Nothing is Real

Has anyone ever accused you of acting like you're the center of the universe? Maybe you were 10 years old, upset that your mom wouldn't take you to buy candy, or you were so focused on an upcoming project that you totally forgot to wish your coworker congratulations on their promotion. It happens to the best of us. Most of us are wired to be a little selfish; we evolved to survive, after all. Airlines even tell us to secure our oxygen masks before our children's.

But being reprimanded by our parents or a friend for being a little self-obsessed is different from feeling like we are truly the only person who exists. What would that be like? Everyone and everything else being a figment of our imagination, actually being the center of the universe? It seems like a fun "what if" game to play; but if you think about it long enough, could it make sense? Are you sure the phone you're holding in your hands is even real? Could you be certain that the woman you just bought a coffee from was indeed there?

The only thing we can be certain of is our own mind. At least that's what the philosophy of solipsism tells us. Solipsism is an extreme type of skepticism that anything external from our minds does not exist. The outside world, other people, their thoughts and emotions simply don't exist outside of our perception of them. Solipsism is presented as an explanation for what the external world actually is. It basically says it isn't anything; it's make-believe, imaginary—literally in our heads. The house we live in, the people we love, the car we drive, and the food we eat, they are our perception. The sky, the moon, the whole solar system are merely figments of our own minds.

Solipsism equates the existence of anything with one's personal experiences, thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. They are the only things we can be certain of as individuals. It tells us that we are indeed the center of the universe. Many philosophers have argued similar ideas to solipsism, trying to solve the gap between our perception of things and their actual existence. For example, George Berkeley similarly wanted to know if things we did not see actually existed. He asked the classic question, "If a tree falls in the woods and there's no one around to hear it, does it make a noise?" He answered, "No," that something like the noise the tree makes only exists if someone can perceive it.

But he didn't go as far as solipsism takes us. He felt that solipsists were actually absurd. He reasoned that if a solipsist thinks their mind is the only thing in existence, then it can't be perceived by anything or anyone else. If it can't be perceived, then it cannot exist. If the only thing that existed was the mind and its perception, then the actual world wouldn't be there, and then we'd be...what? Nothing? Maybe we would live in The Matrix, living in an illusion, a figment of someone else's perception that only some know isn't real.

But the thing about the idea of the Matrix—or for that matter, solipsism in general—is that it doesn't really appeal to common sense. We know that our dog exists because we just do. Solipsism is more about logic. We can think to ourselves, "I only have direct access to the contents of my own mind—sensory experiences, thoughts, and memories. These contents are completely private. I might share them, but no one really knows them besides me." At the same time, I'm unable to access anyone else's mind, so I can only infer their existence indirectly. Therefore, the only thing of certainty is that my mind exists. We can't logically assert anything else.

So we end up sealed in this prison cell of our perception of the world around us. We experience our own mind in every single moment of our lives but simply assume that other people are having the same lived experience. We will never be sure that they actually possess thoughts and emotions like we do. Solipsism teaches us that we should be skeptical of everything, like the security of our data. Data brokers note everything about you, like your name, your house address, and even your social security number. Scammers then find this information during data breaches, and that's why you get all those spam messages in your inbox.

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Back to our story: natural selection gave us the capacity for theory and the ability to intuit other people's emotions and intentions. It also gave us the ability to deceive one another in fear that we are being deceived. Ironically, wouldn't the ultimate deception be pretending to be conscious when someone is not? Solipsism prevents us from knowing if this deception is actually happening by reminding us that the intentions of other people and things can never truly be known.

We lack what neuroscientist Kristof Koch calls a "consciousness meter," a device that would measure consciousness in the same way that a thermometer measures temperature. Without any sort of instrument, we rely on our own preconceptions that other human consciousness is akin to our own because the elusive consciousness meter is an impossibility. Theories of consciousness, like solipsism, are endless and completely speculative.

There are different degrees of solipsism that answer that question; for example, metaphysical solipsism tells us that definitely the self is the only existing reality. But then there's methodological solipsism, which goes even further and says that the brain is actually a part of the external world because it only exists in response to what is on the outside. In this branch of the philosophy, the only thing that is certain are thoughts. Therefore, we can reject solipsism but still understand that the feeling of being estranged from others and perhaps confronting the idea that we are alone.

There's no way to know if what we perceive exists outside our minds. Could we fully be dreaming of our world? Solipsism tells us that we might be. It rejects the idea that we can assume the existence of other people's consciousness and presents something known as the "problem of other minds." The problem of other minds is the basis of solipsism. It says that since we can't enter other people's heads and see the world from their point of view, it's impossible to prove that they exist. We can't feel their sadness, anger or joy.

We can, though, understand that our emotions are real. When someone dies, we feel the pit of deep grief inside of us. When we fall in love, it feels like an explosion inside our consciousness. We know that these feelings are real because, well, we feel them. What about other people's feelings? One of the criticisms of solipsism is its close relation to narcissism. Recently, it seems like you can't go on your phone, watch TV, or even have a conversation with a friend without the idea of self-care coming up.

