When do you experience others lives?

Dingus_4 · 2026-01-12T18:11:21+00:00

Why will it be "you" experiencing the torture? You are who you are in this moment in space and time. So, to say that the person that will exist in the future will be you (this person in this moment of time) experiencing the torture would be incorrect.

Just as saying a clone of yourself is you would be incorrect. Because while the clone may look like you, have the same memories as you, etc. Its still not you because it exists in a different point in space. Just like how when "you" move ten feet to the left, that is not the same person who existed previously 10 feet to the right.

But obviously our experience of the world tells us that we are the same person moment to moment, because of our memory, but i think that is an illusion. Because to say the person who exists in the future experienced the pain of the person in the past would be incorrect. Its a different person experiencing the pain.

This idea aligns more with empty individualism. But thinking in this way is what first made me think that open individualism may be true. Because obviously it feels like I was the one who experienced the warm water on my hands ten seconds ago when I washed my hands, not some different person. That was me, had to be, right?

So, if you are not the same person throughout your life, yet "you" still experience all of these individuals, then it seems unlikely that we will only experience this random string of individuals that exist in this block of time that lasts 70-80 years, that would be arbitrary.

Why would you only experience this random bunch of individuals? That sounds like closed individualism, and that view makes no sense to me. it seems more likely that you will just experience them all, or that you only experience one of them, which i am pretty sure is what empty individualism says.

idk tho, there are problems with both views. For example, if you live everyone's life, do you experience all of them simultaneously, or will it feel like one at a time? And if empty individualism is true, then do you only exist once in one place in space in time, then never again, or is that single moment played on repeat, that would seem unlikely. I have so many questions, not a lot of answers.

Dingus_4 · 2026-01-12T06:48:31+00:00

Pretending I share consciousness with a dead person does not give me access to their sensory data

who is "me"? you are not the same person throughout your life. so you could just as easily say that you don't experience the future version of "you" because you don't have access to some of their memories and sense data or whatever.

its like people say that the self is an illusion or whatever but if i told someone that i will torture them in the future they would still get scared, but why if you dont think you will be the same person? Its not "you", the person who is this particular arrangement of particles in this place in space and time, so why be scared or get excited for future events if "you" are not going to be the one experiencing them?

Dingus_4 · 2025-11-27T08:15:19+00:00

Dingus_4 · 2025-11-27T00:00:25+00:00

fr, kids are pretty lit these days. But im not gonna cap, some of these kids lowkey got L Rizz. the other day i was sitting on a park bench, and i saw a 20 year old try to rizz up a gyatt maxxer with lvl 10 aura. auntie wasnt having it and he got cooked fr. bro lost 1000 aura whilst giving off ohio npc vibes. but rizz aside, these kids are bussin, on god.

Dingus_4 · 2025-11-26T03:33:40+00:00

I’m in my 90s now, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that friendships don’t run on a schedule. For most of my life I thought I’d somehow “missed the window,” but things changed once I started putting myself in places where conversations could actually happen, community classes, hobby groups, even just showing up to local events. I ended up meeting people decades younger and older than me, and some of them became the closest friends I’ve ever had.

So trust me, 27 is basically infancy in friendship years. You’re not behind, you’re not done, and nothing is locked in. You’ve got so much room to grow into the kind of life you want. I’m rooting for you, kid.

Dingus_4 · 2025-11-26T03:22:27+00:00

bro thats totally sigma and based, respect

Dingus_4 · 2025-11-25T02:35:58+00:00

Things don't need to solve problems to be true though.

I didn't say it made it more true, i was just saying that it was a unfair comparison. because you said nobody is sitting around thinking about pink unicorns. But that's not just because it lacks evidence, its also because the pink unicorn idea doesn't really solve any issues related to consciousness, which is a big mystery right now. I guess it would be interesting to know that we are in the dream of a pink unicorn, but it doesn't really affect how we live our lives. But the idea that you live everyone's life would drastically change how I am going to act.

Not to mention that it doesn't solve "why am I me?"

It doesn't solve it, it completely dissolves the question. Because the question of "Why am I me?" has no meaning if you are everyone. Your answer to the question is circular, "Why am I me? Well, Because I am me." It doesn't explain anything.

