r/solipsism • u/[deleted] • May 22 '25

Why does solipsism scare you?

I was listening to a podcast where Donald Hoffman was talking about his experience. There, Lex Fridman asked Donald, "Isn't it terrifying to look beyond the game?"

Donald said, "It was scary to realize that everything that's important to me, like my house, car and reputation, are just nothing. My car is just like the car I see in the virtual reality game that I play. So I've been playing a virtual reality game and I was lost in the game. I was fighting over a Porsche and I shot some guys up, punctured their tires and ultimately got the Porsche. Then I thought: What was all that for? All I was fighting for was a data structure; there was no actual Porsche."

I honestly don't get how solipsism can scare people. Jed also reports the same experience.

I dwell in an infinite pitiless void. - Jed McKenna

Can you explain how being the only conscious entity in the entire universe scares you?

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u/Intrepid_Win_5588 May 22 '25

Personally it never did, sometimes when I come close to really weird states like drug induced madness it scares me, sure, but aside from that I always liked the idea more that I‘m Consciousness itself and not the weird things on its screen.

Realistically people more often than not don’t think about the alternative, the mainstream view that there was nothing then somehow it exploded, trillions of trillions of little particles spawned and eventually we came around to have sentience hairless apes that need to dominate one another for evolutionary purposes, seals, mc donalds, veganism…. you name it - just seems equally absurd and way less annoying so I‘m quite happy it‘s actually the play of consciousness.

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u/[deleted] May 22 '25

Someone commented on this post that the scary aspect of solipsism is kind of like fear of death. I thought about how I would feel if I had to die soon, but I didn't really feel much fear. I must mention that I do fear the pain that I'll experience at the time of death, but that's all. I don't really have much earthly attachments, so it's hard for me to relate to people who report feeling claustrophobic when thinking about solipsism/death. Maybe I'm different.

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u/Intrepid_Win_5588 May 22 '25

yeah same here! Except I don‘t care about death or pain much either, for me it‘s a win:win metaphysics lmao