Philosophy Now Forum

So...I'm overwhelmed and literally out of options and people to ask so I'll try here.

I've read a lot of different things over the years and can't seem to reconcile or even understand any of them, and the result is being so depressed I don't even get out of bed most days.

To name a few:

1. Quantum physics and whether time is real or not, I don't understand or know what to do if it is.

2. Reductionism and whether everything is just boiled down to the basic quantum state and nothing else is real or exists:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tPqQdLC ... 2ki6sSvAxu
Like...if it really is just quantum particles and nothing else, that people, animals, planes, etc aren't "real" then...I don't really know. Am I lying when I make friends? When I feel love? Or sad, or anything? I don't understand.

Are we really nothing more than just robots driven by evolution?

3. The self and whether it exists or not and what that means for how I am suppose to relate to people or if there even is such a thing as "people", how do I live with that? Am I helping people or not? If I sleep do I "die" and am reborn the next day? This is a big hurt to think about.

4. Social constructs. The worry that all the meaningful things in my life that helped me and lifted me up and moved me were little more than some fantasy I was living out and not reality itself. It's...hard trying to reckon with that.

5. Feeling like I've been living a lie this whole time due to the above, and that to be happy in life is to lie to yourself about meaning, friends, hobbies, all that stuff.

Those are the big ones I can remember now.

But...yeah, I just....I just don't know how to deal or live anymore. I usually just hide in my room every day now and try to forget, because when I engage with the world it's too hard. I want to cry but I'm afraid if I do something will snap and I'll never be stable again, that it would be the end. I don't know how or why I go on in life and I'm looking for anything to keep on. Though some days I just want it all to stop, but I'm afraid of ending it.

I have nowhere else to go or anyone to talk to or seek help from, so I turn to philosophy boards because...well I have nothing left...

I truly feel broken and beyond repair....I don't even know if this could be helped or fixed, but part of me wants to try (however vain it might be). But I'm getting so tired of trying and hoping for...something better...I can't even name it or visualize it anymore...it's more like some desperate hope...

It feels like all the hope and magic of life is just gone...and it almost makes me cry...if I could. I just...can't deal with anything...it feels like my life eroded over time and there's nothing left...and nothing to look forward to...

Darkneos wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 2:45 am So...I'm overwhelmed and literally out of options and people to ask so I'll try here.

I've read a lot of different things over the years and can't seem to reconcile or even understand any of them, and the result is being so depressed I don't even get out of bed most days.

To name a few:

1. Quantum physics and whether time is real or not, I don't understand or know what to do if it is.

2. Reductionism and whether everything is just boiled down to the basic quantum state and nothing else is real or exists:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tPqQdLC ... 2ki6sSvAxu
Like...if it really is just quantum particles and nothing else, that people, animals, planes, etc aren't "real" then...I don't really know. Am I lying when I make friends? When I feel love? Or sad, or anything? I don't understand.

Are we really nothing more than just robots driven by evolution?

3. The self and whether it exists or not and what that means for how I am suppose to relate to people or if there even is such a thing as "people", how do I live with that? Am I helping people or not? If I sleep do I "die" and am reborn the next day? This is a big hurt to think about.

4. Social constructs. The worry that all the meaningful things in my life that helped me and lifted me up and moved me were little more than some fantasy I was living out and not reality itself. It's...hard trying to reckon with that.

5. Feeling like I've been living a lie this whole time due to the above, and that to be happy in life is to lie to yourself about meaning, friends, hobbies, all that stuff.

Those are the big ones I can remember now.

But...yeah, I just....I just don't know how to deal or live anymore. I usually just hide in my room every day now and try to forget, because when I engage with the world it's too hard. I want to cry but I'm afraid if I do something will snap and I'll never be stable again, that it would be the end. I don't know how or why I go on in life and I'm looking for anything to keep on. Though some days I just want it all to stop, but I'm afraid of ending it.

I have nowhere else to go or anyone to talk to or seek help from, so I turn to philosophy boards because...well I have nothing left...

I truly feel broken and beyond repair....I don't even know if this could be helped or fixed, but part of me wants to try (however vain it might be). But I'm getting so tired of trying and hoping for...something better...I can't even name it or visualize it anymore...it's more like some desperate hope...

It feels like all the hope and magic of life is just gone...and it almost makes me cry...if I could. I just...can't deal with anything...it feels like my life eroded over time and there's nothing left...and nothing to look forward to...

Everything is real and everything is quantum (I think all this real/unreal stuff is nonsense), but imo we live on 4-dimensional slices of an at least 5-dimensional world. The 5th dimension is just weird: something can appear in one place and nowhere else or be spread out everywhere and nowhere at once in infinitely many ways.

This is almost completely irrelevant to everyday life, you can just forget about it. To you everything will always appear in one place.

Atla wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 4:44 am

Darkneos wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 2:45 am So...I'm overwhelmed and literally out of options and people to ask so I'll try here.

I've read a lot of different things over the years and can't seem to reconcile or even understand any of them, and the result is being so depressed I don't even get out of bed most days.

To name a few:

1. Quantum physics and whether time is real or not, I don't understand or know what to do if it is.

2. Reductionism and whether everything is just boiled down to the basic quantum state and nothing else is real or exists:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tPqQdLC ... 2ki6sSvAxu
Like...if it really is just quantum particles and nothing else, that people, animals, planes, etc aren't "real" then...I don't really know. Am I lying when I make friends? When I feel love? Or sad, or anything? I don't understand.

Are we really nothing more than just robots driven by evolution?

3. The self and whether it exists or not and what that means for how I am suppose to relate to people or if there even is such a thing as "people", how do I live with that? Am I helping people or not? If I sleep do I "die" and am reborn the next day? This is a big hurt to think about.

4. Social constructs. The worry that all the meaningful things in my life that helped me and lifted me up and moved me were little more than some fantasy I was living out and not reality itself. It's...hard trying to reckon with that.

5. Feeling like I've been living a lie this whole time due to the above, and that to be happy in life is to lie to yourself about meaning, friends, hobbies, all that stuff.

Those are the big ones I can remember now.

But...yeah, I just....I just don't know how to deal or live anymore. I usually just hide in my room every day now and try to forget, because when I engage with the world it's too hard. I want to cry but I'm afraid if I do something will snap and I'll never be stable again, that it would be the end. I don't know how or why I go on in life and I'm looking for anything to keep on. Though some days I just want it all to stop, but I'm afraid of ending it.

