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.

Is that because most people don't think this is a realistic possibility? Yes, over the last couple of weeks it has been occupying a lot of time and my thoughts. It is never usually something I think about

I sometimes feel like a side character in a simulation.

It does not really matter why other people don't worry about it. I don't think everyone would have the same answer for that, anyway.

The important piece of information is that the level of worry and time this is taking up is not usual and it would be a good idea to speak to a medical professional.

But the medical professional might not even be real...

Very kindly I think you need some help OP.

It’s not a mental health question to ponder philosophy.

It may be to experience severe anxiety over it.

You do need to speak to a medical professional. It’s not unusual to have thoughts about the meaning of life etc but your actions are compulsive and clearly causing you upset.

Can someone tell me in straightforward terms how it wouldn't make sense if only i were concious and that it was an elaborate illusion. I need other people's arguments to help settle me rather than just relying on chat gpt

As someone who worked in nursing for 17 years, I promise you it is real.

What makes you question its reality?

What do you mean by make sense?

When philosophers ask this question they are asking “how can we prove that other people are thinking, conscious beings the same as I am.”

They can conclude that you can’t prove it, but they doesn’t mean that we should assume that they are not.

But its just the thought of the possibility of it.

Please do not use ChatGPT for this - it can be quite dangerous as I understand it, because it doesn't get frustrated like a human would and it doesn't recognise when a line of questioning is becoming concerningly repetitive. In short, it's not trained to recognise reassurance-seeking as it occurs e.g. in OCD.

I wonder if this feels familiar at all? Because I think maybe you should show this to somebody IRL and explain if it's what you've been experiencing. As the website says, the more someone seeks reassurance the more it reinforces to the brain that it was "needed" and over time this makes the problem worse and can become quite debilitating.

https://www.edinburghcbttherapy.co.uk/post/understanding-reassurance-seeking-in-ocd

I will explain how I know that other people are real and exist but the escalation on this thread is quite worrying and I really think you should speak to someone IRL as soon as possible, and a GP on Monday. And ask whoever you speak to IRL to help you stay off ChatGPT.

I don't think it makes sense for everything to be an elaborate illusion because:

1. Why would anyone even be motivated to do that? There is no possible reason for this to be a thing. It would involve vast amounts of programming power (cost, infrastructure, time) and for what benefit? Why am I so special? It doesn't make sense.
2. The world is too vast and complex to be simulated. If you watch a lot of AI videos, read a lot of AI text, look at a lot of AI pictures etc you find that computers are not good at reproducing the true variety of life. They are too drawn to patterns and this makes their output predictable and feel weird/uncanny to us, especially as we start to see it more and more. I think we are detecting that it's not human, even though it can sound very human at first sight because it's based on text/art/etc which was originally created by humans. I've never had that sense when interacting with a real person.
3. People in general act in unpredictable ways all the time, because they are all driven by their own motivations, experiences and backstory, most of which I don't even know about unless they choose to tell me. If they were all dreamt up by my own brain then they would make a lot more sense. If everything was dreamt up by me then I would know everything, and I don't. I learn new things every day.
4. I can tell the difference between reality and a dream, which kind of suggests that I would be able to tell if I was in an extended permanent dream.

I do appreciate this response. It is kind of similar to the responses chat gpt was telling me but it does help to hear it from a human rather than a robot. If the feeling doesn't ease soon then I will indeed visit my gp although I am reluctant to go on medication

Medication is not remotely the only way to address something like this, but speak to the experts. All the best

The thought that unsettles me is if I am the only concious person and the entire universe and everyone in it is an illusion/experiment for me

Then you are a god(dess) having a dream.

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,

We can be sure because everyone who is conscious has agreed we are all conscious and therefore not in a simulation.

Philosophers have not all said that you can’t prove others are conscious as well as yourself. Many have said everyone is conscious but we all have differing abilities to perceive reality and/or that we have different realities.

Plato has said with an allegory about prisoners in a cave that most people while conscious are unable to discern shadows from reality. He then says that we have to develop our consciousness to see the truth of the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_cave

There was a film, The Last Duel, that played on the philosophical idea of each person having their own reality. It involves three people and a duel and the same story is told 3x but from each of the three people’s different perspectives. What results are three realities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Duel_(2021_film)

This is why we should all be encouraged to open a book from time to time, existential philosophy is hardly a new concept

I think you are right and that some of us are dead and stuck between life and death so creating a fantasy realm.
For me, I am certain that if my life were real then it wouldn’t have played out the way it has. There’s too much that is nonsensical and must have been imagined by my fantastical brain. I actually had somebody from my gp surgery call today and I told her that I just don’t believe any of this is real. She tried to get me to talk to a dr. I just laughed. My mind is just cresting these stupid scenarios. As if the gp surgery would just call out of the blue.
And I looked online and there’s a referral to the MH team and it’s all just lies. Why am I creating this bullshit in my head? As if that would happen. Crazy.

Trust me, no one would create my life as a character. It's a fucking shit show. I've spent the last two weeks crying and today spent a fortune I don't have on therapy. My life is continuous, hard, and heartbreaking. Yet it's the life I have. No one would wrote or create this. Honestly.

We can’t.

Hi: very kindly, I think you may actually benefit from speaking to the GP

I think you should consider speaking to GP. Also switching off chatg/Google etc , perhaps spend time seeking contact with 'real' people.
Lots of philosophical answers on here but sounds like you have some issues beyond seeking those.
Hope you're OK

Yes, and these thoughts are not a mental illness.

Many many philosophers have had the same thoughts, written them down, discussed, debated them.

Playwrights have written plays on this (I quoted Shakespeare’s Midsommer’s Night Dream ) and it’s even been dramatised in numerous films.

This isn’t what the OP is saying.
You aren’t dead, you’re very much alive.
You could probably do with some help to process how your life has been going and get to a better place.
You appear to be dissociating which is a natural human defence mechanism against overwhelming trauma.
I’m sorry for whatever has happened and hope MH contacts you quickly.

I do not think AI is at all helpful here.