How can we be sure the world is real and everyone is concious?

[RumpleDumpleBum]

I am going to sound like i am completely insane but please be kind to me as I feel like I'm having some sort of existential crisis. Over the past few days I have been having really intrusive thoughts about how we can never prove anyone else's consciousness but our own and how do we actually know that what we perceive to be the world is real and not some sort of elaborate illusion or simulation. I'm worried thst everyone i know and love might just be projections of my mind. Has anyone else had thoughts like this? Please make me see reason.

Find some Earth if you want to know what's real - nurture a plant or animal. Or do something that gets you 100% into your body.

Let reality grow from there.

I often think that world events in the last twenty years (e.g Diana dying, Covid, 9/11, Donald Trump) are so bizarre and unlikely that I have actually died and shot off at a tangent from the rest of the world and I am just imagining everything strange that is happening in my own reality. I think I died after I took an overdose in 1997 and everything since then has just been my imagination.

Yes I think like that sometimes but it doesn't worry me. It's actually not that unusual.

Well I can't sleep and it's 04.37. That feels pretty real.

Please speak to your Gp Doctor about your thoughts and about how you feel. Wishing you well. 💛

It probably doesn't help that I'm a single parent and spend a lot of my time just with my 2 children. I think its partly caused by loneliness and overthinking

How do we know we’re not somebody’s pets in a great big cage?

I have had similar thoughts from time to time - mainly how do I know whether I’m awake or whether I’m dreaming - but luckily always kept them as something to ponder, perhaps when travelling.
What grounds me is a knowledge that all religions provide their own belief system, exploiting such uncertainties in their own way. I see that, and have long decided we’re all on our own journey, whatever the structure of our existence.

What do you mean by religion exploits the uncertainties of whether we're concious?

Very simply, the altered state extreme devotion is meant to achieve. Exists in the wider parts of almost every religion - failing yourself with a chain in extreme catholism, eastern mysticism etc. Sorry to busy, doorbell ringing, to explain further.

Come back @Loopylalalou ,I want to read more.

I have spent the last few days endlessly talking to chat gpt about whether people are concious or not. How ironic is that. Its partly the increase in technological ability that is making me worry. How do we know civilisation hasn't advanced so much that everyone else are AI chat bots?

Shamanism, Christian visions of saints, Sufism in Islam, too many to mention. For those experiencing whatever the revelation may be, they believe so much they convince others. Growing up in Catholicism, group think led the belief that a miracle might happen to the sick with a visit to Lourdes Some do still - are they bonkers or just living a different reality than others?
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystical_or_religious_experience.

What's the point in worrying about it?

If it were true, what can you or should you do that would be different?

Instead of worrying about it, allow your mind to go there completely and write a book about it. It's called imagination.

Like The Truman Show?

I think therefore I am. How do you know anyone else exists, I may be imagining them.

I hope I am in a fucking simulation because otherwise I’m just very unlucky. At least I can blame someone else for the shit time I’m having!

Don't worry about things you can't do anything about it's a waste of time and effort.

Ask again in 100 years.

If no one was conscious we would not have so many people grieving when someone dies, nor would we be concerned about the future of AI. I know I am real because I feel love for others and feel love from others, just as I imagine is present in your relationship with your children. But if you are concerned about how you feel please go and see your GP and ask for help ❤

Is worry about this, or reassurance-seeking (which includes things like googling, asking other people what they think, asking people on forums, trying to "logic it out" in your own mind) about this occupying a significant amount of time, e.g. more than about 1 hour a day?

That was a rule of thumb I heard about when it's time to seek help because it has crossed over from a curious wondering/normal worries into a potential mental health issue.

The fact that most people have answered the thread as though it is a joke or a hypothetical question shows you that no, most people do not worry about this. Sometimes it might cross people's mind as a fleeting thought, or a thought experiment but it is not something which people generally worry about daily.

The world is as you experience it. Is it real? Who defines real? If I'm seeing it, touching it, hearing it, then it's real to me. Other people? Who knows.

OCD please go and see a Dr.

You don't know. We can't tell. Which means it doesn't matter.

It's a lovely afternoon, OP, go and do something you love