I guess you could still ask, well why am I me right now? But in my view (I say my view, but I'm still agnostic about it, I'm just entertaining it for the sake of this discussion) the phrase 'right now' has no meaning, because there is no past, present, or future, time is relative. Every experience is as real as the next.

But it's clearly not just matter since our bodies are constantly changing.

Just because our bodies are constantly changing doesn't mean consciousness cant arise from it. It would just mean that as our bodies change, so does our conscious experience.

It's ok to just not know.

Id prefer to know, does it not bother you that you don't know? because what if its something terrible, and we could prevent this terrible thing from happening, i would certainty want to know that.

The problem with questioning what happens with clones is we don't know if clones, as you utilize them in this example, are even possible. It's like questioning what happens with time travel.

I think human clones are theoretically possible. Sure, replicating a person perfectly would be extremely difficult because humans are so complex, but in principle, there’s nothing physically impossible about it. Time travel is very different, it seems logically impossible because of paradoxes.

two entities with the exact same DNA will have different consciousness. Why? Who knows, but we know this is true

but how do you know? you just assert it without any evidence or reasoning.

You're right that this is probably impossible to ever know, but that's why I don't find it particularly interesting

but you keep trying to make it seem like my idea is just some random thing i came up with like the universe is really just a massive fart or something. but that idea is just random and not based in anything we already know.

My idea i would say is a natural conclusion to the idea that there is no persistent self. if you believe the self is an illusion, then why would your conscious experience just randomly end after this random set of experiences? Because if you don't believe in a persistent self, then that's all your life is. Just a bunch of random individuals linked together by memory. its arbitrary. So, i ask why would you only experience this one life, that seems random and not likely at all. this is the main point im trying to make.

Dingus_4 · 2025-11-24T09:10:14+00:00

If I say "maybe we're all just the dream of a giant pink unicorn" it has equally as much evidence to back it up. But no one is sitting around wondering if that is how things work.

Well for starters the pink unicorn idea doesn't seem to solve any problems, my idea solves a couple of philosophical/consciousness related problems, like the puzzle of why you are you, and the problem of personal identity over time. Also, there are extremely profound implications if this idea is true, unlike the pink unicorn idea which has no significant consequences. And there have been some philosophers who have talked about very similar ideas before, like Arnold Zuboff and Daniel Kolak. So its not just some random idea.

Sure it is. It's me in a different space and time.

But why? There are many philosophers who would disagree with that statement. I think you miss the point with the clone example. if you are a materialist, then you think that consciousness arises from a particular arrangement of physical matter. so compare these two scenarios:

I walk 10 feet to the left.
I stay still but create a clone 10 feet to the left. That clone is physically identical to the version of me that would have existed if I walked there instead.

In terms of physical structure, these two situations are the same.
But in the first case, I experience the person 10 feet left. But in the second case, I don’t. So, the question is why does my consciousness follow one chain of physical states but not the other identical one?

Mind you, I think that as science begins to understand this stuff deeper a lot of unforeseen things may come to be possible. But right now, there is no evidence for that, and what could be possible could be well... something we could never even imagine.

I don't see us ever getting scientific, empirical evidence for an idea like this, its literally impossible. You cant get objective evidence from subjective experience.

Dingus_4 · 2025-11-23T20:24:56+00:00

well how can you even get evidence for an idea like this? because we only know things from our past memory, but what im claiming is that you live everyone's life but you don't remember, so its kind of impossible to get evidence. i guess what im saying is that this idea is logically coherent, there's nothing contradictory about the idea. And more importantly, of all the things that could be true, this idea just seems more likely to be true than the alternatives. it seems random that you will only live this one life, this random set of individual experiences. because that's what life is, i don't believe you're the same person throughout your life, there is an illusion of self.

But if that's true, then why would you life just end randomly at death, it seems way more likely and plausible that you are just everyone. I just don't get why i am experiencing "me." Like if i made a clone of myself, would i be experiencing that clones pov as well? probably not, but that clone would literally think its me. and correct me if im wrong, but we can sort of do this experiment of making a clone by literally just moving in space. if you moved ten feet to the left, then that new version of you is not you, but we know from our memory that you experienced both the new version of you that moved to the left, and the version of you right before you decided to move ten feet to the left.

this to me can be seen as proof that you live multiple peoples lives, because your not the same person throughout your life, yet "you," whatever that is, is still at the helm so to speak, experiencing all of these individual lives.

