can only refer to it in linguistic means which are ambiguous and don't change anything in my consciousness or outside of it.

I can't be an Atheist, Theist, Agnostic, Buddhist, Hinduist, Yogi, Zen or anyone else - nothing provides me a satisfying answer and nothing placates me.

I would truly have to be God (of my own universe, perhaps relegating others to being Gods in their respective universes) in order to feel cozy and trouble-free... and just by being able to spit out such nonsense, which nevertheless is probably the limit of anything anyone could ever say drives me insane.

It's truly better to be an animal and just be slaughtered by some predator or human and not ever have to use any language or ask any question which are fundamentally unanswerable and which have as many subjective interpretations as there are peope.

I don't know how to express myself better, nor would I know how to do that in my native language... these things totter the event-horizion of the Black Hole and they don't have any reasonable answer.

It's like Sartre (or Heiddinger?) said "A person is born into an unfathomable existence for no reason at all, lives for a while and then is thrusted back into an unfathomable non-existence (that's me paraphrasing)"

I would gladly grab a shotgun and splatter my brain all over the walls if I had access to one (other means are out of the question) just to stop living thinking about this metaphysical enchilada that leads nowhere.

Sometimes I think that the depths of despair I've been at are beyond any mortal's capacity to comprehend

You wanted my honest-to-god opinion - I spun it for you per your request...

 

[3dilettante]

I had this good long post where I had a response, but the forum ate it.

Oddly appropriate.

So here's a summary.

To paraphrase the book of Job, at the very end.

Job: Why did you do this to me?
God: Shut up.

What makes something real to me is the extent to which my desires over it have no effect.
Things are real to us because we don't understand how to unmake them, perhaps because we are no more real than they.

Within the context of what we are that's really all we can ask for.

Going by a weak formulation of the anthropic principle, things are as they are because if they weren't we wouldn't be here to ask.

They may very well be different elsewhere, but our context is as it is.

Do not assume finding the answer you seek will give you peace in any way shape or form. It's just an answer.

You are attaching a normative value or using as a measure something that exists by reality's definition outside of the ability to measure.

Whether something is real does not grant you meaning, what you feel is irrelevant.

In my measure, that makes it good enough.

If there is or isn't a dreamer, it may very well be that the dream has it that you never meet.

That doesn't mean one must stop looking, because we can't be sure. Despairing over uncertainty and also not looking is meaningless even within a human context.

If you think a shotgun to the brainpan is somehow consistent with what you are, use it.
It obviously from an outside standpoint was the case.
You have been defined by whatever means to be a creature that cannot know it to be true, so the choice is still a choice, even if the ending is not in doubt.

The fact that you made what little we are given to know as a choice is really all you can hope for, and it isn't a god-ordained or eternal meaninglessness-derived thing that makes you try to fit something entirely external into the very limited role of providing meaning and unease.

If God does not have worries, then it is because God decided not to worry, or God decided that no things that cause worry would be.
In the limitless bounds of a deity, the distinction is meaningless.

For the limited bounds of what we probably are, we can hope for little else for ourselves.

I can't assuage your worry, but I can tell you that things will be as they are regardless.

 

[alexsok]

I can't assuage your worry, but I can tell you that things will be as they are regardless.

Sometimes, realizing that things will be as they are regardless doesn't help... the emotional instability or dissatisfaction remains put... sometimes I think as if I'm going insane.. and plunging head-on into mundane things assuages the worry... but only for a while...

I can't see myself as real or unreal - I need a final answer... a peaceful resolution to this enigma of life... it's the last straw that I hold on to in order to not lose grip on myself and on everything else...

 

[3dilettante]

Sometimes, realizing that things will be as they are regardless doesn't help... the emotional instability or dissatisfaction remains put... sometimes I think as if I'm going insane.. and plunging head-on into mundane things assuages the worry... but only for a while...

Realizing the opposite or anything else would be no more comforting. You're just screwing yourself, no need for grandiose worries about the purpose of meaning for that.

I can't see myself as real or unreal - I need a final answer... a peaceful resolution to this enigma of life... it's the last straw that I hold on to in order to not lose grip on myself and on everything else...

Define real.

What is it that would be different if what you are right now is not real? My answer is not a thing.
If it is false, then there is nothing to be different. If it is true, then it is what it is.

What you've done is painted yourself into an argument that only permits losing, because winning doesn't count.