For some, this might just mean a weekly yoga class or enjoying a face mask before they go to bed. But the line is thin between extreme self-care and self-worship. Putting ourselves first can be healthy, but valuing only ourselves leads to broken relationships, isolation, and even struggles with mental health. Unfortunately for those who believe in solipsism, the philosophy supports the rather narcissistic idea that our mind is the only mind that matters. This can therefore be defined as self-centered, putting our worldviews, mental states, and opinions above everyone else.

Because if our mind is the only one that is sure to exist, why wouldn't we? Now, of course, most people can discern between their own thoughts and emotions and those of their friends, family, coworkers, and even strangers. This idea called mentalization is the ability to suspend what you know or perceive so you can acknowledge someone else's experience—basically, to have empathy and put yourself in someone else's shoes. It can be hard; our world is more divided than it's ever been. It seems impossible sometimes to accept someone else's point of view, especially if it's contrary to your own.

But stepping outside of our experience and accepting different perspectives is one way to avoid the pitfalls of narcissism. Solipsism, however, says we can't do this. It tells us that we can't look beyond ourselves to see these other perspectives because that person's mind and their view of the world simply does not exist. Like anything, solipsism can be taken to the extreme in what's known unofficially as "solipsism syndrome." A person feels that the only reality is the reality of their mind; actual reality isn't real. They might feel plagued by feelings of loneliness, attachment, or indifference to anything outside their own thoughts.

Restricted to looking at the world from a single window, solipsism syndrome isn't officially recognized by the American Psychiatric Association, but disorders like depersonalization or derealization disorder describe similar symptoms. These issues of mental health can go even further in solipsism OCD. When someone has OCD, they have intrusive thoughts, urges, visions, and fears that preoccupy elements of their life. Solipsism OCD is when those intrusive thoughts all revolve around the idea that you might be all alone in this universe.

Imagine that for a moment, feeling trapped in a make-believe world, questioning everything you see, hear, and feel from anyone or anything you encounter over the course of your entire life. It's a scary thought, and a lonely one too. When people suffer from solipsism OCD, they experience never-ending doubt and work day in and day out to find some sort of proof that they aren't alone. Their lives become a cycle of questioning and fear. They'll seek reassurance from other people that their mind isn't the only mind. Of course, the theories behind solipsism tell us that reassurance in the form of someone else can never exist.

Like solipsism syndrome, solipsism OCD tends to be found in people who spend long periods of time alone. Think about astronauts who live in space, sometimes alone. Then here on Earth, there are people who constantly turn inward and lose their connection with others by relying on their own minds. This much they can become convinced that their mind might be alone in this universe. Because of these potential extremes, there's always been an attempt to refute solipsism. Logical rejection has proven elusive.

Solipsism is, after all, squarely based in logic. Instead, people argue against its likelihood rather than trying to prove a reasoned rebuttal. We might ask the question: how could a single mind conjure up an endless universe of experiences, items, people, and places? This video you're watching right now, the Mona Lisa, the Berlin Wall, your mother, your pet, your job—is everything out there created by some deep, inaccessible part of our mind? Seems unlikely.

Some more specific rejections of solipsism come in religion. If a God exists, then he, she, or it watches over us and knows our thoughts. This means that we can't be isolated in our own experience; we'll always have a higher power than our own mind. Art also offers a counter to solipsism by striving to tell us how someone else feels. Art presents opportunities for empathy. Art even explores the depths of one's own mind, just like solipsism does. In Charlie Kaufman's film, "I'm Thinking of Ending Things," other people are just projections of the disturbed protagonist. Kaufman asks us to think about what it might feel like to question the existence of everything but ourselves.

Art is a way of venting our own anxiety about the idea that we might be alone in the world. And perhaps that venting is our way of avoiding narcissism or something even worse. What might be the ultimate rebuttal to solipsism? Maybe love. Love is transcendent between two minds, and it's the feeling of knowing someone else from the inside and feeling like they know you in the same way. This extreme emotional connection breaks the barrier between two consciousnesses.

However, even in love, that barrier can come back up just long enough to remind us that we are indeed separate from the other person. And in that moment of separation, do we come back to your existential question? Are they all in our head? But without descending into existential fear, what can we take away from the ideas behind solipsism? We can understand that we will always face the limitations of our own reasoning. We can't refute an idea like solipsism, so we just have to let it exist as a possibility.

We can't escape our own minds. We can't step outside ourselves, no matter how hard we try, and we'll only ever experience life with the minds that we have. But maybe that's reassuring and even motivating—that we only get one mind, so we might as well embrace it and use it to its full capacity. With that one mind, might we diffuse the power of a singular idea like solipsism? Because solipsism demands certainty, it sets unrealistic expectations for knowledge.

Maybe we can't rule it out, but we can't rule out a lot of stuff, like Bigfoot or aliens. In fact, we aren't actually certain about most things, but that doesn't mean we don't accept them as true. We embrace our loved ones as full humans with emotions and consciousness that we try to be kind to. We look at beautiful mountains with wonder and think about the millions of years of erosion and weather that went into making them. We are experts at living without certainty; it's what we do every day.

So if the mind is the only thing that is certain, as solipsism tells us, maybe we can enjoy that one bit of fact. But beyond our mind, there's a lot of uncertainty that we can embrace rather than fear.