Paranoia...kinda.
 

Does anyone else have thoughts that nothing actually exists...in some sense of the word...and life is actually a giant prank being played on you.

I usually think it when I'm a bit confused/depressed.

Like...there are lots of possibilities.

a) Everything I encounter has been scripted, Truman Show style. And it's all for laughs at my expense.

b) I don't actually exist. When I die someone else will be started.

...I'm not entirely sure what I mean. But maybe that's a good thing...if I suss out the truth you'll all kill me for knowing too much ;)

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!! hahaha, all the time!!!

yeah I totally get this. I often have thoughts that I'm in like a Truman show type situation, that there are cameras everywhere and that my family and friends can see my every move.

i'm ****ed up LOL.

Sounds like dissociation and good old fashioned ego death. I used to get it loads back in the trippy days. It's a common side effect of depression. It's really all on you to drag yourself back in and convince yourself that it's real.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depersonalization
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derealization

All...the ...time

Yeah, I've basically thought this since Joe made a thread months back. It's certainly an intriguing theory.

I think I've managed to get to a place where 'nothing' exists...in a sense. That sounds weird, I know, but I have. I sort of picture the world, zoom out into the universe and then just imagine that it wasn't there. Nothing. None of it. It's hard to explain but for a few seconds I fall into this 'zone' where absolutely nothing exists.

Pretty ****ed up stuff.

yes! me, jordy and jack had a similar conversation last week, it's kind of scary thinking about it.

We know nothing other than that we exist because we experience.

i often swear at people in my head to see if they hear me lol

This, it was a good chat.

We thought that maybe its just 1 of us imagining everything going on, and when we are unable to stop imagining, is when we 'die'.
Like Jack said, how do we know other people are around unless we hear them or can actually see them?

Scary thought indeed. :/

Oh dear, Stu. It says it could be a symptom of sleep deprivation...early nights in order for me I think...

no i think people r people

I sleep like 10 hours at a time. Bish plz.

pmsl.

The brain is always at it's darkest when it's dark. Chances are you are far more likely to feel this kind of stuff at 4AM rather than 4PM because human contact is dead all around you and your left to yourself. It's a big factor in solipsism.

Yeah, that was another interesting thought.

It's like that philosophical question, 'if a tree falls in a wood, and there's no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?'. Applying that to this situation would mean that if your mum, for instance, was calling you from another room, you might just be imagining her calling you, and everytime you walk out of the room, she disappears, as does everyone else, until you see them again. As if they don't exist, and they only exist when you see them.

Well done you, sounds like you have sussed meditation, this not-knowing is the true secret of Zen. Now grasshopper look within and see who you really are. Once you can overcome or negate the nothingness, you are truly on the path to enlightenment.

There Is No God.

In your opinion.

Im agnostic, the idea is nice but I dont think there is a God, but you shouldnt pass it as fact.

No in the Whole Universe.

No, but sometimes it feels like I'm dreaming and I'm not actually here. Not that often though

It should be fact until it is disproven though, otherwise we can say the same thing about plenty of other things.

Are space wolves, spaghetti monsters, and whales inside the core of Jupiter a real possibility just because we can't disprove them?

Yeah
Infact, I have thought many times that when I die you all die.
Before I was born the world didnt excist.
And all the history is just being made up to make us belive the world has been going on for years.

I think when I leave a room and leave a person, they are non excistant until I return.

Stu why are your points always so good? :hugesmile: Thats true, I guess.

Wonderful , from theology to quantum mechanics (the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) paradox and Schrödinger's cat) all within 23 posts on a thread.

We don't know that either.

Don't be so arrogant.

What? Something is only a fact if it's been proven.

No it isn't.

You can disprove them though ... there is no evidence whatsoever for those things you list, and there is for God.

i get this.

Ignoring the point, but whatever.

You can't disprove them anymore than you can't disprove god. Nobody has seen space wolves and nobody has seen god.

What evidence is there for God?

Surely that depends on what you define as God

2 billion people don't have reason to believe in space wolves like they do God. And some people claim to have seen God, just because you don't think they haven't doesn't mean you're right.

To disprove God you need to start by counteracting any proof that there is for God, whereas to disprove space wolves you don't have to do that because theres no proof to start with.

A small thing called Christianity. Dunno if you've heard of it though.

(I'm not religious btw)

I some times get something like that, but I think I'm living to learn something, and when I figure it out I'll move on, to either death or reincarnation.

Other times I think none of it matters, that I could step out in front of a train or bus, and sure people who know me would be sad for a time, but it really wouldn't matter, none of this really does.

So something is more credible simply because it latched on through tradition? That's an absurd argument. There are thousands of psychological, neurological reasons as to why people claim to 'see' God. There is no hard proof for the existence of God, just like space wolves.

Are you aware of Bertrand Russell's theory of the Celestial Teapot?




If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.



Christianity is proof of God. You do make me laugh, Tom.

Yes they have a reason to believe in God, the reason for being a rational thinking being, they want to feel there is some special reason for life, not simply the result of a chemical interaction millions and millions of years ago that formed the first life forms in a primordial stew.

How is a religion any evidence for the existence of a God? The only thing for which that's evidence is that there are people who believe in God, not that there is a God.

Why so limited? What happened to heaven?

Christianity is proof of God. Hehe. I'm still lolling.

Certain mythologies that predate Christianity had a much longer shelf life. Shouldn't they be right?

I suppose Islam is proof of Allah?

Or Hinduism is pr -

Oh look, kids. A religion contradiction. What a surprise.

I have never believed in heaven. The only people I talk to who do are on here.

I think it's made up.

Rational thinking beings have a reason to believe in God? That's a laugh.

And why isn't reincarnation made up? To me that's just as ridiculous as heaven.

A lot of times I think it is, but occasionally, I think when I am feeling upbeat, I believe that we come back.

But yea I feel that there is noting after this when I think about it logically, or when I'm depressed.