Does anything actually exist?

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Hi, its getting late and i am getting tired so my following post might not make any sense to anybody who reads it, so i'll re-do it tomorrow when i've woken up if needs be.

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Anyway the problem i have is that it feels like nothing in the universe is actually real to me. However, if i consciously think about it, it makes logical sense that it should.

For instance whenever/whatever i do something, it doesn't feel to me like it actually exists. An example could be like when I walk down the street, it doesn't feel like a car has gone past, or i am walking past a row of houses. However, once I consciously analyse the situation i know when i think about it logically that i am. Or another example could be me typing this post at the moment. It doesn't feel like i am actually doing it, or feel i am in fact sitting down with my laptop on my lap. I almost have to consciously convince myself that I am doing it in order to believe so.

This isn't just the case for objects, but for people too. As a result i cannot get emotionally attached to anybody/thing in any form. Instead i can only get attached emotionally to a person in a conscious way. In other words, I have a "moral code" that I have decided that everybody should be allowed to live under. If somebody isn't able to live within this (examples could be that they''ve been beaten up or had stuff stolen from them etc) then i "feel" compassion that they're unable to live within my "moral code" (that i've consciously thought of) because of external factors, as opposed to the consequences they've suffered from the act (which could include physical/mental injury they may have suffered from).

Anyway by consciously trying to identify why nothing in this universe seems real to me, I would like to know (that if in fact everything is real....) then whether any other autistics feel that the world, themselves, and their surroundings dont actually exist?
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I'd imagine that none of this makes any sense whats so ever, so I'll try and re-word it tomorrow, or next time i'm on.

That's ironic that you posted this just as I've been watching The Matrix on TV. Certainly the point has been argued that the physical world as we know it is a matter of mass consensual illusion, but it still hurts when you stub your toe.

no, gassy... you are a figment of my over-active imagination... (:D hehe)

but seriously, feelings of absolute dissociation (and detachment), and the thoughts and questions that these feelings promote, takes a fair proportion of my time... that and trying to see the meaning and purpose in life - even if it and i with it does/do not really exist but in the mind of someone or something else altogether... or in some other form that is beyond the bounds of my understanding.



interesting... maybe i am just the figment of your imagination.

I used to constantaly expirence this as a young child. I had VIVD dreams. I would ask my mom in them, "Is this a dream?" and she would reply, "Is it?" I could feel pain in my dreams. Even during my waking hours I would wonder if I was dreaming. I was constantly confused. I remember things my mom supposedly said that she says never happened. I remember doing things that she says didn't happen either.

It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.

You may be right.

Yes, I agree, pain has a way of bringing us back to reality. But then you could ask yourself, "Is this really pain or is it something else?" Along these lines we have the parable or legend of the ostrich with its head buried in the sand: the avoidance of reality by pretending it does not exist. If we don't want to accept reality, or we accept it on some level, but choose to deny it, we are like the Ostrich, thinking it will go away if we refuse to see it and live in a reality of our own making. And then again, if there is no such think as matter we could accurately say it's not really sand. This could go on and on and on, but would it bring us any closer to understanding the nature of objective reality? Probably not.

Ah, this is a topic that has been dwelled upon by many philosophers. The phrase "I think, therefore I am" or "Cogito, ergo sum" made by Descartes applies to this situation. Basically what it says is that only one's self can be proven to exist, only through the knowledge of the existence of the conscious self. All outside of one's conscious self can not be proven to exist, they must be assumed to exist(the position that nothing but one's conscious exists is solipsism). This is because the mind interacts with the physical world through the senses.
We all know the senses can not be wholly trusted, as we all experience delusions or hallucinations or mistake something every now and then. One can believe they see the body of a dead dog, for instance, on the lawn and freak out whereas the neighbors may insist there is no dead dog on the lawn. Who is right? The "sane" person would side with the neighbors as we tend to take the side of the majority. We are more comfortable believing there is one delusional person and the crowd is sane where as we struggle accepting the converse. Nevertheless, it is perfectly feasible, when one adopts an objective position, that the converse is true. An example of this is gaslighting, where someone is deliberately driven crazy by someone with malevolent intentions by causing the victim to slowly begin to distrust his or her senses. The lies start small. For instance, the victim takes the trash down. The perpetrator will take the trash back up then confront the victim on the matter. The victim will assert they did. The perpetrator will show them the trash is still up.
If one can't trust their senses, then there is no reason to believe event A occurred as opposed to event B or even that any event occurred at all. Some use this as a pretext to deny knowledge (epistemological nihilism).
Philosophy is one of my obsessions.

TheMysteriousOne said:

This is definitely a form of psychological torture and is probably used as such, especially on political prisoners. The Gaslight was a great film. So, to avoid being gaslighted, one has to learn to trust their senses and to be always one step ahead of the perpetrator(s). It would also be helpful to make and keep copious notes.

Me too. Free thinking to me is like wandering around in Paradise with no prohibitions.

How very existentialist.

Oh, yes.

"I think, therefore I am"... but I cannot conclusively prove the existence of anything but my own mind.

You would not believe how much that fact bugs me.

I think everything exists.

I'm an illusion

Bodhi is not a tree.

Edit; OK, so that probably was rather unclear. That phrase is often referenced in work relating to Zen Buddhism (including something Zhang San-Feng, the Taoist monk that created Tai Chi Chuan) and means, as clear as can be put in words, that ultimate reality is formless.

The idea that the world we live in is not "real" is actually fairly common in Eastern religions. The exact belief varies, but Taoism, Buddhism, and Hinduism all view the world we currently live in as a sort of mass illusion. We Taoists believe that our perception of reality creates reality (wow that sounds familiar Mr.'s Took 2500 Years To Figure That Out). Again: Not exactly a perfect wording, but it's the best I can do.

Hinduism views the world as an illusion, but the exact belief escapes me at the moment. Buddhism is different, but once again, similar and I can't really go into more detail right now.

I don't think I have had it in my dreams, but I've had the opposite when it comes to my conscious thoughts and past experiences. So instead of my conscious thoughts feeling like they're my past experiences, it is my past experiences that feel like my thoughts. As a result I have been told that I sometimes ask questions or do things repeatedly, even though i honestly dont remember i've done them. It has occured to me that this might play a part as to why nothing feels, or felt real but i'm not sure.

Or maybe it might just be down to me having a bad memory??

Not sure if that was meant to be a joke but it made me chuckle :d

My answer is not as frilly or composed as some previously posted, but I'll give it a stab. I read a book called "The Tao of Physics" and every once in a while I re-read it to remind myself that half the crap I worried over is only in my head. If I think about it too much, I lose connection from everything. Being an energy signature in a changing yet static energy plane of of quarks is really numbing, I could go all day and not care about anything because it is not real, just the end of a light/chemical reaction.