I have nowhere else to go or anyone to talk to or seek help from, so I turn to philosophy boards because...well I have nothing left...

I truly feel broken and beyond repair....I don't even know if this could be helped or fixed, but part of me wants to try (however vain it might be). But I'm getting so tired of trying and hoping for...something better...I can't even name it or visualize it anymore...it's more like some desperate hope...

It feels like all the hope and magic of life is just gone...and it almost makes me cry...if I could. I just...can't deal with anything...it feels like my life eroded over time and there's nothing left...and nothing to look forward to...

Everything is real and everything is quantum (I think all this real/unreal stuff is nonsense), but imo we live on 4-dimensional slices of an at least 5-dimensional world. The 5th dimension is just weird: something can appear in one place and nowhere else or be spread out everywhere and nowhere at once in infinitely many ways.

This is almost completely irrelevant to everyday life, you can just forget about it. To you everything will always appear in one place.

I...don't understand. I don't mean to sound like I'm brushing you off but that's all I can say, I don't understand what you mean. Though I worry I'll do what I always do when I don't understand and twist and invent what people say into something bad. I'm even worried about obsessing over you saying "Everything will always appear in one place" because then I'll start doubting if things are real. I had that happen once and I ended up in a mental hospital for it (I didn't improve there either, I had to lie to get out because my condition deteriorated).

It's hard for me to just forget about things, I wish I could...believe me.

From what the guy in the link was saying it sounded like there is only one level and it's the elementary particles and nothing else is real, at least I think so. That people, planes, etc don't exist. I don't wanna go down that road again, I almost did some...awful things because of it.

By the time part I mean this thread: viewtopic.php?t=40272&start=150

But apart from that the rest weighs on me to, because I don't know how to function in life anymore. Feels like everything I do or want to do is wrong because someone, somewhere, challenged it. I also know these dot dot dot (...) might come off as pretentious or performative, but it's my way of trying to convey how low I feel, to try to get across the utter...loss I am at what to do and how hollow I feel, like a sigh heavy with depression. I'm trying to get my feelings across.

I can't even remember what being happy feels like, and now it feels like enjoying things is like lying to myself...

I just...I don't...I don't have many more words to describe it...

I'm desperate...

EDIT: Doesn't help that I feel like trying to express myself comes off as whining and that I'm bothering folks with my problems.

Darkneos wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 2:45 am So...I'm overwhelmed and literally out of options and people to ask so I'll try here.

I've read a lot of different things over the years and can't seem to reconcile or even understand any of them, and the result is being so depressed I don't even get out of bed most days.

To name a few:

1. Quantum physics and whether time is real or not, I don't understand or know what to do if it is.

2. Reductionism and whether everything is just boiled down to the basic quantum state and nothing else is real or exists:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tPqQdLC ... 2ki6sSvAxu
Like...if it really is just quantum particles and nothing else, that people, animals, planes, etc aren't "real" then...I don't really know. Am I lying when I make friends? When I feel love? Or sad, or anything? I don't understand.

Are we really nothing more than just robots driven by evolution?

3. The self and whether it exists or not and what that means for how I am suppose to relate to people or if there even is such a thing as "people", how do I live with that? Am I helping people or not? If I sleep do I "die" and am reborn the next day? This is a big hurt to think about.

4. Social constructs. The worry that all the meaningful things in my life that helped me and lifted me up and moved me were little more than some fantasy I was living out and not reality itself. It's...hard trying to reckon with that.

5. Feeling like I've been living a lie this whole time due to the above, and that to be happy in life is to lie to yourself about meaning, friends, hobbies, all that stuff.

Those are the big ones I can remember now.

But...yeah, I just....I just don't know how to deal or live anymore. I usually just hide in my room every day now and try to forget, because when I engage with the world it's too hard. I want to cry but I'm afraid if I do something will snap and I'll never be stable again, that it would be the end. I don't know how or why I go on in life and I'm looking for anything to keep on. Though some days I just want it all to stop, but I'm afraid of ending it.

I have nowhere else to go or anyone to talk to or seek help from, so I turn to philosophy boards because...well I have nothing left...

I truly feel broken and beyond repair....I don't even know if this could be helped or fixed, but part of me wants to try (however vain it might be). But I'm getting so tired of trying and hoping for...something better...I can't even name it or visualize it anymore...it's more like some desperate hope...

It feels like all the hope and magic of life is just gone...and it almost makes me cry...if I could. I just...can't deal with anything...it feels like my life eroded over time and there's nothing left...and nothing to look forward to...

Ask yourself this.
When does your other bodies life support system make you feel pain? When they are working, or when they are denied to work?
For example, when you cannot breathe, what happens?
When you are hungry, what happens
When you cannot move your body, what happens.

Plato taught something which Aristotle put into a simple sentence: That which has a function, exists for that function.
Are you such a life support system, and can you do your own work? Or, have you never found anyone you could learn what you are why you are and how to do your own work from?

A mind is potentially the most powerful life support system possible, and therefore takes longer to evolve, and longer to learn its job.
So, you have to ask. have you ever found anyone who could teach you that you have a job, and do you actually want to work for a living?
Learning to do your job is also painful. There is no getting around that. For example, yesterday, in pursuit of doing my own work, I was permanently banned from this forum.
But it looks like they had second thoughts.
When the mind starts to waken, you decide, you want to live a life of real meaning, or sink into apathy.
For another thing, start running every day. I use to work a 12 hour shift, come home, and run around White Lake, all of it.

Darkneos wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 5:15 am

Atla wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 4:44 am

Darkneos wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 2:45 am So...I'm overwhelmed and literally out of options and people to ask so I'll try here.

I've read a lot of different things over the years and can't seem to reconcile or even understand any of them, and the result is being so depressed I don't even get out of bed most days.

To name a few:

1. Quantum physics and whether time is real or not, I don't understand or know what to do if it is.

2. Reductionism and whether everything is just boiled down to the basic quantum state and nothing else is real or exists:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tPqQdLC ... 2ki6sSvAxu
Like...if it really is just quantum particles and nothing else, that people, animals, planes, etc aren't "real" then...I don't really know. Am I lying when I make friends? When I feel love? Or sad, or anything? I don't understand.

Are we really nothing more than just robots driven by evolution?

3. The self and whether it exists or not and what that means for how I am suppose to relate to people or if there even is such a thing as "people", how do I live with that? Am I helping people or not? If I sleep do I "die" and am reborn the next day? This is a big hurt to think about.

4. Social constructs. The worry that all the meaningful things in my life that helped me and lifted me up and moved me were little more than some fantasy I was living out and not reality itself. It's...hard trying to reckon with that.