So what if this is a dream or has no higher meaning?
Here's a sum of the choices.

Things are real, and we choose to believe that they are.
Things are real, and we do not.
Things are not real, and we choose to believe they are.
Things are not real, and we correctly (actually no, we don't exist, we can't be correct) do not.

In the grand scheme of things, my position is that it may be possible we may never know.
So choose one to build your feelings of certainty around. It's not that what we choose will change things, but that these things by our reality do not matter in the slightest.

It can all be something, and we believe that it is, so it's all positive all around.
It could all be nothing, and we believe that it still exists, and so it's a lie but a damn sight better than the other two choices (if you decide it is).

Whether it makes you feel better is all about you, the universe doesn't figure at all into it, as much as you'd like it to.

You are conflating your emotional state with something that if real exists on a level completely removed from the plane of emotional experience.

Our emotions work with things in our reality. The existence or non-existence of a creator or some higher purpose deals with something that apparently refuses to work on the terms that feelings or decisions reside within.

You should care more about Franco's bowl of pasta half a world a way than the choice or non-choice regarding the inception of reality.

It is an act of ego that you think your emotions are so important that they have to fasten onto something that exists beyond the means of being remedied, because being remedied is a verb--which implies a state, a before and a transition to after. You worry about something that by it's non-definition makes language and action inconsistent.

It is an act of misguided self protection to try to force your feelings to fixate on something above your own life, above this world, and above all the little things that emotions and worries actually work on.
The sad part is, doing so ignores the basic nature of our thoughts and feelings, that they work within the scope of this life.
That's the source of a lot of this ennui. Because you take your standards of emotional validation and tell them to work with something that--is for all intents and purposes within this realm--nothing.
It's like turning off your ears, and wondering why nobody will talk to you, or rejecting that you can think and wondering why nothing makes sense.


What of the answer you seek?

What peace do you think you can get from an answer?
Even if you knew, it would just be an answer.
You would only know it as a piece of information. Your life is full of things like that. Why not feel fulfilled knowing bricks are rectangular? It's the same thing.


What if you met God, and you were told the answer?

You: What is the meaning of life?
God: Kumquats.
You: Really? Why?
God: I just told you the answer, so you ask another question? Oh Me, this is why I don't tell anybody.

You can have no expectation that the answer will make sense (it is an answer out of time and out of reality), and you can have no expectation that it will be comforting.

To meet the mind of a prime mover, if it has one and if it exists, is to be able to look into the eye of Something that has seen horrors beyond imagining, One that has seen and perpetrated misfortunes on little creatures like you and creatures far greater, without so much as blinking.
Maybe you should be thankful, that the higher purpose or designer has decided to ignore or cannot interact with you. Your very idea of what would make you happy about finding it would find it revolting.

I'm not saying you shouldn't try to find out or get a better idea of whether there is an answer, but don't bet your well-being upon it. Even being successful has no guarantee it will change anything, because your well-being is not something that exists outside of your reality.

If you must question, approach it as you would approach buying a bag of potatoes. It would be more appropriate and consistent to worry about the potatoes than it would to worry about the purpose of it all.

If I may suggest, try to live your life with some goals that exist within it, give your emotions something to work with as opposed to nothing, and only think about this while on the crapper. That way, even if you can't think of anything, it wasn't a total waste of time.

 

[alexsok]

Thank you for a very well-conceived and upbeating post

I have thought about that myself - what would happen had I been given the answer to the riddle of life, what would I do with the answer?

You know, I might as well forget about making sense of life & universe but what I do know is that the absurd does not encapsulate existence as a whole, but, in my case, me in particular.

There are certain things within reality that a person has to do (seeing as he is living in society among creatures such as himself) and many people have been trying to compile the list of these things (the famous hiearchy of needs came pretty damn close) but I don't see the purpose of doing that because:

1) There is no point because I'm going to be dead, perhaps today or in 20-50 years, but dead nevertheless, and it is well known that the deceased don't have a worry in the world...
2) Even if I won't be successful, what difference would it make for humanity? If not me, then someone else will probably take my place, or perhaps millions of other successful people will replace me.
3) I don't like reality the way I see and it goes much deeper than just sitting on a crapper or gulping boxes of pint with my friends - talking about this doesn't change nothing, and doing btw doesn't fundamentally alter anything as well since the things I don't like have to do with reality, other people, myself, EVERYTHING.

