We all perceive ourselves as the main character, and that leads some people to think bad accidents won’t happen to them

    • dbtng@eviltoast.org
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      6 hours ago

      Ya, I guess. That’s a reasonable description, but what I see there is people first playing with some basic ideas about how the world works.
      You have to manipulate and work with those ideas in order to really internalize what they mean. That can come out a little clumsy at first.

      Some familiarity with the literature doesn’t hurt either. So, take this comment about being the only one in the universe. Later on, this person may read about Boltzman Brains, and they will come to understand that this idea has been thoroughly chewed up already a hundred years ago, and of course Rene Descarte laid the groundwork well before that. Oh, and St Thomas Aquinas well before that. Ya, this whole ‘the universe might not really exist’ thing has been well discussed.

      I think this is all an exploration process where people try out ideas and see how they work. In the case of solipsism, its attractive at first because it can’t be proven wrong. And then after you play with it enough, you realize its a dead end. Concluding that nothing is real gains you nothing. There’s no advantage to the perspective, and its as futile as itself concludes the universe is.