this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2023
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weirdway

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weird (adj.)

c. 1400,

• "having power to control fate", from wierd (n.), from Old English wyrd "fate, chance, fortune; destiny; the Fates," literally "that which comes,"

• from Proto-Germanic wurthiz (cognates: Old Saxon wurd, Old High German wurt "fate," Old Norse urðr "fate, one of the three Norns"),

• from PIE wert- "to turn, to wind," (cognates: German werden, Old English weorðan "to become"),

• from root wer- (3) "to turn, bend" (see versus).

• For sense development from "turning" to "becoming," compare phrase turn into "become."

OVERVIEW

This is a community dedicated to discussing subjective idealism and its implications. For a more detailed explanation, please take a look at our vision statement.

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  1. Other-perspectives are possible states of experience, will, and knowledge that we can imagine fully adopting but do not.

  2. The presence of embedded other-perspectives within our personal sensory world (as opposed to other-perspectives we imagine seperately) entails a translation system that we use to relate the imagined subjective states of the other-perspective to sensory transformations.

  3. These sensory transformations which connect to our construction of other-perspectives might be summarily called language.

  4. Language takes many forms of expression. Verbal language, body language, and the mere sensory appearance of a body with sense organs considered sentient.

  5. A body is the limited range of expressive power over which a perspective expresses its contextual will. Sense organs are material representations of the limited range of experiential power which a perspective uses to manifest its sensory world.

  6. In the same way that we may use verbal expressions of bodies and emotional expressions of bodies to construct aspects of other-perspective's subjectivity, we may use the appearance and orientation of their sense organs in relation to other, environmental, aspects of our sensory world to construct experiences for other-perspectives.

  7. The presence of an active other-perspective translation system in your mind begins with your will. The choice to limit your construction of an other-perspective to sensory appearances (as opposed to magical transformation of their perspective in some way according to your unconventional desire and power) is also volitional. This is called leaving other-perspectives free.

  8. In order for multiple free perspectives to cooperate and stay together there must be a collective desire to coordinate fundamental commitments - a desire for agreement and compromise.

  9. It is possible to change your fundamental commitments and beliefs against a group as an act of rejection of the compromise. It is also possible for your group with agreed on commitments and beliefs to separate from another group with different commitments and beliefs in a form of absolute disagreement. It is also possible for an individual to break away from your group's commitments and beliefs. It is also possible for all three of these modes to occur in reverse in the form of agreement.

  10. Whatever the variation, whenever others diverge from your deep beliefs and commitments, they will gradually appear to become more and more wrong and insane as reality fits your view more and more, unless they change to agree with you - at which point they appear to become "correct".

  11. The ways of manifesting experience and of building expectations and beliefs, and the ways of communicating them, are very fundamental negotiated agreements in a social convention. These may take the form of: materialism, animism, theism, solipsism, and the varieties of magical conventions.

  12. In materialism, only experiences derived from material relationships of objects are valid, hence your sensory information is only valid and useful for constructing beliefs if it corresponds to an appropriate relationship between a material sense organ and a material object. In our case those sense organs are the 5 commonly known human sense organs. This particularly requires for your senses to appear as differentiated qualities from one another with clear differentiation in order for clear comprehension and communication of your material sense experiences to others. Thus, e.g., no seeing a 2 dimensional field of scents representing objects' surfaces if the agreement is to see colors. Similarly, only expressions in the form of material transformations are acceptable, hence the role of the body in action and the role of verbal language in communication. These imply the rejection of other, non-material, forms of action and experience and belief and communication.

  13. In theism, other forms of experiences and beliefs and actions and communications may be accepted under certain conditions: special revelation, prayer, miracles, visions, and divination are all examples of possible modes of valid experience, knowledge, and will. Similarly, animism and other magical conventions may include other modes of experiencing, knowing, and willing that are considered valid such as remote viewing, telepathy, magick, channeling, or telekinesis.

  14. Interestingly, most of the not-fully-material models presented make room for classifications of beings which relate to our sensory world in largely or wholly non-material ways - with modes of experiencing, knowing, and willing fully or largely untethered from material objects. Relating to these sorts of beings would be quite different from relating to the sorts of beings we relate to with the conventional materialist paradigm (animals and humans).