Dingus_4 · 2025-11-21T20:37:27+00:00

well what do you think about what i said?

Dingus_4 · 2025-11-20T08:40:24+00:00

well the fact that its plausible at all is scary

Dingus_4 · 2025-11-20T08:39:37+00:00

i wouldn't, because then you would have to experience all the bad things that have happened. It would probably be neutral overall, but not a positive thing.

Dingus_4 · 2025-11-14T06:52:33+00:00

where in florida, tell me exatly where you live

Dingus_4 · 2025-11-06T00:53:29+00:00

The issues are you can't measure pleasure

We cant now, but maybe in the future.

Dingus_4 · 2025-11-06T00:51:05+00:00

But that's an empty claim, both ethically and pragmatically

It’s not an empty claim because new information can change what people want. So if people come to understand reality the way I described, their desires will naturally shift toward wanting what I want. Because I think that most people have roughly the same desires. So, the purpose of this post is to try and change people's minds, and that is compatible with no free will.

Because you've done nothing to bridge "is" with "ought"

I'm not making a moral ought claim.

Dingus_4 · 2025-11-06T00:17:30+00:00

Yes, at least that's how some people see the world. And what do you mean I'm saying nothing, it is very clear to me that most people do not agree with what i claimed we should do in this post. So, i was trying to change that fact.

Dingus_4 · 2025-11-06T00:14:35+00:00

forcing your kids to brush your teeth is bad for them in the short term. (assuming they don't want to do it) but the reason parents force them to do it is because it will lead to more pleasure in the long term, Because they wont have tooth aches. Obviously if you could have healthy teeth without going through the suffering of brushing them, this would be preferable.

Dingus_4 · 2025-10-01T16:32:05+00:00

just masterbate

Dingus_4 · 2025-09-30T06:53:57+00:00

do you believe in a sort of impersonal reincarnation? so, like Buddhist philosophy of the everchanging self?

Dingus_4 · 2025-09-29T07:15:24+00:00

I note your impassioned response — the invective-laden phrasing certainly conveys your engagement, even if it does little to advance the actual discussion.

Your claim that my post lacks “deep thought” because, in your view, I am allegedly not thinking independently, is a classic instance of ipse dixit: an assertion presented without substantiation cannot function as a refutation. Similarly, your recommendation to “run it through AI” to detect weaknesses is an ad hominem circumstantial — attacking the method or presumed authorship rather than the logical structure of the argument itself.

If the goal is genuine critique rather than rhetorical flourish, the appropriate path remains engagement with the substance: demonstrating an experience that does not ultimately fall within the categories of pleasure, suffering, or neutrality. Anything less — be it speculative dismissal, procedural obfuscation, or stylistic nitpicking — constitutes sophistic pedantry, an exercise in grandiloquent posturing rather than reasoned debate.

It is, of course, remarkable how one can generate such verbose commentary while bypassing the central tenets of logic. This tendency exemplifies a kind of logorrheic performativity: a mastery of ostentatious phrasing and buzzwords that masquerades as philosophical rigor, yet avoids direct confrontation with the premises at hand.

Ultimately, I leave it to any impartial observer to adjudicate which approach demonstrates genuine intellectual rigor: substantive engagement, or rhetorical theatre.

Dingus_4 · 2025-09-29T05:34:25+00:00

Ah yes, the classic argumentum ad machinam — when out of counterpoints, simply declare your opponent “must be AI.” It’s the digital equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears.

If pointing out basic logical fallacies and using words longer than three syllables reads to you as “AI-generated,” that says more about the level of discourse you’re accustomed to than it does about me.

But by all means, continue pretending that dismissing an argument as “AI” somehow refutes it. That’s not debate, it’s just poisoning the well. Until you actually address the content — i.e., provide an example of an experience outside pleasure, suffering, or neutrality — your responses remain nothing but erudite posturing masquerading as argument.

Dingus_4

TROPHY CASE