5. Feeling like I've been living a lie this whole time due to the above, and that to be happy in life is to lie to yourself about meaning, friends, hobbies, all that stuff.

Those are the big ones I can remember now.

But...yeah, I just....I just don't know how to deal or live anymore. I usually just hide in my room every day now and try to forget, because when I engage with the world it's too hard. I want to cry but I'm afraid if I do something will snap and I'll never be stable again, that it would be the end. I don't know how or why I go on in life and I'm looking for anything to keep on. Though some days I just want it all to stop, but I'm afraid of ending it.

I have nowhere else to go or anyone to talk to or seek help from, so I turn to philosophy boards because...well I have nothing left...

I truly feel broken and beyond repair....I don't even know if this could be helped or fixed, but part of me wants to try (however vain it might be). But I'm getting so tired of trying and hoping for...something better...I can't even name it or visualize it anymore...it's more like some desperate hope...

It feels like all the hope and magic of life is just gone...and it almost makes me cry...if I could. I just...can't deal with anything...it feels like my life eroded over time and there's nothing left...and nothing to look forward to...

Everything is real and everything is quantum (I think all this real/unreal stuff is nonsense), but imo we live on 4-dimensional slices of an at least 5-dimensional world. The 5th dimension is just weird: something can appear in one place and nowhere else or be spread out everywhere and nowhere at once in infinitely many ways.

This is almost completely irrelevant to everyday life, you can just forget about it. To you everything will always appear in one place.

I...don't understand. I don't mean to sound like I'm brushing you off but that's all I can say, I don't understand what you mean. Though I worry I'll do what I always do when I don't understand and twist and invent what people say into something bad. I'm even worried about obsessing over you saying "Everything will always appear in one place" because then I'll start doubting if things are real. I had that happen once and I ended up in a mental hospital for it (I didn't improve there either, I had to lie to get out because my condition deteriorated).

It's hard for me to just forget about things, I wish I could...believe me.

From what the guy in the link was saying it sounded like there is only one level and it's the elementary particles and nothing else is real, at least I think so. That people, planes, etc don't exist. I don't wanna go down that road again, I almost did some...awful things because of it.

By the time part I mean this thread: viewtopic.php?t=40272&start=150

But apart from that the rest weighs on me to, because I don't know how to function in life anymore. Feels like everything I do or want to do is wrong because someone, somewhere, challenged it. I also know these dot dot dot (...) might come off as pretentious or performative, but it's my way of trying to convey how low I feel, to try to get across the utter...loss I am at what to do and how hollow I feel, like a sigh heavy with depression. I'm trying to get my feelings across.

I can't even remember what being happy feels like, and now it feels like enjoying things is like lying to myself...

I just...I don't...I don't have many more words to describe it...

I'm desperate...

EDIT: Doesn't help that I feel like trying to express myself comes off as whining and that I'm bothering folks with my problems.

Reductionism is nonsense imo as all the particles are connected, are relative to all the other particles in the universe. Reductionism pretends away this interconnectedness. But even so, that a plane can be "reduced" to particles means that the plane is real, it's the collection of those particles.

Time in the everyday sense is real, humans live in the direction of increasing entropy.

Atla wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 5:28 am

Darkneos wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 5:15 am

Atla wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 4:44 am
Everything is real and everything is quantum (I think all this real/unreal stuff is nonsense), but imo we live on 4-dimensional slices of an at least 5-dimensional world. The 5th dimension is just weird: something can appear in one place and nowhere else or be spread out everywhere and nowhere at once in infinitely many ways.

This is almost completely irrelevant to everyday life, you can just forget about it. To you everything will always appear in one place.

I...don't understand. I don't mean to sound like I'm brushing you off but that's all I can say, I don't understand what you mean. Though I worry I'll do what I always do when I don't understand and twist and invent what people say into something bad. I'm even worried about obsessing over you saying "Everything will always appear in one place" because then I'll start doubting if things are real. I had that happen once and I ended up in a mental hospital for it (I didn't improve there either, I had to lie to get out because my condition deteriorated).

It's hard for me to just forget about things, I wish I could...believe me.

From what the guy in the link was saying it sounded like there is only one level and it's the elementary particles and nothing else is real, at least I think so. That people, planes, etc don't exist. I don't wanna go down that road again, I almost did some...awful things because of it.

By the time part I mean this thread: viewtopic.php?t=40272&start=150

But apart from that the rest weighs on me to, because I don't know how to function in life anymore. Feels like everything I do or want to do is wrong because someone, somewhere, challenged it. I also know these dot dot dot (...) might come off as pretentious or performative, but it's my way of trying to convey how low I feel, to try to get across the utter...loss I am at what to do and how hollow I feel, like a sigh heavy with depression. I'm trying to get my feelings across.

I can't even remember what being happy feels like, and now it feels like enjoying things is like lying to myself...

I just...I don't...I don't have many more words to describe it...

I'm desperate...

EDIT: Doesn't help that I feel like trying to express myself comes off as whining and that I'm bothering folks with my problems.

Reductionism is nonsense imo as all the particles are connected, are relative to all the other particles in the universe. Reductionism pretends away this interconnectedness. But even so, that a plane can be "reduced" to particles means that the plane is real, it's the collection of those particles.

Time in the everyday sense is real, humans live in the direction of increasing entropy.

Ok, I got that so far. As for what you mean by reductionism, a plane is still real? So he's wrong about what he's suggesting?

But when I read "Everyday sense" my brain starts to think that there is some "hidden secret" or lie that I'm living, like just pretending that time is real. I'm not saying you say that, it's just what I feel.

The same when I read that 4th and 5th dimension stuff. I just took a shower after reading that and my mind went to stuff like solipsism, doubting if my family and friends were real, if I could trust what I was seeing, I felt like I was losing my grip on reality like when I first came across solipsism (I'm not going back to the hospital). Even reading "appear in one place" was enough to rattle my grip on reality, like anything I might care about could just pop out of existence at any moment or it might not be the same person (like if my dogs are the same dogs and not some alternate dimension copies, its....very terrifying). Even when you said "almost not relevant to daily life" got me worried about the parts where it would be along with some feverish paranoia to know so I could...I don't really know, I just know I've very scared right now. It's not on you, I'm just trying to be as upfront as possible about what's going on. I want help and I can't do that by hiding things.

But yeah...even now I feel like I'm teetering on psychosis and sanity.