  15. Hallucinations within materialism are experiences which do not correctly correspond to the relationship observed by others between your sense organs and the apparent environment. Interestingly, this also makes some room for detecting non-materialist experiences (hallucinations) in your perspective by yourself: you can observe your own sense organs and environment with one sense and compare that to another sense to see if it properly materially corresponds.

  16. In general, hallucinations are experiences that do not validly correspond to the core principles of a view. Delusions are beliefs that do not validly correspond. Insanity and irrationality (from the POV of a given convention) are applied to any mode of experience, knowledge and will construction that differs from that conventional view and therein results in invalid subjective states.

  17. If you want to be loved and trusted and supported by a materialist or mostly materialist community and culture (as most humans in any cultural context do), if you want to be a member of their group and share in their reality, you'll put an equivalent amount of focus on improving and expressing your material modes of experience and knowledge and will. If you are afraid of being rejected and ostracized by your community, of being considered irrational, insane, or dangerous, then you will probably spend most of your time ridding yourself of any experiences that aren't related to sense organs and brains, knowledge that isn't derived therefrom, and intentions that aren't related to bodily expressions and brains. This can similarly be understood in parallel with theistic cultures, animistic cultures, or any others.

  18. If you can remove some fear of social rejection, or if you live in a flexible and tolerant culture, or if you have some social peers that want to negotiate and change the fundamental structure of reality with you, then you can spare some time, energy, and focus (either as an individual or a group negotiating a new convention) for exploring other possible fundamental commitments and modes of experience, knowledge, and will. You can look at rearranging your commitments and thus changing your reality until your surrounding culture either goes insane and destroys itself, disappears entirely, or comes to face your new, ever more apparent truth.

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[–] syncretik 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As you probably already understand, my view is that everyone is emanating their whole reality. And some realize it and some don't. I don't think the idea of one who isn't emanating their whole reality from their mind is coherent - other than as a position of ignorance - that is to say they are emanating their whole reality and don't pay too much attention to that. If everything is an emanation from your mind, is your imagination in some sense, then yeah everyone is a solipsist. All possible perspectives are solipsistic. Everyone who doesn't recognize this is confused or inattentive in my present pov.

I can see this. But it's possible to regard mental states as just mental states. Meaning, you don't have to regard one as the truth, and others as confusion. You can, but don't have to. When we talk about solipsism here, we are trying to create a distinction between solipsism and some types of non-solipsism. Then some sort of non-solipsism must also have some subjective meaning and purpose as a possible (way of) cognition. Even if the truth of non-solipsistic cognitions is not objective or provable, it doesn't ruin or cancel the potential meaning of those cognitions.

So you can regard physicalists, for example, as 'secret solipsists' (and for the purpose of challenging some people's preconceptions I may say something similar myself), but that doesn't mean that's what they are in any objective sense. That's one way to relate to this kind of aspect of one's experience.

Personally I aim to rule my solipsism without myself being ruled by it. (It's non-trivial to rule something without in turn being ruled by the very thing you're ruling.) This means while I recognize its power and relevance, I will not give it absolutely everything so as to entirely deprive other possibilities of meaning. Of course that's just me. I don't say everyone should be exactly like me in this regard.

I can be humaning without being a human. I can be solipsing without being a solipsist. The possibilities are endless. Even if I want to solipse (verb) for a trillion subjective years, I personally feel that it doesn't warrant getting stuck there. As far as I am concerned there is no set of gloves so good that it would warrant gluing them permanently to one's hands.

Everyone already has all the internal permission to transform their whole reality however they want - in a sense they do this all the time.

I was talking about doing it consciously instead of secretly/unconsciously.

The thing is that people are committed to and desire to not transform their reality in arbitrary ways. They have a game they're playing that they want to keep playing.

I agree. It's a bit of a generalization, but I think it's a fair one.

I agree with this 100%. You might say our present experiential model is a form of self-restricted remote sensing and that we are committed to telekinetically moving the body in the shapes of our adjustments of the positions and directions of our remote senses and that we telepathically read other people's intentions and manifest them in our esp remote sensing fields as bodily movements. I.e. we are already telekinetic and using esp and telepathy, but we maintain highly restricted commitments about how to use those powers.

I agree. Magick is both what keeps the world as it appears, and what can change its appearance. It is both rule-setting and rule-breaking. It is ultimately any and all operation of one's will. But conventionally we would recognize only the unusual manifestations as possibly being magickal.