I know that you're right, that the emotional side of me couldn't possibly win the tug-of-war and take the trophy from the universe, but I just can't seem to comprehend why was I brought here by accident/design, to this atrocious and insufferable existence and now have this sense of dream of my upcoming future demise? I had no right to exist without someone or something asking me first whether I wished to be born - as it stands, I would rather go back to my mother's womb and not experience death or life with all the baggage they come equipped with.

 

[3dilettante]

1) There is no point because I'm going to be dead, perhaps today or in 20-50 years, but dead nevertheless, and it is well known that the deceased don't have a worry in the world...

Why? You haven't given me a reason why there should be a link between mortality and there not being a point.
Billions get along fine, so this may be more of a conflict with a personal preference of yours.

2) Even if I won't be successful, what difference would it make for humanity? If not me, then someone else will probably take my place, or perhaps millions of other successful people will replace me.

Why does the trait of being replaceable invalidate meaning? It's just one trait of many.

3) I don't like reality the way I see and it goes much deeper than just sitting on a crapper or gulping boxes of pint with my friends - talking about this doesn't change nothing, and doing btw doesn't fundamentally alter anything as well since the things I don't like have to do with reality, other people, myself, EVERYTHING.

The stoic philosophy might be something you could look into. Not that it particularly strikes me as being the one true path, but it seems preferable to your current position.

I know that you're right, that the emotional side of me couldn't possibly win the tug-of-war and take the trophy from the universe, but I just can't seem to comprehend why was I brought here by accident/design, to this atrocious and insufferable existence and now have this sense of dream of my upcoming future demise? I had no right to exist without someone or something asking me first whether I wished to be born - as it stands, I would rather go back to my mother's womb and not experience death or life with all the baggage they come equipped with.

That's a lot of qualitative judgements in a few sentences.
If we go back to the solopsism vs. outside reality debate, that leaves two interpretations.

1) Everything is a personal construct and your suffering is equivalent to the insufferable nature of the universe.

2) There is an outside reality, and it's just you or your life that sucks.

One of the two is a lot easier to stomach, because it is conveniently inescapable, while elevating your suffering to the level of a universal constant.

It's a shame, then, if your dreamt up world is full of examples where life doesn't suck that much or people that suffer through the insufferable. In which case, even in a solopsistic dream-world, you still are something that sucks in a manner apart from the rest.

If you aren't happy, it's not because life has no existential value, because there is plenty of proof that happiness seems to function while completely unaware if it has value, and the value does not need to be happy.

I could say you should get help, but I'm not going to baby you. I personally am not particularly pleasant in my dark days, and I have marked self-destructive tendencies.

One doesn't really know if suffering is the sum total of one's life until there is absolute certainty that there isn't enough of the life left to fit in anything else. It's not much of a platititude, because it's just a statement of what is, and many find themselves in the unfortunate position where they are very sure.

I can only recommend you muddle through life until you find something interesting, or you get hit by a meteor or something.
Failing that, you can always convince yourself that a pointless death after a miserable (possibly short) life is the most proper thing you can do. That way, life is a cluster-fuck, but at least you get a masochistic thrill out of it.

There really is no higher reason why either outcome is superior, just piddling little human ones.

 

[alexsok]

Actually I get a masochistic thrill from thinking about myself in relation to all other people... I like to think of an infinite variety of differnet solipsistic universe (as in "subjective experience of one all-encompassing universe") and compare this infinity to the limited exposure I have to one finite, limited and mortal subjective experience that is me.

 

[3dilettante]

That's not very impressive.
It's infinitely easy to get a kick from an infinite number of ostensibly better imaginary realities.

That's totally lame. You're supposed to convince yourself that you have it worse than real people who have real problems.

 

[alexsok]

But why if ultimately that doesn't matter too since there is no much I can do about it anyway. I'm a proponent of Pessimistic teachings, not because it's a very viable option in light of the competition in the world, but because I have nothing optimistic to say about the universe we live in here - none at all.

 

[blakjedi]

Observability and extension are the only two real values in the universe.

You either observe (think, feel, experience) the universe around you or you extend your observations to the components of reality that you expect to be there (sun + moon -> stars -> quasars -> pulsars ->black holes -> wormholes) You start with the observable and then extend it to the nonobservable but just as real (math).

Solipsism focuses on the observer. Solipsism basically states that once the observer is gone, the value of what may or may not exist is absolutely zero.