I'm stable now, mostly. But I feel another crack in my head and I'm worried that tomorrow I'll be doubting everything I see and feel and...well I think folks get it.

I'm just...tired...of it all...every day it's like a weight bearing down on my brain. Why am I like this...

Darkneos wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 5:45 am

Atla wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 5:28 am

Darkneos wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 5:15 am

I...don't understand. I don't mean to sound like I'm brushing you off but that's all I can say, I don't understand what you mean. Though I worry I'll do what I always do when I don't understand and twist and invent what people say into something bad. I'm even worried about obsessing over you saying "Everything will always appear in one place" because then I'll start doubting if things are real. I had that happen once and I ended up in a mental hospital for it (I didn't improve there either, I had to lie to get out because my condition deteriorated).

It's hard for me to just forget about things, I wish I could...believe me.

From what the guy in the link was saying it sounded like there is only one level and it's the elementary particles and nothing else is real, at least I think so. That people, planes, etc don't exist. I don't wanna go down that road again, I almost did some...awful things because of it.

By the time part I mean this thread: viewtopic.php?t=40272&start=150

But apart from that the rest weighs on me to, because I don't know how to function in life anymore. Feels like everything I do or want to do is wrong because someone, somewhere, challenged it. I also know these dot dot dot (...) might come off as pretentious or performative, but it's my way of trying to convey how low I feel, to try to get across the utter...loss I am at what to do and how hollow I feel, like a sigh heavy with depression. I'm trying to get my feelings across.

I can't even remember what being happy feels like, and now it feels like enjoying things is like lying to myself...

I just...I don't...I don't have many more words to describe it...

I'm desperate...

EDIT: Doesn't help that I feel like trying to express myself comes off as whining and that I'm bothering folks with my problems.

Reductionism is nonsense imo as all the particles are connected, are relative to all the other particles in the universe. Reductionism pretends away this interconnectedness. But even so, that a plane can be "reduced" to particles means that the plane is real, it's the collection of those particles.

Time in the everyday sense is real, humans live in the direction of increasing entropy.

Ok, I got that so far. As for what you mean by reductionism, a plane is still real? So he's wrong about what he's suggesting?

But when I read "Everyday sense" my brain starts to think that there is some "hidden secret" or lie that I'm living, like just pretending that time is real. I'm not saying you say that, it's just what I feel.

The same when I read that 4th and 5th dimension stuff. I just took a shower after reading that and my mind went to stuff like solipsism, doubting if my family and friends were real, if I could trust what I was seeing, I felt like I was losing my grip on reality like when I first came across solipsism (I'm not going back to the hospital). Even reading "appear in one place" was enough to rattle my grip on reality, like anything I might care about could just pop out of existence at any moment or it might not be the same person (like if my dogs are the same dogs and not some alternate dimension copies, its....very terrifying). It's not on you, I'm just trying to be as upfront as possible about what's going on. I want help and I can't do that by hiding things.

I'm stable now, mostly. But I feel another crack in my head and I'm worried that tomorrow I'll be doubting everything I see and feel and...well I think folks get it.

I'm just...tired...of it all...every day it's like a weight bearing down on my brain. Why am I like this...

But a plane is real even according to reductionism. I don't know what that guy was on about.

Real/unreal stuff and solipsist stuff is all nonsense. And literally no one knows what the full "hidden secret" is, so just forget about it. It's almost completely irrelevant to everyday human life anyway.

The actual issue is that while everything is "real", we don't see the external world as it is, but we experience a representation of the external world in our head.

Since you seem to have some brain damage and/or a personality disorder, the representation in your head could be somewhat faulty. So maybe sometimes you hallucinate, experience distortions. Maybe you are experiencing psychological de-realization. These could be the bigger reasons why you keep running into things that seem unreal.

Atla wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 5:54 am

Darkneos wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 5:45 am

Atla wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 5:28 am
Reductionism is nonsense imo as all the particles are connected, are relative to all the other particles in the universe. Reductionism pretends away this interconnectedness. But even so, that a plane can be "reduced" to particles means that the plane is real, it's the collection of those particles.

Time in the everyday sense is real, humans live in the direction of increasing entropy.

Ok, I got that so far. As for what you mean by reductionism, a plane is still real? So he's wrong about what he's suggesting?

But when I read "Everyday sense" my brain starts to think that there is some "hidden secret" or lie that I'm living, like just pretending that time is real. I'm not saying you say that, it's just what I feel.

The same when I read that 4th and 5th dimension stuff. I just took a shower after reading that and my mind went to stuff like solipsism, doubting if my family and friends were real, if I could trust what I was seeing, I felt like I was losing my grip on reality like when I first came across solipsism (I'm not going back to the hospital). Even reading "appear in one place" was enough to rattle my grip on reality, like anything I might care about could just pop out of existence at any moment or it might not be the same person (like if my dogs are the same dogs and not some alternate dimension copies, its....very terrifying). It's not on you, I'm just trying to be as upfront as possible about what's going on. I want help and I can't do that by hiding things.

I'm stable now, mostly. But I feel another crack in my head and I'm worried that tomorrow I'll be doubting everything I see and feel and...well I think folks get it.

I'm just...tired...of it all...every day it's like a weight bearing down on my brain. Why am I like this...

But a plane is real even according to reductionism. I don't know what that guy was on about.

Real/unreal stuff and solipsist stuff is all nonsense. And literally no one knows what the full "hidden secret" is, so just forget about it. It's almost completely irrelevant to everyday human life anyway.

The actual issue is that while everything is "real", we don't see the external world as it is, but we experience a representation of the external world in our head.

Since you seem to have some brain damage and/or a personality disorder, the representation in your head could be somewhat faulty. So maybe sometimes you hallucinate, experience distortions. Maybe you are experiencing psychological de-realization. These could be the bigger reasons why you keep running into things that seem unreal.

I don't know what he's on about either.

I want to forget, but it's hard for me to because of some paranoia about living a lie. But that paranoia ironically makes me fall for just about anything people say if they claim truth about reality, it's...very crippling.

Even reading real in quotes does it to me. I know we don't see the world as it is...and I try to not think about it too much because...well I don't wanna beat a dead horse, I hopefully got my point across (I hope).

I don't really hallucinate, it's more like when thoughts like what you said about dimensions or when I first came across solipsism it...well broke me (solipsism did, what you said just triggered old wounds). When I first read solipsism I experienced psychosis, everything felt...far away, like I was behind a pane of glass and it was all unreal. It was the worst I felt in my life, and I was in a car accident. I couldn't trust people, my feelings, it was heartbreaking. To hear my family being emotional and real with me and in the back of my mind doubting they existed.