After thinking about it I think I have more clearly understood the blurriness although I think there is an opposite side of the continuum from sense organ based modes of cognition, but that such a pov may be tough to talk about in ordinary English (although I've got some ideas).

We'd probably not need to talk about it. I don't know. Maybe we would just have the gleam of understanding, and not even in our eyes. Just in the mind. We would just know stuff. People talk because (usually) they think they have to deliver information somewhere where it isn't yet. Since we wouldn't labor under such a notion, our talking would be similar to silence and our silence similar to talking.

Originally commented by u/mindseal on 2017-01-02 00:18:51 (dbv6cxm)

[–] syncretik 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

When we talk about solipsism here, we are trying to create a distinction between solipsism and some types of non-solipsism. Then some sort of non-solipsism must also have some subjective meaning and purpose as a possible (way of) cognition. Even if the truth of non-solipsistic cognitions is not objective or provable, it doesn't ruin or cancel the potential meaning of those cognitions.

I think I'm saying there are no non-solipsistic perspectives. To maintain a mode of more expanded or more limited possibilities for yourself is eminently volitional. A more physicalist person is a solipsist and a more deity-minded person is also a solipsist. Imo, solipsism is a meta-paradigm. Basically I'm using the word in the same way you use subjective idealism. I'm just thinking maybe solipsism is a better choice of terminology? A person can be more conscious or more unconscious of their solipsism - and those on the more unconscious end might have tendencies to make confused statements like denying solipsism. In what way is this like giving solipsism the power instead of having power over it as you claim?

Everyone already has all the internal permission to transform their whole reality however they want - in a sense they do this all the time.

I was talking about doing it consciously instead of secretly/unconsciously.

That's more a continuum than a binary. Even things you do unconsciously are still not totally unconscious and conscious things are just a bit unconscious. Besides, people change their reality consciously often - e.g. internalizing a view because of reading a science article. It's just that they are committed to changing their beliefs in certain ways - according to certain commitments. They don't want to change their beliefs in other ways. So a physicalist atheist will e.g. alter expectations based on science reports but not based on what they might like to expect (magick). I think any internal permission they lack is rooted in a conflicting desire to remain scientifically minded.

We'd probably not need to talk about it. I don't know. Maybe we would just have the gleam of understanding, and not even in our eyes. Just in the mind. We would just know stuff. People talk because (usually) they think they have to deliver information somewhere where it isn't yet. Since we wouldn't labor under such a notion, our talking would be similar to silence and our silence similar to talking.

:) Now that's some fun stuff to think about.

Originally commented by u/AesirAnatman on 2017-01-07 15:06:20 (dc3ufvf)

[–] syncretik 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Imo, solipsism is a meta-paradigm. Basically I'm using the word in the same way you use subjective idealism. I'm just thinking maybe solipsism is a better choice of terminology? A person can be more conscious or more unconscious of their solipsism - and those on the more unconscious end might have tendencies to make confused statements like denying solipsism. In what way is this like giving solipsism the power instead of having power over it as you claim?

Subjective idealism is more of a meta claim about the mind being fundamental and its subjective nature also being fundamental.

Then solipsism is an optional way to live where your own perspective doesn't delegate any power outside itself. Since ordinary people constantly believe this and that has power over their own perspective, they're not solipsists. Someone who can hold all the power but doesn't feel like it's the only option is solipsism-capable instead of being a solipsist. A solipsist is someone for whom non-delegation of power is a must.

Besides, people change their reality consciously often - e.g. internalizing a view because of reading a science article.

I don't agree that this is conscious. Most people think science impresses facts upon them and they have no choice but to absorb the information from the scientific articles.

Originally commented by u/mindseal on 2017-01-07 19:13:17 (dc41v6k)

[–] syncretik 1 points 1 year ago

Would you provide a contrasting example or two of leaning toward delegating power outside a perspective and delegating that power inside a perspective?

Because it seems to me that in what you call subjective idealism all power is held to be delegated within one's perspective and one can be more specific or general and have various emphasis of probabilities with one's intentions and expectations, and that's about all there is to it.

Maybe what you're saying is that the reason/motive/habit -the conditions- for changing your beliefs/intentions/expectations is different? Idk. It's not clear to me.

Originally commented by u/AesirAnatman on 2017-01-09 05:58:05 (dc5yhs3)