This forum is primarily dedicated to higher quality posts and discussions. Those are welcome from everyone but will be filtered by the moderators. In order to foster more discussion, we have decided to start a weekly stickied discussion thread for the subreddit. This discussion thread is a place for people to post things that are more casual regarding subjective idealism, and things that are more exploratory. Here is a place for individuals to propose ideas and ask questions and figure out subjective idealism.
Edit: After some consideration I think the internal-external language here is confusing and misleading so I want to reject it here. I’ll still leave the comment in tact but I wanted to note this publicly. In SI it’s all internalist, it’s just a matter of things being deeper or more shallow in their burial within one’s othering subconscious, I think.
I might still end up making a separate post about this, but I’ve been thinking lately about difference between internalism and externalism, and how that distinction differs from the difference between unilateralism and multilateralism.
As I think about it, within S.I., you can maintain commitments that involve some aspect of reality being external to your mind (externalism) or you can hold that all aspects of reality are internal to your mind (internalism). Internalism might also correctly be called solipsism.
Separate from that gradient of commitments is the gradient between unilateralism and multilateralism. Unilateralism is when you define your conception of reality based on your own ideas and perceptions and desires alone, while multilateralism is when your conception of reality is defined in context of the ideas and perceptions and desires of others as well as your own. Unilateralism is more of a dictatorship while multilateralism is more of a democracy.
I think these two sets of ideas are subtly but importantly different.
So we might have a metaphysical commitment where we hold other perspectives to be external, and the environment to be internal. We might then either structure our environment on our own or by cooperation with the other external perspectives. Or we might hold other perspectives to be internal but we might still look to them to negotiate how we structure those other perspectives and the environment. There are many possible ways of putting these sorts of perspectives together.
Originally commented by u/AesirAnatman on 2017-07-07 00:34:09 (djusexd)
Have you tried experimenting to see if you can influence others in a unilateral sense? It would be interesting to see if there is resistance to certain suggestions/commands which could possibly point to whether they are “external” or “internal”, if that makes sense. I have had several experiences that either highlights others susceptibility to suggestion or that they are “internal” in a solipsistic sense. I tend to get hung up on the consequences, or “what will happen if”, though this is due to my not, as of yet, examining these aspects.
Originally commented by u/Dont_Even_Trip on 2017-07-07 08:10:20 (djvitdn)
A good safe example of this would be to heal someone’s body without them knowing or wanting to be healed.
However, whatever you find out, who would you share it with? :)
Originally commented by u/mindseal on 2017-07-07 17:36:17 (djw68s2)
Well, after some consideration, I think internalist/externalist isn’t a good distinction. SI is all internalist. Better to refer to it as the continuum of how deeply things are buried in one’s othering subconscious, I think.
But you could test to see your default state of mind currently by seeing how easy or difficult it is to consciously modify some given thing with magic/your will. Of course, you can dig something up out of your subconscious or bury it deeper if you’d like as well as test where they’re at right now.
Originally commented by u/AesirAnatman on 2017-07-08 04:14:55 (djwvljf)
I don’t believe this is the case at all. In SI you realize everything is volitional, so even if you relate to some experience as outside your particular perspective or outside the mind as a three-sided capacity, you still recognize that such relating is unreal. In other words, you’re not actually taking anything that’s produced by such volitional formation to be what it appears like. So if I see a tree outside my window and I relate to it as something outside my mind, from SI POV, I know it’s not really outside my mind. So my relating to it as something external is not genuine, but is only token, or nominal.
It would help to distinguish the mind from perspective. A mind is a singular three-sided capacity to know to will and to experience. So mind can be examined from the side of willing, from the side of knowing and from the side of experiencing, but it is really one singular capacity. Because willing is an indelible aspect of mind, all mental states are necessarily perspectival. And a perspective is a specific way for the mind to behave. Mind can find itself in any one of an infinity possible perspectives.
So something can be outside my perspective but not outside my mind. It’s necessary to recognize this difference.
In SI nothing is outside the mind in any way that matters (such that even if there were, those things would have no bearing on the way the mind operates, and that’s the whole point of SI – the mind is a sovereign of itself, a fundamental, necessary and sufficient feature of reality that can produce any experience). But there can be many ideas and experiences outside my perspective while still not being outside my mind.
I agree with this, but in this sentence “external” should refer “external to my perspective” and not “external to my mind.” If you think something is external to your mind in any way that has a bearing on your mental state and you think that seriously and genuinely, you’re no longer a subjective idealist.
Originally commented by u/mindseal on 2017-07-07 17:34:46 (djw67ec)
After our PM conversation I think internalist/externalist isn’t a good distinction. SI is all internalist. Better to refer to it as the continuum of how deeply things are buried in one’s othering subconscious, I think.
Originally commented by u/AesirAnatman on 2017-07-08 04:12:49 (djwvgx6)
I agree.
Originally commented by u/mindseal on 2017-07-08 06:57:15 (djx4tyj)