To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure I ever really recovered from that one. I think I'm still raw over it...it's hard to be sure these days because my emotions are very muted compared to before.

Hell...I almost did some awful things to people because I thought they weren't real, and I nearly got into some accidents driving on the road because...I doubted the cars were real...

It's not that I run into things that aren't real, it's more like some of what I read (like solipsism and your dimension stuff) has got me...doubting what is real. Even now I still can't get the thing you said about dimensions out of my head and I fear a trip down like when I first read about solipsism around 7 years ago (again not blaming you, I'm being as honest as possible with my thoughts and feelings).

And...at the risk of sounding too vulnerable...I feel like a scared child right now. Like everything is being taken away from me and I'm powerless to stop it and the only thing I can do is cower in fear. I feel so isolated, terrified....and alone, desperately trying to reach out for some kind of lifeline or comfort......and my hands just claw at empty air and the fear grows with each failed attempt. Just wanting something, someone I can hold who can tell me it will be ok...

Maybe I've always been a scared kid deep down.......

Darkneos wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 6:06 am

Atla wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 5:54 am

Darkneos wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 5:45 am

Ok, I got that so far. As for what you mean by reductionism, a plane is still real? So he's wrong about what he's suggesting?

But when I read "Everyday sense" my brain starts to think that there is some "hidden secret" or lie that I'm living, like just pretending that time is real. I'm not saying you say that, it's just what I feel.

The same when I read that 4th and 5th dimension stuff. I just took a shower after reading that and my mind went to stuff like solipsism, doubting if my family and friends were real, if I could trust what I was seeing, I felt like I was losing my grip on reality like when I first came across solipsism (I'm not going back to the hospital). Even reading "appear in one place" was enough to rattle my grip on reality, like anything I might care about could just pop out of existence at any moment or it might not be the same person (like if my dogs are the same dogs and not some alternate dimension copies, its....very terrifying). It's not on you, I'm just trying to be as upfront as possible about what's going on. I want help and I can't do that by hiding things.

I'm stable now, mostly. But I feel another crack in my head and I'm worried that tomorrow I'll be doubting everything I see and feel and...well I think folks get it.

I'm just...tired...of it all...every day it's like a weight bearing down on my brain. Why am I like this...

But a plane is real even according to reductionism. I don't know what that guy was on about.

Real/unreal stuff and solipsist stuff is all nonsense. And literally no one knows what the full "hidden secret" is, so just forget about it. It's almost completely irrelevant to everyday human life anyway.

The actual issue is that while everything is "real", we don't see the external world as it is, but we experience a representation of the external world in our head.

Since you seem to have some brain damage and/or a personality disorder, the representation in your head could be somewhat faulty. So maybe sometimes you hallucinate, experience distortions. Maybe you are experiencing psychological de-realization. These could be the bigger reasons why you keep running into things that seem unreal.

I don't know what he's on about either.

I want to forget, but it's hard for me to because of some paranoia about living a lie. But that paranoia ironically makes me fall for just about anything people say if they claim truth about reality, it's...very crippling.

Even reading real in quotes does it to me. I know we don't see the world as it is...and I try to not think about it too much because...well I don't wanna beat a dead horse, I hopefully got my point across (I hope).

I don't really hallucinate, it's more like when thoughts like what you said about dimensions or when I first came across solipsism it...well broke me (solipsism did, what you said just triggered old wounds). When I first read solipsism I experienced psychosis, everything felt...far away, like I was behind a pane of glass and it was all unreal. It was the worst I felt in my life, and I was in a car accident. I couldn't trust people, my feelings, it was heartbreaking. To hear my family being emotional and real with me and in the back of my mind doubting they existed.

To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure I ever really recovered from that one. I think I'm still raw over it...it's hard to be sure these days because my emotions are very muted compared to before.

Hell...I almost did some awful things to people because I thought they weren't real, and I nearly got into some accidents driving on the road because...I doubted the cars were real...

It's not that I run into things that aren't real, it's more like some of what I read (like solipsism and your dimension stuff) has got me...doubting what is real. Even now I still can't get the thing you said about dimensions out of my head and I fear a trip down like when I first read about solipsism around 7 years ago (again not blaming you, I'm being as honest as possible with my thoughts and feelings).

And...at the risk of sounding too vulnerable...I feel like a scared child right now. Like everything is being taken away from me and I'm powerless to stop it and the only thing I can do is cower in fear. I feel so isolated, terrified....and alone, desperately trying to reach out for some kind of lifeline or comfort......and my hands just claw at empty air and the fear grows with each failed attempt. Just wanting something, someone I can hold who can tell me it will be ok...

Maybe I've always been a scared kid deep down.......

As usual I blame Kant. On the most fundamental level, solipsism can't be disproven, but nor can anything else ever be fully disproven. There is always some inherent uncertainty.

But aside from the inherent uncertainty in everything, when we look at what we CAN know, solipsism seems almost certainly bollocks. So I assign probabilities to things, how likely they are to be true.

Solipsism for me goes in the <5% category, along with other random stuff we have absolutely no evidence for, like brain in a vat, simulated universe, an evil demon deceiving me etc. And then I just forget about the <5% category.

I just exclude things from my thinking that we have absolutely no evidence for, like solipsism. There can be an infinite amount of random ideas that we have absolutely no evidence for.

Atla wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 6:17 am

Darkneos wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 6:06 am

Atla wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 5:54 am
But a plane is real even according to reductionism. I don't know what that guy was on about.

Real/unreal stuff and solipsist stuff is all nonsense. And literally no one knows what the full "hidden secret" is, so just forget about it. It's almost completely irrelevant to everyday human life anyway.

The actual issue is that while everything is "real", we don't see the external world as it is, but we experience a representation of the external world in our head.

Since you seem to have some brain damage and/or a personality disorder, the representation in your head could be somewhat faulty. So maybe sometimes you hallucinate, experience distortions. Maybe you are experiencing psychological de-realization. These could be the bigger reasons why you keep running into things that seem unreal.

I don't know what he's on about either.

I want to forget, but it's hard for me to because of some paranoia about living a lie. But that paranoia ironically makes me fall for just about anything people say if they claim truth about reality, it's...very crippling.

Even reading real in quotes does it to me. I know we don't see the world as it is...and I try to not think about it too much because...well I don't wanna beat a dead horse, I hopefully got my point across (I hope).

