The Solipsism problem.. yet again!

Still pursuing this problem. I realise this may be obvious to some people of a certain level of awareness, but it has as yet been unclear to me.

The problem

If I stand on a small stone with bare feet it hurts. Now it would be obvious to other people that I was in pain, except psychopaths will struggle with this. However I could put a brave face on it and pretend I was not hurt by it. And that reinforces the fact that no one will actually feel my pain except me. They can only sympathetically infer it.

This is the very basis of the idea of an individual that we appear to be separated by our experiences really only happening to us.

This leads to the idea of "qualia" that there is a something at the root of experience that gives things their experienced quality. But those qualia are only apparent to me.

This leads to the possibility that there is only "me." No one else can experience my experiences and I can't experience theirs. So for me their experiences do not exist and I can imagine that I am the only person. That makes more sense in fact of how other people's experiences are unknown to me: they do not exist. This is Solipsism.

This does not feel right. In a photo I am indistinguishable from other people, yet I am trying to say that I am unique in all the world in having experiences and everyone else is a robot or empty shell. This is the experience of the psychopath, yet a committed psychopath does not seem to think there is a problem with this. Everyone to some extent is a psychopath in that our own experience is real and vivid and so tends to take precedence over other people's. While we can have intuition, knowledge and faith in other people we can never actually experienced what they experience. Hearing about their holiday can be a fabulous story, and we can be very happy for and impressed with them for having this wonderful holiday but it is something they experienced not us. It seems like I am always separate from other people, stuck in this world all alone of "me." Yet looking at the photo again, I am just one of many people and there is no difference between us on the outside. How is this possible?

The Solution

So it appears that the problem lies in where I think this "me" is.

In the photo I call that person "me" and am able to identify myself from the outside. Yet when I close my eyes and think about my breathing I say this is "my" breathing, but then this is "my" experience.

So someone watching can see my "breathing", but they can't see my "experience".

There appear to be two "mes" here. One on the outside that other people can see (my body and breath are part of me), and one on this inside which is private and only I can see (these experiences are another hidden part of me).

How do I know they are the same? That hopefully puts a doubt into their unity.

But next there is a third "me" which is the one who owns the person in the picture, the breath and the experiences. "my" body, "my" breath, "my" experiences. Were is this "me?"

Now I've not thought this out too much yet, its the next bit that is of interest:

what if the real "me "was beyond all this.

This means that it is not like I am stuck in a private room separate from everyone else, experiencing private experiences that no one else can experience.

Instead that private room is empty of anyone. I am looking into that private room through a window, but I am not inside it.

This means that while it is private, I am not!

But surely this fixes nothing: I am still the only one who can look into this private room of experiences. I am now stuck outside it all alone and being the only one who can see it.

But the difference is that this thought "I am outside the private room looking in" is still inside the private room. The private room is the realm of actual experiences that this body and person is having, like a locked room with a window can still get lit by sunlight even while no one can actually get into the room.

The point is that once we are outside this private room, it ceases to be of so much importance that no one else can get into it. Neither can we!

But we protest if no one is in the private room of experience why do only I get these experiences and no one else. Surely me being in the room is the difference.

No!

A pair of eyes can only see what that pair of eyes can see. They obviously can't see what another pair of eyes can see. To do this eyes would no longer be needed to see!

So it follows that each pair of eyes sees only what it sees.

Our problem is that I think I am inside a pair of eyes when I see what it sees. But I am not seeing! The eyes are seeing.

Every experience by definition must be limited to the body and organs that are having that experience.

So when "me" uploads this experience I get the whole thing, including the sense that only this person is experiencing it.

It is not that I am experiencing uniquely it, I am getting the sense from the experience is unique within the experience. A sight of a bird flying comes with the uniqueness wrapped in. You can't share an experience like you can a film. When you share it, it comes with the sense of here and now and uniqueness.

But when I get this it does not make me unique. The uniqueness comes with the experience.

This is what I mean by being outside the experience. The qualities of experience are not the qualities of me.

Stepping back again into normal thinking this looks like nonsense. But the reason why is because we want to put "me" back into the room, or the experience or the picture.

Me is not "in" anything.

So how many "me" are there? So we said I have none of the qualities of experience or the things experienced. I am not singular, I am not plural. I have no number!

This is pushing ever so slowly towards the Buddhist realisation that we can "let go" of all existences. The sense of being this or that, or here or there, or in this body or experience are all parts of this, that, here, there, this body or experience but they are not parts or me.

This is insane right? It makes me feel light headed. I'm even a little freaked out and uneasy about that. Where is the peace that Buddha promised? SO it comes in stages. A bird despite becoming a free flying creature, rarely has a trouble free start.

We don't really want to realise we are not in all these things. we have desire to be bound to the world that is why we are here. It is nice to think I am the person in that picture, despite the obvious fact that the true me is looking at the picture so I can't be in the picture! And that same logic applies to all this. I can't be the eyes or the brain seeing things because obviously I am the one who is looking at what is being seen and is aware that things are being seen. The very possibility I should think I am inside the room of private experience shows that I am not private experience, and so if I am not private experience why do I need to be in the room of private experience?

It is all just a matter of letting go of what we have grasped as me, and letting our selves flourish as what they truly are.

Despite the joy to be had grasping at things, the time comes when let go and grow into what we already are.