I don't really hallucinate, it's more like when thoughts like what you said about dimensions or when I first came across solipsism it...well broke me (solipsism did, what you said just triggered old wounds). When I first read solipsism I experienced psychosis, everything felt...far away, like I was behind a pane of glass and it was all unreal. It was the worst I felt in my life, and I was in a car accident. I couldn't trust people, my feelings, it was heartbreaking. To hear my family being emotional and real with me and in the back of my mind doubting they existed.

To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure I ever really recovered from that one. I think I'm still raw over it...it's hard to be sure these days because my emotions are very muted compared to before.

Hell...I almost did some awful things to people because I thought they weren't real, and I nearly got into some accidents driving on the road because...I doubted the cars were real...

It's not that I run into things that aren't real, it's more like some of what I read (like solipsism and your dimension stuff) has got me...doubting what is real. Even now I still can't get the thing you said about dimensions out of my head and I fear a trip down like when I first read about solipsism around 7 years ago (again not blaming you, I'm being as honest as possible with my thoughts and feelings).

And...at the risk of sounding too vulnerable...I feel like a scared child right now. Like everything is being taken away from me and I'm powerless to stop it and the only thing I can do is cower in fear. I feel so isolated, terrified....and alone, desperately trying to reach out for some kind of lifeline or comfort......and my hands just claw at empty air and the fear grows with each failed attempt. Just wanting something, someone I can hold who can tell me it will be ok...

Maybe I've always been a scared kid deep down.......

As usual I blame Kant. On the most fundamental level, solipsism can't be disproven, but nor can anything else ever be fully disproven. There is always some inherent uncertainty.

But aside from the inherent uncertainty in everything, when we look at what we CAN know, solipsism seems almost certainly bollocks. So I assign probabilities to things, how likely they are to be true.

Solipsism for me goes in the <5% category, along with other random stuff we have absolutely no evidence for, like brain in a vat, simulated universe, an evil demon deceiving me etc. And then I just forget about the <5% category.

I just exclude things from my thinking that we have absolutely no evidence for, like solipsism. There can be an infinite amount of random ideas that we have absolutely no evidence for.

That's...actually a pretty healthy way of looking at stuff like that. I know every now and then people try to throw something like that at me and I get two feelings. One is just "whatevs" and I roll my eyes, the other is...well fear and paranoia.

Maybe it's a self esteem/confidence problem, I hang on everyone else's every word because I think they know better, know something I don't, have a secret to reality that upends everything I know, some hidden truth, etc. You get what I mean?

I remember staying up all night in elementary school because some kid convinced me that Death was gonna come for me and that he was gonna try to stop it. I guess...I never really matured past that.

Though, and I'm really sorry about this (I can't stop my brain from going there), when it comes to ideas with no evidence for my mind goes back to the stuff at the top in my original post. Stuff about the self gets me because then I'm not sure how to treat people (just to give one example). And then there is the external reality and other people existing or not...(not saying I think other people don't exist or that there isn't an external reality, but the old wounds of solipsism haven't healed...)

And what the dude said about planes and people. I think what he meant is that anything beyond the standard model is just the "mind projection fallacy" (which I don't think is a real fallacy) and not the territory. He likes to throw around the map not being the territory and he applies that to stuff like planes and people, etc (because they're just patterns of atoms and not independently existing things, but that sounds...wonky to me, like REALLY managed form of Buddhism or something, even process philosophy put it better).

And it goes back to what you said about the dimensions and stuff, that's still gnawing in my mind. I know you said it doesn't matter and to forget about it but...I can't. Is that really true or is it just a personal stance?

Darkneos wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 2:45 am So...I'm overwhelmed and literally out of options and people to ask so I'll try here.

I've read a lot of different things over the years and can't seem to reconcile or even understand any of them, and the result is being so depressed I don't even get out of bed most days.

To name a few:

1. Quantum physics and whether time is real or not, I don't understand or know what to do if it is.

If you, really, want to find out if 'time', or anything else for that matter, is real or not, then all you need to first do is just define 'the word' that you are wondering about. Which means if you define the word 'time', here, then I can and will inform you if 'it' is real or not.

Darkneos wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 2:45 am 2. Reductionism and whether everything is just boiled down to the basic quantum state and nothing else is real or exists:

What even is some so-called 'basic quantum state', to you, exactly?

Darkneos wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 2:45 am https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tPqQdLC ... 2ki6sSvAxu
Like...if it really is just quantum particles and nothing else, that people, animals, planes, etc aren't "real" then...I don't really know.

Again, what does the term and/or phrase 'quantum particles' even mean and is referring to, exactly?

Also, and by the way, what the whole Universe, Itself, which is infinite and eternal, is basically, or fundamentally, made up of is just 'matter', and, 'space', alone.

But, 'this' might not even be what you are referring to and wonder about, here, anyway.

Darkneos wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 2:45 am Am I lying when I make friends? When I feel love? Or sad, or anything? I don't understand.

you, supposedly, do not understand 'what', here, exactly?

Darkneos wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 2:45 am Are we really nothing more than just robots driven by evolution?

Who and/or what is the 'we', here, which 'you' are referring to, exactly?

Darkneos wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 2:45 am 3. The self and whether it exists or not and what that means for how I am suppose to relate to people or if there even is such a thing as "people", how do I live with that?

How do you live with 'what', exactly?

There are two 'selfs'. There are individual human bodies, with individual 'selves' within each and every one of them. There is also a One Self. But, understanding 'this' fully, although is really very simple and very easy indeed, you individual human beings have to have been prepared in a particular way, first.

Darkneos wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 2:45 am Am I helping people or not?

In regards to 'what', exactly?

Darkneos wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 2:45 am If I sleep do I "die" and am reborn the next day?

No.

Darkneos wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 2:45 am This is a big hurt to think about.

how could just wondering some thing 'hurt'?

Darkneos wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 2:45 am 4. Social constructs. The worry that all the meaningful things in my life that helped me and lifted me up and moved me were little more than some fantasy I was living out and not reality itself. It's...hard trying to reckon with that.

The only 'real thing' that can be assured of is Awareness, and of 'the thoughts', which 'come/arise' and 'go/dissipate'. This is not to say that what 'the thoughs', themselves, are true and/or right, and aligns with what is actually True, and Right, but 'Awareness', and 'thoughts', can not be denied, and thus how and why the 'I' knows that 'I' exist, and am alive, and thus also knows, without any doubt at all, that 'Existence', and 'Life', does exist.

Everything else, however, could just be a figment of 'imagination', or just a 'fantasy', as 'you' have been wondering about, and pondering over.

Darkneos wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 2:45 am 5. Feeling like I've been living a lie this whole time due to the above, and that to be happy in life is to lie to yourself about meaning, friends, hobbies, all that stuff.

I am sure that 'being honest' will bring you much more happiness, and wisdom, in Life, instead.

Darkneos wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 2:45 am Those are the big ones I can remember now.

But...yeah, I just....I just don't know how to deal or live anymore.

you can just go along, in Life, not over-thinking it, and not wishing nor expecting any thing.

Darkneos wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 2:45 am I usually just hide in my room every day now and try to forget,

What is 'it', exactly, that you are trying to forget? (Not that I am expecting you to answer this, here, but for you to reflect on 'yourself" at any time.).

Now, if it is past 'abuses', then it is completely and utterly natural, and for certain, that there will be 'pain', but this pain exists in internal feelings/emotions, only. Which can always be changed, and changed almost immediately I will add, by and through just a 'change of thought'.

Darkneos wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 2:45 am because when I engage with the world it's too hard.

Would you like to explain and share what 'part/s of the world' that is 'feels like' as being too hard.

Darkneos wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 2:45 am I want to cry but I'm afraid if I do something will snap and I'll never be stable again, that it would be the end. I don't know how or why I go on in life and I'm looking for anything to keep on. Though some days I just want it all to stop, but I'm afraid of ending it.

I have nowhere else to go or anyone to talk to or seek help from, so I turn to philosophy boards because...well I have nothing left...

I truly feel broken and beyond repair....

'you' are very far from being actually 'broken' and 'beyond repair', but, again, I certainly accept you feel like that. As many, many of 'us' have also at times, before.

Although, and obviously, at the moment, you are feeling 'this way', these are just internal feelings, or emotions, which at times do not align with what is actually True and Right, in Life.

But like with each and every emotion and internal feeling they can be and are changed with and by 'thought', alone.

Darkneos wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 2:45 am I don't even know if this could be helped or fixed, but part of me wants to try (however vain it might be). But I'm getting so tired of trying and hoping for...something better...I can't even name it or visualize it anymore...it's more like some desperate hope...

you are getting too close, here, and it would really help if you saw a doctor or some sort of professional in person. I am not sure in what country you are in, so seeking out professional help might be easier said than done for you. But just remember there is always hope, and I do mean always, and there is always someone, somewhere, you can talk to. Even if it is in a philosophy forum, of all places.

Darkneos wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 2:45 am It feels like all the hope and magic of life is just gone...and it almost makes me cry...if I could.

If you want to know the Truth i am actually crying, here.

I feel 'your pain'.

But, as I can do, so can you, accept that 'the feeling' is painful, but in emotions only. And, to show that 'emotional pain' really is 'fleeting' remember that most special time and where you were, remember how great and happy it was, now 'look into' how 'you' are 'feeling' now.

Although 'emotions' can 'feel' horrible, painful, and even Truly unwanted, they are going to 'arise', and then 'disappear', always.

And, once 'you' get more aligned with 'the emotions' and 'feelings' within, and notice and 'see' how 'you' much power and control 'you' do actually have 'over them', then the more control and power 'you' will keep attaining, along the way.

Also, and obviously, no one 'wants to' feel 'the pain', which comes from recognizing and accepting 'those feelings', which have 'arisen' and/or are 'arising', but just 'sitting with them', as it is sometimes referred to, can be very in-sight-ful, and en-lighten-ing. But, this might be better done in and with 'guidance'.

Darkneos wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 2:45 am I just...can't deal with anything...it feels like my life eroded over time and there's nothing left...and nothing to look forward to...

you are certainly not alone in Life feeling like the 'magic of Life' has gone or is going, but there is not a single human being who fully 'understands' the True magic of Life, and which is life and living, Itself.

Darkneos wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 8:24 am

Atla wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 6:17 am

Darkneos wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 6:06 am

I don't know what he's on about either.

I want to forget, but it's hard for me to because of some paranoia about living a lie. But that paranoia ironically makes me fall for just about anything people say if they claim truth about reality, it's...very crippling.

Even reading real in quotes does it to me. I know we don't see the world as it is...and I try to not think about it too much because...well I don't wanna beat a dead horse, I hopefully got my point across (I hope).

I don't really hallucinate, it's more like when thoughts like what you said about dimensions or when I first came across solipsism it...well broke me (solipsism did, what you said just triggered old wounds). When I first read solipsism I experienced psychosis, everything felt...far away, like I was behind a pane of glass and it was all unreal. It was the worst I felt in my life, and I was in a car accident. I couldn't trust people, my feelings, it was heartbreaking. To hear my family being emotional and real with me and in the back of my mind doubting they existed.

To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure I ever really recovered from that one. I think I'm still raw over it...it's hard to be sure these days because my emotions are very muted compared to before.

Hell...I almost did some awful things to people because I thought they weren't real, and I nearly got into some accidents driving on the road because...I doubted the cars were real...

It's not that I run into things that aren't real, it's more like some of what I read (like solipsism and your dimension stuff) has got me...doubting what is real. Even now I still can't get the thing you said about dimensions out of my head and I fear a trip down like when I first read about solipsism around 7 years ago (again not blaming you, I'm being as honest as possible with my thoughts and feelings).

And...at the risk of sounding too vulnerable...I feel like a scared child right now. Like everything is being taken away from me and I'm powerless to stop it and the only thing I can do is cower in fear. I feel so isolated, terrified....and alone, desperately trying to reach out for some kind of lifeline or comfort......and my hands just claw at empty air and the fear grows with each failed attempt. Just wanting something, someone I can hold who can tell me it will be ok...

Maybe I've always been a scared kid deep down.......

As usual I blame Kant. On the most fundamental level, solipsism can't be disproven, but nor can anything else ever be fully disproven. There is always some inherent uncertainty.

But aside from the inherent uncertainty in everything, when we look at what we CAN know, solipsism seems almost certainly bollocks. So I assign probabilities to things, how likely they are to be true.

Solipsism for me goes in the <5% category, along with other random stuff we have absolutely no evidence for, like brain in a vat, simulated universe, an evil demon deceiving me etc. And then I just forget about the <5% category.

I just exclude things from my thinking that we have absolutely no evidence for, like solipsism. There can be an infinite amount of random ideas that we have absolutely no evidence for.

That's...actually a pretty healthy way of looking at stuff like that. I know every now and then people try to throw something like that at me and I get two feelings. One is just "whatevs" and I roll my eyes, the other is...well fear and paranoia.

Maybe it's a self esteem/confidence problem, I hang on everyone else's every word because I think they know better, know something I don't, have a secret to reality that upends everything I know, some hidden truth, etc. You get what I mean?

I remember staying up all night in elementary school because some kid convinced me that Death was gonna come for me and that he was gonna try to stop it. I guess...I never really matured past that.

Though, and I'm really sorry about this (I can't stop my brain from going there), when it comes to ideas with no evidence for my mind goes back to the stuff at the top in my original post. Stuff about the self gets me because then I'm not sure how to treat people (just to give one example). And then there is the external reality and other people existing or not...(not saying I think other people don't exist or that there isn't an external reality, but the old wounds of solipsism haven't healed...)

And what the dude said about planes and people. I think what he meant is that anything beyond the standard model is just the "mind projection fallacy" (which I don't think is a real fallacy) and not the territory. He likes to throw around the map not being the territory and he applies that to stuff like planes and people, etc (because they're just patterns of atoms and not independently existing things, but that sounds...wonky to me, like REALLY managed form of Buddhism or something, even process philosophy put it better).

And it goes back to what you said about the dimensions and stuff, that's still gnawing in my mind. I know you said it doesn't matter and to forget about it but...I can't. Is that really true or is it just a personal stance?

Nah you already know more than most people, that's why they have simple confident answers - they don't even know about most of the stuff that's bothering you, many of them couldn't even grasp it even if they tried.

The dimensions stuff is of course just my favourite QM philosophical interpretation, it's Occam razor-friendly. Literally no one (including Nobel prize winners in physics) knows what the correct full interpretation of QM is. And it's quite possible that we will never know. So people come up with dozens, hundreds, thousands of different interpretations. This real/unreal business is just another interpretation.

My advice would be to learn to block out stuff we have no evidence for. Sometimes it helps to write out these things on paper using a pen or something, to help the hemispheres communicate with each other.

Darkneos wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 2:45 am

To connect with the reality not bound by your skin, begin by turning attention to the natural elements of the surroundings as perceived through the senses, in any random situation. Full connection triages and answers most questions, which opens the mind sense that fulfills the inevitable by the shaping of reality to the extent of one’s capacity, which sometimes goes untested too long in life.

Darkneos wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 2:45 am 1. Quantum physics and whether time is real or not, I don't understand or know what to do if it is.

Drink a coffee, eat a sandwich and get on with your day. Quantum physics will do its thing irrespective of your daily life.

Darkneos wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 2:45 am 2. Reductionism and whether everything is just boiled down to the basic quantum state and nothing else is real or exists:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tPqQdLC ... 2ki6sSvAxu
Like...if it really is just quantum particles and nothing else, that people, animals, planes, etc aren't "real" then...I don't really know. Am I lying when I make friends? When I feel love? Or sad, or anything? I don't understand.

The universe is made out of things ... cups of coffee, hats, and stuff like that.
The things are made out of stuff ... milk, water, moose skin and so on.
But the stuff is made out of things... atoms, and whatnot, which are made out of stuff...
So there's only stuff and things in the universe when you really think about it, nothing else.

Never mind, that seems to be enough stuff and things for there to be a universe, and that's cool.

Darkneos wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 2:45 am Are we really nothing more than just robots driven by evolution?

It doesn't matter. What we are is what we are, if the process that created us is an impersonal set of forces, that's some other matter entirely. You have the capacities you do and you therefore have to do your thing with them.

Darkneos wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 2:45 am 3. The self and whether it exists or not and what that means for how I am suppose to relate to people or if there even is such a thing as "people", how do I live with that? Am I helping people or not? If I sleep do I "die" and am reborn the next day? This is a big hurt to think about.

You seem to have a lot of concerns around Mereological Nihilism.

I suggest you look at it in a different way and consider the many levels at which any object can be described. The Mona Lisa is painted on wood. So is my garden fence, there is a reason why we don't confuse the two objects though. At another level of description, one is a work of art while the other just prevents one garden leading unobstructed into another- a job for which the Mona Lisa is manifestly not suited.

Darkneos wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 2:45 am 4. Social constructs. The worry that all the meaningful things in my life that helped me and lifted me up and moved me were little more than some fantasy I was living out and not reality itself. It's...hard trying to reckon with that.

Is it not equally bad to be stuck with all the set of social constructs you grew up with for the rest of your life just because you absent-mindedly assumed they were "real"? Some of those social constructs are arguably bad, but we as a society construct them and then reconstruct them over and over again, which means they change through the mechanism of persuasion rather than experimental observation.

This forum is dominated by a handful of people who go into paroxysm when they are told that gender is such a construct. Race, justice and rights are others, and it really pisses people off to have to reconsider any of these things. Stand against those neo-traditionalists who can't see past the end of their grandad's childhood if you are really the guy who can see through this gossamer tissue of illusion.

Darkneos wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 2:45 am 5. Feeling like I've been living a lie this whole time due to the above, and that to be happy in life is to lie to yourself about meaning, friends, hobbies, all that stuff.

Well "happy" is some whole other thing. Philosophy is no guide to finding any of that sort of thing (see also "wisdom")

Darkneos wrote: ↑Sat May 10, 2025 2:45 am Those are the big ones I can remember now.

But...yeah, I just....I just don't know how to deal or live anymore. I usually just hide in my room every day now and try to forget, because when I engage with the world it's too hard. I want to cry but I'm afraid if I do something will snap and I'll never be stable again, that it would be the end. I don't know how or why I go on in life and I'm looking for anything to keep on. Though some days I just want it all to stop, but I'm afraid of ending it.

I have nowhere else to go or anyone to talk to or seek help from, so I turn to philosophy boards because...well I have nothing left...

I truly feel broken and beyond repair....I don't even know if this could be helped or fixed, but part of me wants to try (however vain it might be). But I'm getting so tired of trying and hoping for...something better...I can't even name it or visualize it anymore...it's more like some desperate hope...

It feels like all the hope and magic of life is just gone...and it almost makes me cry...if I could. I just...can't deal with anything...it feels like my life eroded over time and there's nothing left...and nothing to look forward to...

It's a bad idea to experience philosophy and philosophical problems as real things. As Wittgenstein tells us ''Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.'' There are ways for philosophers to ask if the world exists that suggest we are capable of asking such a question usefully - try to always keep in mind that of course we cannot actually do that.

(continued)

More of what ails you won’t cure you.